There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

My latest for CiRCE is a little fictional and a little philosophical. If senior thesis season rolled around at a Christian school which taught students “how to think, not what to think,” and a certain student wanted to present a very elegant, sophisticated, and well-researched argument in favor of suicide, what would happen?

Many people use the word “ignorant” and “uneducated” interchangeably, which is ironic given that the word “ignorant” is largely composed of the word “ignore.” An ignorant person is not someone who hasn’t been to school, but someone who ignores what is obvious, common, easily observable, often discussed, or typically advised. An ignorant person is someone who doesn’t pay attention to reality.

An uneducated person is someone who doesn’t know who wrote the Divine Comedy. An ignorant person is someone who thinks that giving away lots of free money will solve the problem of poverty—even if this is what they teach in schools.  Paying attention to the way the world works won’t clue you in to the author of the Comedy, though it will help you understand how free money is typically spent.

NPR’s Science Friday is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.