Can you tell someone's personality through the films they enjoy?

Rather broad based vs. specific use of the word ignorant.

Fun semantics time?

Fun semantics time.

I consider the word “ignorant” to imply that the information was brought to the attention and possibly even retained, but the person chose to ignore it, thus ignorant. That would make it a negative thing, because the person could act on or appreciate the information but instead through choice maintains an uneducated and uninformed stance. Lack of knowledge on a subject, or interest in that subject, however, is connotatively neutral. Lack of education is bad, but not the fault of the person.

Thus:

Ignorance: the person is stupid by choice.
Lack of knowledge/interest: the person isn’t really stupid, they just haven’t had a chance to be informed.
Uneducated: the person is stupid but not by choice.

That’s the general way I approach those terms.

—PolarisDiB

“Lack of knowledge” is one definition of ignorant.

@Patapon

Gulp.

I believe that ignorance is best used as a term implying a sort of willful disregard. So it works as Polaris used it, as in a driver may ignore a stop sign meaning they saw it but chose to drive through it anyway, but also could be used as Mike suggested in as would be understood in the saying “ignorance of the law is no excuse” which suggests information was readily available but the individual chose not to seek it out. One could therefore state that someone is ignorant regarding movies if they choose to only pay attention to some small part of the greater whole rather than trying to inform themselves on the larger picture. That isn’t necessarily a slight given that there is a choice involved, one need not value such a thing after all, but could be seen as damning if someone claimed to be knowledgeable about a subject without having a broad base of knowledge.

-I consider the word “ignorant” to imply that the information was brought to the attention and possibly even retained, but the person chose to ignore it, thus ignorant.-

Precisely speaking, you’re describing what’s known as being willfully ignorant.

Discuss the following:

You are what you eat.

You are what you read.

You are what you watch.

You are what you discuss.

You are how you discuss something.

You are what you do.

You are what you wish you could do.

I feel the same way you do, Hopeless.

and I feel hopelessly addicted as well.

:-)

I have always considered the term ignorant as simply being unaware but in some cases, when the accused chooses not to acknowledge this fact, willful ignorance is simply implied.

What does this discussion have to do with the OP?

“I am the sum of who I have always been, and everything that has ever happened to me.”

James Joyce

“If I contradict myself, I contradict myself. I am too full of meaning for just one truth.”

Jorge Luis Borges

Quoted from memory and possibly a bit misworded.

—PolarisDiB

We’re all people. Everyone feels.

Everyone’s addicted to something.

“What does this discussion have to do with the OP?”

Sorry:)

-“If I contradict myself, I contradict myself. I am too full of meaning for just one truth.”
Jorge Luis Borges-

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large—I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

I don’t know what everyone is talking about…

But I will use this as an excuse to quote Emerson, who was a master of contradictions. (I found these on the internet and really don’t want to read Self Reliance all over again to make sure they are all accurate.)

“The other terror that scares us from our self-trust is our consistency: a reverence for our past actions or words. Other people have no other data for computing our orbit than our past actions, and we hate to disappoint them.”

“But why look back over your shoulder? Why drag around this corpse of your memory, afraid to contradict something you once said in this or that public place?”

“It seems to be common wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, even in acts of pure memory, but to replay the past for renewed judgment by the eyes of the present, always living in a new day.”

“A great soul simply has no attachment to consistency. You may as well worry about your shadow on the wall. Speak your mind now in no uncertain terms, and tomorrow speak tomorrow’s thoughts just as forcefully, even if it contradicts everything you said today.”

And to answer the question: No. People are too complicated and any attempt to reduce their personality to the films they enjoy will probably result in error. We could probably generalize—the people whose favorite movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua will probably, on average, have a different personality than those whose favorite movie is Ordet—but who wants to generalize individuals by something so inane?

Hey! Beverly Hills Chihuahua is a post-modern surrealist masterpiece!