“Do you know there may be a war between Russia and Ukraine?” asked the husband
“No, I don’t know”, replied the wife
“How can you not know? You should know what is going on in the world” he pontificated
“Why should we know what is going on in the world.”, she demanded.
“It is general knowledge. You are dumb if you don’t have general knowledge” he took a condescending tone.
“Is it? Okay. You said about war. Here is the map of Europe. Quickly point to me where is Ukraine on the map”, she laid out the map.
“No, I don’t know that. It is somewhere bordering Russia”, he vacillated.
“So you don’t know where is Ukraine. Isn’t that general knowledge?” she hit back.
“Uh umm…”, he could not go further
“Okay tell me the name of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine”, she asked
“I know Putin is the Russian President. Ukraine, I don't know”, he conceded.
“So you don’t know the names of the presidents of the two countries going to war. I am assuming that is not part of the general knowledge, we need to know.” she chided him.
“I did not mean it like that.” he adopted a conciliatory tone
“Okay tell me the reasons for the war” she folded her hands across her chest.
“I did not read the news in detail. I read only the headline”, he admitted sheepishly
How many times does it happen in the family and among friends that people get put down for not ‘knowing; things? Family members and friends are called dumb, ignorant for not knowing pieces of trivia. Information that does not make a difference in our lives whether we know that or not. The super-popular quiz shows on TV have made trivia pundits some sort of intelligent people. Intelligence does not have anything to do with pieces of information you know and the other person does not. If the piece of information is not relevant to my life, I don’t need to know and it does not make a difference in my life. If someone answers a trivia question correctly they were just lucky that amongst trillion pieces of trivia they were asked a question to which they knew the answer. Just lucky nothing else.
Don’t ever allow someone to put you down because you don't keep abreast of ‘news’ and the ‘latest happening’ in the world. Knowing trivia is not a sign of any intelligence.