We live in a society that is increasingly getting smaller...
Unfortunately our society is not getting increasingly more equal. We are going into unprecedented extremes of polarity between the "haves" and the "have-nots" and it is quite worrisome. Gaps between wealthy individuals and those who are poor are increasing, yet the greatest gap seems to be forming in the realm of knowledge.
A long time back, it was possible for an individual to be a "master" of all or almost all fields of human endeavor. Nowadays, our fields of endeavor are so vast and complex, it takes a lifetime to master (sometimes not even reaching that far) a single field. Conversely, individuals are being misled and misguided in what they feel is truthful. Unfortunately, today the world is full of information and ignorance. I am someone who always wanted to be known as being well-informed. I would love to read news articles and discuss the events of the day with others.
I remember a discussion I once had with a friend of mine about the Iraq War (during the Iraq war - in early 2002). I told her that it seemed a bit premature for the US to have just jumped ahead with a war. It seemed almost a knee-jerk reaction and very few specifics were provided, besides the fact that Iraq apparently had "weapons of mass destruction." She replied that the war was justified and shot off a ton of factoids about the many different areas where the US was being attacked, the areas where the US army was helping civilians, etc... At the time the information I had was insufficient to adequately argue what I felt about the war effort, so I simply shrugged and stuck to the basic facts I had, it didn't make sense.
Looking back at this example I have learned a few things. It is remarkably easy to be well-informed in our society. There are facts and figures and information everywhere. It is extremely difficult to be knowledgeable though. My friend was well-informed. I was not well-informed nor was I knowledgeable. Being knowledgeable is an exceedingly difficult thing, it requires an individual to be well-informed and then interact with this information to produce knowledge through our critical faculties.
We all need to become more knowledgeable, we need to see when things we read are bluster and when they contain true substance. Even the best sources of information get it wrong, or have an angle on the information they feed the public. This is normal because news and information cannot be objective when it is reported by a person. We bring our own biases and subjectivity to anything we relay. Critical thinking is what leads to knowledgeability.
I don't want to just be well-informed anymore. None of us should be pleased with that title. We need to all strive to be knowledgeable... Maybe then we can figure out how to close that knowledge gap.