<p>Prompt: is knowing facts as important as understanding ideas and concepts?</p>
<p>These days, all I hear about are politics. Everyone seems to be talking about what McCain or Obama is going to do. However, I have also noticed the two types of people that were usually engaged in this discussion: the intelligent, and the ignorant. From these two examples, i learned that merely knowing facts was not as important as understanding ideas and concepts because it causes one to be superficial, dogmatic, and untenable.</p>
<p>Just knowing a couple of facts causes people to appear quite shallow. My friend and I regularly go through disputes about whether or not President Bush has done a good job for this country. Whenever this discussion is sparked up, he simply lists irrelevant facts, and concludes "that is why Bush is not a bad President." I often stare back at him as though he had just slapped me across my cheeks because i get completely lost on what point he's trying to make. He doesn't understand any of the concepts of the duties of being the Commander in Chief. The only thing that he understands are mere facts that are based off of Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Knowing facts also lead people to become stubborn. When they know facts without understanding concepts, they tend to stick to their views or opinions. One example in our history is Neville Chamberlain. It was post World War I era when Great Britain was slowing losing its elevated status. Everyone was hoping that the treaty would maintain peace. Then, Hitler came into the picture, and began to toy around with the Treaty of Versailles. However, Chamberlain continued to stick to his appeasement policy because he remembered "facts" about the World War I. Due to this dogmatic decision, World War II broke out. Did this prove anything? Yes; we learned that history repeats itself, and that knowing facts don't help if you don't understand concepts and ideas.</p>
<p>When they rely their arguments on a list of facts, people become untenable. For example, a debater would be unable to refute their opponents attacks because they wouldn't have the full picture of the puzzle. After they run out of facts in the argument, they would be done for. If they had understood the concepts, they could have used their creativity to expand their arguments, but that as not the case.</p>
<p>Knowing facts is not the same thing as knowing concepts. If it was, then my friend would become the next president, Chamberlain would be remembered as the best Prime Minister in Great Britain's history, and the debater would win in the Nationals.</p>