Is ignorance a bliss?

If ignorance is indeed bliss, as Thomas Gray said in Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), a will to ignorance is as strong as any interest in knowledge. Our own experience confirms Aristotle pronouncement that all human beings want to know. However, we seem to be passing through a historical period when the denial of knowledge is acceptable even desired. Centuries after the quest for enlightenment, we now seem to have turned toward the search for ignorance. It’s no wonder then that mesmerized crowds follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds our common sense. In Ignorance and Bliss, historian Mark Lilla offers an intellectual travelogue of the human will not to know.   

A professor of humanities at Columbia University, Lilla’s arguments in favor of ignorance are compelling and insightful. Indeed, he offers an amazing insight into our incorrigible attachment to ignorance. It seems after spending epochs in the search of knowledge, humans are now taking a holiday from reality. No wonder, the resistance to knowledge is now being backed by supportive ideologies. In the face of such developments, those devoted to reasoning have now started to feel like refugees.

Knowledge is power, it is true, but who has as yet acknowledged the power of ignorance that is increasing by the day? Is ignorance without power? Some people are naturally curious about learning why; others, however, are indifferent to it. There are reasons to avoid knowing about particular things, and many of those reasons not to know are perfectly justified. And then there are those who have developed a disinterest in gaining such knowledge simply because they believe that what they already know is the truth.

Lilla provokes his readers to dwell on the subject. The most obvious resistance to knowing is rooted in fear. People often resist any questioning of their morality and religiosity because they fear being exposed. By questioning firm and widely held beliefs, people run the risk of upsetting the ideas that they have built their lives around. This is especially frightening when there is guarantee of any satisfactory replacement. However, if ever questions have to be raised without any chance of them being resisted, it can only happen in a state of total ignorance. So, yes, there are reasons to value ignorance.    

Ignorance and Bliss is all about how ignorance ought to be viewed and how it should be valued. It views ignorance independent of bliss, and for good reasons. In this era when politics is beset by lies and fake news, it is worth asking if the root cause of the problem lies with the public. It would seem that the general public has accepted lies and fake news and its effects too. There is no escape from such a trap. This book then is about the will not to know as well as the desire to remain ignorant.

Gaining knowledge is an emotional experience and resisting it is an emotional one too. How to live with such contrasting emotions is this book’s focus, and our present predicament. The intimate struggles with aspects of self-knowledge feature prominently here. Of course, even self-knowledge depends on resisting other kinds of knowledge about the world. The chapter about fantasy explores that power within us that resist acknowledging reality. There lies a human dilemma that continues to grow and expand.  

Lilla explores several human sentiments like innocence, nostalgia, emptiness, and taboo to gain clarity on the knowledge-ignorance dilemma. That clarity is hard to get because the search for an answer often remains subjective. Knowledge and ignorance co-exist; one doesn’t exist without the other. There seems to be a reason for this: the less we know the more we realize the limits of knowledge. On the contrary, the more we know, the more we are challenged to learn still more. And so, it never ends. And the dilemma persists.

Fascinating and challenging, Ignorance and Bliss make the compelling argument that a will to ignorance is as strong within us as any desire for knowledge. Alas, such are the times that wanting not to know is much stronger than wanting to know. And that way madness lies.  

Ignorance and Bliss
by Mark Lilla
Hurst, New York
Extent:216. Price: Rs 1,765

Published in Hindustan Times on Dec 12, 2025.

The will to ignorance is as strong as the desire to know

If ignorance is indeed bliss, as a poet once wrote, it also can be said that human beings “are creatures who want to know and not to know.” The world, writes Mark Lilla in his timely book, Ignorance and Bliss, is going through a phase in which the denial of “evident truth” is rising. It’s a world where “mesmerized crowds still follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise.”

Holiday from reality

A professor of humanities at Columbia University, Lilla’s arguments that people seem to favor ignorance are compelling. In these murky days when everything seems to be at sea, Lilla offers an amazing insight on the human being’s incorrigible “will to ignorance,” a term coined by Nietzsche. It seems after spending a lifetime searching for knowledge, humans have taken “a holiday from reality.” No wonder, resistance to knowledge is now being backed by an ideology that is supportive. In the face of such developments, those devoted to reason and logic have started to feel like refugees.

Quoting from George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, Lilla asks: “It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance?” While some people are naturally curious about learning why, there are many others who are indifferent. There are reasons to avoid knowing about particular things, and many of those reasons not to know are perfectly justified. And then there are those who have developed a disinterest for gaining knowledge simply because they believe what they already know is the truth.

Lilla provokes readers to think about this. In the Introduction, he writes that Aristotle taught that all human beings want to know. “Our own experiences teach us that all human beings also want not to know, sometimes fiercely so.” The most obvious resistance to knowing is rooted in fear. People resist any aspect that is related to their morality and religiosity being questioned, because they are afraid of getting exposed. By questioning such firm beliefs, people run the risk of upsetting ideas they’ve built their lives around, with no guarantee of any satisfactory replacement. However, if ever questions have to be raised without any chance of them being resisted, it has to take place in a state of total ignorance.

Imagined pasts

Ignorance and Bliss is all about how ignorance ought to be viewed and how indeed it should get valued. It views ignorance independent of bliss, and for good reason. At this time when politics is filled with lies and fake news, the question worth asking is whether the root cause of the problem lies with the public.

Gaining knowledge is an emotional experience and resisting knowledge is an emotional experience too. How to live with such contrasting emotions in a given time is the focus of the book, and our present predicament. The intimate struggles with aspects of self-knowledge feature prominently in it. Even self-knowledge depends on resisting other kinds of knowledge about the world. The chapters in the book concern fantasies, exploring that power in us which inspires resistance to acknowledging reality.

Lilla explores several human sentiments like innocence, nostalgia, emptiness, and taboo, to get some clarity on the knowledge/ignorance dilemma. Clarity is hard, because the search for an answer often remains subjective. Knowledge and ignorance co-exist. Those who feel ignorance is bliss may actually have a “distaste for the present” and go rushing to “restore an imagined past,” says Lilla. On the contrary, the more we know leaves us with the challenge to know more. A quest that never ends.

Fascinating and challenging, the book makes a compelling argument that a will to ignorance is as strong in us as any desire to have knowledge, and that we are caught between the will to know and the will not to know. Such are the times that wanting not to know appears to be much stronger than wanting to know.

Ignorance and Bliss 
by Mark Lilla
Hurst, New York 
Extent: 219, Price: Rs. 1,765.

First published in The Hindu on May 15, 2025

Don't Wanna Know

Our taste for ignorance is a strategic tool for autocracies, a drug spurring mindless consumerism and turning crucial profit.

The cover picture of this pithy book says it all, ignorance could be a blissful reality as it does not involve not knowing but constitutes an abject surrender to denial in the event of reality becoming too hard or painful to grasp. Nothing matches this better than the abject denial by leaders at the first ever online G20 Summit in late March, proclaiming that the world ‘will overcome the pandemic’. Such collective denial by world leaders has cost the society valuable lives and livelihoods while the corona virus has continued to rampage the world, confirming thereby that democracy has become a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.  For Renata Salecl, a professor of philosophy at the University of London, intriguing is the overwhelming relevance of ignorance in post-truth era when we are effectively swimming in constant surge of information and misinformation. 

Ignorance is not a new invention though, but an age-old human trait that plays out in many different aspects of daily life. Instances from daily existence do reflect that feigning ignorance in matters of love, illness and trauma has been found critical in keeping the desire of being active and alive. But why being ignorant at times works better than being knowledgeable is the question that Salecl explores through the realm of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and popular culture. While there is little denying that people in the grip of anxiety use ignorance as an efficient defense, it is baffling that the so-called knowledge economy has turned upside down as an ignorance economy. As a result, ignorance holds both social and political currency that knowledge does not. 

One would tend to agree with Salecl that in this technology-driven world, to embrace ignorance is more a matter of choice. ‘To know or not to know’ is context specific and of vital importance for any individual. The French philosopher Michael Foucault may have equated power with knowledge in his seminal work during the mid-twentieth century, understanding how power relates to ignorance today holds much relevance. More so, as the rise of cognitive inertia in the post-truth era has helped leaders persist with bundle of lies while more and more people increasingly show indifferent to making a distinction between what is a truth and what is a lie?

A Passion of Ignorance could not have come at a better time as ignorance is fast gaining increased legitimacy in the public space, and there is little by way of explanation for this growing trend. The book cautions that collective ignorance is emerging as a passion, letting it be manipulated as a strategic tool for autocratic politics. Lack of knowledge is no longer a matter of concern as a search engine such as Google is only a click away. Alarming though is the fact that with an easy access to information, everyone has become an amateur expert while casting serious aspersions towards any form of professional expertise.   

Are we then staring at a future when the society will greatly depend on its ability to inhibit intellectual capabilities? Current skepticism for knowledge may indicate so but Salecl considers it as a transiting phase that has light at the end of the tunnel. With a rising number of people actively choosing not to know and with little by way of distinction that can be made to ascertain what is known is true or false, suggests Salcel, the world may indeed be heading towards reclaiming the role of knowledge. Since our anxieties for lack of knowledge have yet to reach a critical threshold, it is anybody’s guess when the end of the tunnel will indeed get sighted. 

A Passion for Ignorance remains inconclusive but unfolds aspects that explain why acquiring knowledge has taken a backseat in the quest for economic growth, and how the process may be reversed? However, it offers a multi-layered narrative on how ignorance manifests itself in various facets of science, technology and psychology, and why technology-driven capitalism will continue to nurture ignorance to remain in the business of profit. Little gets realized that be it packaged products or acquired information, consumers have little clue how the algorithms are at work to promote ignorance in order to make profits. Unless people begin to question their trust in pre-packaged knowledge by pressing the anxiety button about the unknown, our capacity to remain willfully ignorant will only expand and flourish. 

Written with academic clarity and professional empathy, Prof. Renata Salecl takes the reader into an insightful journey on why we are what we have become, not realizing that we are increasingly being left out in our highly unequal society. The corona virus onslaught has only exposed our systemic vulnerability at the hands of the powers-that-be to remain ignorant, and thus exploited. A Passage for Ignorance is a call for breaking free from the interplay of circumstance and choice that only aims to keep all of us trapped in the sphere of ignorance. 

A Passion for Ignorance
by Renata Salecl
Princeton University Press, USA
Extent: 195, Price: $24.95

First published in weekly Outlook, issue dated Nov 7, 2020.