Do We Have a Moral Obligation To Be Curious?

Last evening David and Caroline picked up a copy of Late Bloomers – The Hidden Strengths of Learning and Succeeding at Your Own Pace for me at Barnes and Noble. This is a subject I’ve been thinking about quite a bit in recent months including when we made the decision to take an extra year to finish Caroline’s high school education. As relaxed homeschoolers, we’ve always done things our own way and on our own timetable so the book concept seems like a good fit.

I remember seeing Late Bloomers discussed online in the past, but decided I needed to read it myself when I saw it mentioned again. It certainly is relevant to my homeschooling life right now. But it also seems as though God might be nudging me to speak up more frequently for the needs of creative children, twice-exceptional children, and late bloomers.

When I flipped the book open to read a few little bits here and there before turning to the beginning, this was one of the first sections my eyes landed upon.

People should consider it a moral obligation to be curious about things. Not being curious is not only intellectually lazy, but it shows a willful contempt for the facts. If you don’t want to know the truth about something, then how moral can you claim to be?

Curiosity, however, is also an act of rebellion, and as such it requires moral courage.

Sounds fitting for the times in which we live, doesn’t it?

I said in May 2023:

 If you aren’t willing to risk being called a racist or anti-semite or conspiracy theorist at this point in history, you will never be able to sort through the information and propaganda and find the truth. I don’t think I have it all figured out. But I’ve certainly learned a lot these past few years as I try to find the truth.

So I’m certain this isn’t the main point of the book which I’ll return to in other posts. But given that I felt the need to buy the book and that’s one of the first things I “happened upon” when I opened the book… It seems rather providential to me regarding many of the controversial topics I’ve tackled in recent years.

There’s a reason Truth is the first word in my current website logo.

So do we as Christians have a moral obligation to be curious? If we are driven by a commitment to knowing the truth in every aspect of life, it would seem to me we do.