A PASSION FOR IGNORANCE

Willful ignorance can be insidious or self-protective.

Drawing on popular writings, scholarly studies, and her own experiences, philosopher and sociologist Salecl, a law professor at the University of London, offers a thoughtful, nuanced examination of the social and psychological motivations for—and consequences of—ignorance or denial. How, she asks, do individuals “try to avoid dealing with traumatic knowledge” by remaining ignorant, and how do societies “find ever new ways to deny information that might undermine the power structures or ideological mechanisms that maintain the existing order?” The pressure to know, the author asserts, has increased with easy access to information online; people feel responsible for being “experts at everything,” including making choices for a healthy lifestyle and deciding on medical treatments. Yet all-encompassing expertise is impossible. “Perceiving and comprehending the world around us,” writes Salecl, “necessarily involves deciding what is important to our needs and goals and what is not.” In times of crisis, ignorance may contribute to well-being or even survival. The author considers how people respond to traumas such as war, fleeing violence, or receiving a dire medical diagnosis as well as what new anxieties, shame, sorrow, and guilt people feel resulting from knowledge of their genetic makeup. Ignorance or denial are involved in love, as well, “when a person wants a relationship to succeed and does everything possible to keep alive the fantasy that sustains it.” Salecl notes the puzzling phenomenon of ignoring information from monitoring that is designed for self-improvement. People who do so are not “consciously embracing self-destructive behavior,” she observes, but rather, just downloading an app makes them feel better. At a time when fake news, propaganda, political rhetoric, and dueling experts dominate the media, the author’s analysis offers a fresh way to think about the decisions each of us make to “embrace ignorance and denial.”

A timely consideration of ways we construct our reality.