What does "Deny Ignorance" mean?

[UltraBudgie]

Ok. Have you read Plato's Socratic Dialogues? I tried once reading it and, by gods... I think I know why the Greeks had enough and killed the man. Because what's the point of deconstructing someone's beliefs if the end result is confusion only? What's the point  proving someone wrong if we don't know what is right ourselves? And what's the point of exposing the lie if we can't show someone the truth?

Yeah, and he was ugly to boot. Have you seen the nose on that guy? Deconstruct that first, buddy.

Socrates basically invented rhetoric as a weapon. Ironically, in the "search for truth". Use fancy words and pivots, reflect interpretation, tie up the argument in a fractal of question and confusion. We see that so much in "debate" today. It's no wonder he was accused of corrupting the youth and given beverage options.

There's something to it, though. A paradox. How do you create free thinkers, as a deliberate endeavour? You can't just tell them what to think, present a worldview to them as truth, and expect them to "get it". Or even slyly lead them their with social pressure. That's not freethinking, that's tyranny. The child only becomes as strong and as independent as their ideological dependencies allow.

Ignorance must be swept away from within, as a personal quest and choice. So perhaps Socrates was encouraging that, as an exploration of the ultimate uselessness of rhetoric. Exploring the ground of subjectivity and illusion, as contrast to the path of truth each individual must find for themselves, on their own.

On another forum (not that one!), someone today said "ignorance is merely distance from God". Maybe so. I'll make no projections here, secular or not. Perhaps science is your north star, or reason. That's okay, and excuse my rhetoric. It takes all kinds.