ignorance is power essay

The Meaning of ‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.’ These three short sentences are a central part of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): a book which is probably the best-known dystopian novel ever written.

It’s also one of the books most people lie about having read, perhaps because they feel they already know the overarching plot points and key ideas within the novel, so well-known are they even to non-readers.

But what precisely does ‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength’ mean in the context of Nineteen Eighty-Four ?

George Orwell (1903-50), born Eric Arthur Blair, was one of the most remarkable writers of the first half of the twentieth century. His essays are among the best in the English language, not least because of their clear-headedness, married with a clarity of expression. Indeed, Orwell even wrote an essay about the need for political language to be clear and direct; we need his advice now more than ever.

As well as writing numerous essays and short journalistic pieces, he also wrote a number of novels. Two of these, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four , remain popular and widely studied in schools and universities.

Orwell’s last novel before his untimely death from tuberculosis was Nineteen Eighty-Four , completed in 1948 and published a year later. The novel is a classic example of dystopian fiction, and depicts a near future in which Britain has become a one-party state, in which thinking the wrong thoughts can be a crime (see ‘thoughtcrime’) and land you in trouble with the ‘thought police’. The dictator who rules over this totalitarian state is known as Big Brother.

The protagonist is Winston Smith, who works for the Ministry of Truth (a body partly inspired by Orwell’s time spent working at the BBC ) where old historical records are altered, to remove any embarrassing facts that don’t fit with the party line.

Early on, we are introduced to the ‘War is Peace’ slogan, along with the accompanying slogans ‘Freedom is Slavery’ and ‘Ignorance is Strength’:

The Ministry of Truth – Minitrue, in Newspeak – was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

  WAR IS PEACE

  FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

  IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

And again, later, Winston recalls these slogans from the Ministry of Truth, before finding them inscribed in other places, too:

Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:

He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother.

This quotation, presenting three sets of axiomatic statements which are fundamentally contradictory, exemplifies the ways in which the totalitarian society in Orwell’s novel alters the meanings of words in order to manipulate people’s understanding of the world around them.

How can war be its opposite, peace? How can freedom be enslaving, when the two things stand in stark opposition to each other? And how can ignorance be lauded as a strength? It is from such topsy-turvy statements that the dystopian world of Orwell’s novel was created.

But ‘War is Peace’ is explained in more detail in the ‘book within a book’ that features in Nineteen Eighty-Four . This (fictional) book is titled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism and its author is Emmanuel Goldstein, a rival of Big Brother who supposedly runs the Brotherhood, a resistance movement. Chapter III of Goldstein’s book, which Winston reads, is titled ‘War is Peace’, and explains the origins of the Party’s slogan:

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. […] But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

War, then, against some imagined enemy helps to mobilise society and keep its hierarchical structures in place. People become unified in a wartime situation and when on a wartime footing. Goldstein goes on:

The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries.

Goldstein then continues, explaining how the terms  war  and  peace  become interchangeable in the new political landscape:

For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This – although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense – is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.

Through being united by a common hatred of ‘the enemy’, then, the people of Oceania in Orwell’s novel remain focused on their shared purpose, which is to win the war. But war in the old sense has become meaningless, has ceased to exist: it is merely a device by which the fabric of society is kept going, the way ‘peace’ is maintained.

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“War is Peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength”

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(Im)Possibilities

A blog for SUNY Geneseo students and faculty interested in American Studies

The Power of Knowledge and The Powerlessness of Ignorance

It is an old adage that knowledge is power. Understanding the how and why of life allows one to maneuver and manipulate their surroundings more easily. However, from this adage, we can garner a parallel truth: if knowledge is power, lack of knowledge must be powerlessness. If one lacks the ability to make informed decisions and perceptions, they will often act in a way that is detrimental to themselves and others. Worse, those who possess knowledge can manipulate those who don’t. Toni Morrison understood how knowledge can be a weapon yielded against those without it. Her 2008 novel  A Mercy  features numerous instances of its protagonist Florens being confused and ignorant of the truth. The novel highlights both the ways that ignorance harms Florens and the ways that other characters weaponize that ignorance against her. Though the novel was written before 2008, the ideas contained within  A Mercy  apply to the financial crisis, for bankers and investors had taken advantage of Americans who didn’t understand the potential consequences of their actions.

What does it mean to be ignorant in Florens’s world? She knows her letters, after all; she can read and write. But despite this one advantage she has, Morrison presents her as outpaced by the events around her. This idea is introduced early, as Florens begins to tell her story: “Often there are too many signs, or a bright omen clouds up too fast. I sort them and try to recall, yet I know I am missing much…. Let me start with what I know for certain.” Throughout the novel, Florens consistently demonstrates a lack of knowledge. She wanders through the woods, unsure of her direction, noting her confusion. For example, when religious villagers accuse her of being the Black Man’s minion, she responds initially, “I am not understanding anything except that I am in danger.” At the climax of Florens’s story, her ignorance has highly detrimental effects on the child she is tasked to watch. Unsure how to stop the boy from crying, she grabs him too hard. “I am trying to stop him not hurt him,” she insists. “That is why I pull his arm. To make him stop. Stop it. And yes I do hear the shoulder crack but the sound is small, no more than the crack a wing of roast grouse makes when you tear it, warm and tender, from its breast. He screams screams then faints. A little blood comes from his mouth hitting the table corner. Only a little.” Here, Florens’s inexperience has damaging effects on Malaik; she does not know how to calm him, and she minimizes the extent of his injuries. Finally, Florens’s story ends with the last and most pervasive mystery of her life: why did her mother give her up? She concludes her narrative with this haunting uncertainty. “I will keep one sadness. That all this time I cannot know what my mother is telling me. Nor can she know what I am wanting to tell her. Mãe, you can have pleasure now because the soles of my feet are hard as cypress.” Because she never knew that her mother’s choice to give her up was out of love, she was always eager to please. But now, because she has experienced a betrayal identical to that initial one, she is jaded and angry. Had she known that her mother was trying to save her and not hurt her, she might have matured differently.

While Florens’s ignorance affects her development and her understanding of the world, that ignorance in isolation is not as harmful as the way it is weaponized against her. Her naivete, spurred by that sense of abandonment from her mother, allows other characters to take advantage of her. Rebekka, for example, finds amusement in “Florens’ eagerness for approval. ‘Well done.’ ‘It’s fine.’ However slight, any kindness shown her she munched like a rabbit.” Because Rebekka is her mistress and praise and kindness like this is the only compensation Florens gets for good work, Rebekka is using Florens’s abandonment to increase her productivity as a slave. Scully, too, sees the potential for taking advantage of the girl’s ignorance and naivete: “if he had been interested in rape, Florens would have been his prey. It was easy to spot that combination of defenselessness, eagerness to please and, most of all, a willingness to blame herself for the meanness of others.” It is this same innocence that allows the blacksmith to enter a sexual relationship with her. Though neither party views the encounters as rape, the blacksmith certainly knows that Florens is childlike and trusting, for he uses that ignorance against her after she hurts Malaik. He accuses her of having become a slave to her own obliviousness; “Your head is empty and your body is wild,” he says. Thus, her ignorance acts as a weapon for the people who wish to control and hurt her.

Being taken advantage of for one’s inexperience and ignorance is not a scenario that is isolated to Florens, nor is it only contained within the pages of  A Mercy . Through other works, such as Angela Flounoy’s  The Turner House  and Michael Lewis’s  The Big Short,  it becomes apparent the way that ignorance harmed the homeowner in the events leading up to the 2008 housing market crash. In  The Turner House , Viola Turner refinanced her mortgage, an option that seemed favorable at the time. However, that choice led to a lot of debt the family can’t pay off, and even if they can, it isn’t worth it for a house nobody lives in. Thus, a lack of knowledge is harmful to the ignorant. In  The Big Short,  meanwhile, average American homebuyers are manipulated by corrupt bankers who want to loan them a subprime mortgage, so that it can be repackaged and sold as a Triple-A-rated bond. Technically, the homebuyers took out loans they couldn’t pay back, and therefore one might argue that they deserved the evictions or bankruptcies that followed. However, they didn’t understand what they were doing and were guided by others to do what was against their best interest. 

Finance is incredibly complicated, and although most if not all Americans will have to engage with it at some point in their lives, few understand it. Therefore, they must trust bankers and accountants and other finance experts to advise them on how best to manage their money. Although these people can provide a great service in helping people, they can also weaponize their clients’ ignorance against them. Similarly, in  A Mercy , Florens is innocent and ignorant, and the people in her life take advantage of that. It’d be ideal for Florens if she could have learned the things she is ignorant of and be less naïve. However, she is a child, and children—and people of all ages—are always going to be innocent. Florens should have been protected from the people who want to exert power over her. Similarly, most Americans will never be financial experts, and they shouldn’t have to be. Instead, the law should take measures to protect them from bankers and accountants who intentionally advise them to make ruinous decisions.

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PLATO ON THE POWER OF IGNORANCE

• Published: August 2012
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In Book V of Plato’s Republic , Plato has Socrates distinguish between three distinct cognitive powers ( dunameis ): knowledge ( epistēmē ), opinion ( doxa ), and ignorance ( agnosia ). Powers, Socrates goes on to explain, are distinguished in virtue of what they are related to and what they accomplish ( eph hōi te esti kai hō apergazetai --477d1). In this section of the dialogue, the second of these two differentiae is not invoked again; instead, all of the distinctions Socrates makes here are made in terms of the different objects to which the powers are related. Knowledge, we are told, is related to what is (to on); ignorance is related to what is not (to mē on); opinion is related to what both is and is not.Scholars have attended almost entirely to the distinction between knowledge and opinion, and for good reason: It is clear that this distinction is the primary one that Plato wishes to explicate here, as it is in terms of this distinction that the important difference between the philosopher rulers and ordinary rulers will be drawn. The distinctions between knowledge and ignorance and opinion and ignorance are only very briefly mentioned, and ignorance itself remains almost wholly unexplained. This chapter discusses the role of ignorance in Plato’s epistemology. This chapter's analysis is novel in four ways: First, other scholars have attended almost exclusively to the roles assigned to knowledge and opinion in this passage, and have neglected to explain whether — and if so, how — their analyses could explicate what Plato has Socrates say about ignorance. Secondly, the chapter argues that we should not understand the ‘related to’ part of Plato’s analysis as an intensional one: cognitive powers are not ‘of’ or ‘about’ the objects to which they are related, as scholars have generally supposed. The relationship of the powers to objects, rather, is a nomological one. Thirdly, I argue that what is produced by the cognitive powers are what we would call conceptualizations (or conceptions) of the entities to which they are said to be related ( epi ). Finally, the chapter argues that the case of ignorance makes clear that the ‘is’ in Plato’s analysis of the relata of each cognitive power must be understood neither veridically (where ‘is’ means ‘is true’), nor existentially (where ‘is’ means ‘exists’), but predicatively (where ‘is’ means ‘is F,’ where F is the name of a Platonic Form).

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The Power of Ignorance

• First Online: 07 May 2019

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• Deborah K. Heikes 4  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy ((PIIP))

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Socially constructed ignorance hides important features of the social world. It also has roots in a modernism that willfully and purposively overlooks the epistemic and moral agency of those neither male nor white. Such overlooking has consequences for how power is distributed in our world. We often invisibly retain an unwillingness to see the structural inequalities that make knowledge white and male. Opening the circle of epistemic authority to wider groups of epistemic agents requires, first, understanding the requirements of knowledge-sharing and, second, coming to terms with the situatedness of our knowledge practices. It also requires a means of opening our ears to hear what less advantaged groups are saying. This cannot be had without genuinely understanding the social reality of those different from ourselves.

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See, in particular, Peels and Blaauw ( 2016 ) and Sullivan and Tuana ( 2007 ).

As Medina argues, “actively meta-ignorant individuals by themselves are unable to detect their blind-spots and recognize their insensitivities, and therefore they are incapable of becoming epistemically responsible agents” ( 2016 , 195).

Philosophers of race, in particular, “have developed robust discussions of social facts, experiences, and meanings that, as a result of racial oppression , become invisible, inaudible, or simply unintelligible in certain social locations and for certain perspectives that protect themselves from facing their involvement in racial oppression with a shield of active ignorance” (Medina 2018 , 247).

See Kant ( 1960 , 76–81).

As I will discuss very shortly, Mills argues that historically non-whites are actually non-human. While I am sympathetic to his claim and largely agree with the idea of linking rationality to humanity, I believe it is not humanity that “savages” are denied as much as it is personhood .

See Proctor and Schiebinger ( 2008 ). Also see Peels and Blaauw ( 2016 ).

I will discuss this later, but see Kant ( 2013 , 174–175).

See Mills ( 2007 , 20).

Something very similar could be said for males: they don’t see their own maleness; they don’t see how maleness is constructed.

The inequality of women actually goes back much further, at least to the time of the Greeks.

In the case of Kant particularly, I think Mills overstates the case. Kant holds to Buffon’s rule, which states that the mark of a species is the ability to reproduce. In this way, Kant does not deny the humanity of non-whites, although he does deny their personhood .

See Kant ( 2013 , 173).

Kant , of course, places a great deal more transcendental significance on this point than any modern day epistemologists.

For the same point repeated, see Outlaw ( 2007 , 197).

See the discussion of Rawls in Chapter 4 .

See Spelman ( 2007 , 127–129).

See Foucault ( 2003 , 29–30).

See Mills ’ discussion of mainstream social epistemology ( 2007 , 14–17).

In case one wants a review, Alcoff and Potter ( 1993 ) is an excellent starting point.

This was true in the earliest work of feminist epistemology as well.

Medina reminds us, “racially oppressed subjects have no option but to master the dominant perspectives of privileged groups that shape the social world” ( 2018 , 251).

A similar case of discounting knowing in hip hop is discussed in Debes ( 2018 , 55–56).

See Heldke ( 2006 , 156–157).

See in particular, Hoagland ( 2007 , 95–97).

This case may not be one of white ignorance simpliciter , but because Alpine is relatively close to Mexico, there is a great deal of racial diversity in the town and, as Heldke notes, a racial component to the professor’s accusations.

As Pritchard ( 2016 ) and Fricker ( 2016 ) each point out, there are times when ignorance is an epistemically good thing, for example, when we avoid accumulating trivial truths in favor of my substantive claims to knowledge.

For more on when knowledge should and should not be shared, see Grasswick ( 2010 , 2011 ).

Other cases exist of philosophers who argue that ignorance has an epistemic value . For example, Duncan Pritchard ( 2016 ) argues that in the case of misleading defeaters, epistemic goals are actually better served by ignorance. Much more poetically, Fricker claims, “massive ignorance is a precondition of having an epistemically functional life” ( 2016 , 160).

See Tuana ( 2004 , 195–196).

For more on the types of knowledge that get shared see Schiebinger ( 2008 ).

See Williams ( 1986 ).

See Coady ( 2004 ).

There is relationality in Cartesian accounts. It’s just that this relationality is overlooked, ignored, and suppressed.

Also see Coady ( 2004 ).

See Williams ( 1994 ).

See Quijano ( 2007 , 169–170).

This is obviously reflective of John Stuart Mill’s argument concerning truth in On Liberty .

See Code ( 1991 , 117).

This issue is also taken up by Mills ( 2007 , 14–15).

The obvious problem of relativism that emerges in this sort of discussion of truth . I will return to this topic in Chapter 4 . I argue that “reasonableness” can allow diversity while still allowing for a substantive notion of truth.

See Longino ( 2002 , 103–104).

See Bailey ( 2007 , 77).

See Grier and Cobbs ( 1968 ), especially 1–38.

For a general summary of the role of tobacco companies in generating ignorance, see Proctor ( 2008 , 11–18).

Alcoff, Linda, and Elizabeth Potter, eds. 1993. Feminist Epistemologies . New York: Routledge.

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Heikes, D.K. (2019). The Power of Ignorance. In: Towards a Liberatory Epistemology. Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16485-0_2

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I've always agreed on the statement that ignorance is bliss. But if that is so, then why throughout human history have we struggled to find answers to questions we might never even find out? In their quest for the "truth" most great minds have found nothing but despair and frustration.... So if ignorance is bliss, why are we as a human race committed to finding out the "truth"?

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Plato: 'Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.'

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. This powerful quote by Plato encapsulates the inherent relationship between knowledge and morality. In its straightforward interpretation, the quote suggests that ignorance is the fundamental cause of all wrongdoing and immorality. When individuals lack knowledge or understanding, they are more likely to engage in harmful actions or contribute to societal ills. This concept highlights the importance of education and the pursuit of knowledge in fostering a more just and virtuous world.However, to delve deeper into this topic, let's introduce the philosophical concept of moral ambiguity. This notion challenges the black-and-white view that ignorance leads unequivocally to evil. Moral ambiguity signifies the existence of actions or situations that are neither purely good nor purely evil but lie on a moral continuum. It recognizes the complexity of human nature and the intricate web of factors that contribute to our choices.While Plato's quote emphasizes the negative consequences of ignorance, there are instances where ignorance may not necessarily lead to evil. Consider a child who unintentionally breaks a valuable antique, unaware of its significance. The child's action may cause damage, but without malicious intent, it would be unjust to label it as inherently evil. The key distinction here lies in the absence of knowledge and intention.Conversely, there are situations where knowledge and understanding can be used to perpetuate evil. A well-educated individual may possess the skills and knowledge necessary to manipulate and deceive others, leading to acts of cruelty or injustice. In this scenario, we witness how knowledge can be wielded as a tool of evil, challenging the idea that ignorance is solely responsible for wrongdoing.While ignorance can certainly contribute to fostering an environment conducive to evil, it is important to acknowledge the multidimensionality of morality and the multifaceted nature of human actions. The extent to which ignorance plays a role in perpetuating evil depends on various factors, including intent, context, and the individual's capacity for self-reflection.To truly address the root causes of evil, we must strive for a society that values not only the pursuit of knowledge but also the cultivation of empathy, compassion, and critical thinking. By fostering an educational system that encourages moral development alongside intellectual growth, we can equip individuals with the tools necessary to navigate the complex ethical landscape.While Plato's quote serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of knowledge in combatting evil, it is crucial to explore the nuances and intricacies surrounding this topic. By embracing the concept of moral ambiguity, we can enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between knowledge, ignorance, and morality.In conclusion, Plato's quote, "Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil," encapsulates the fundamental role that lack of knowledge plays in perpetuating wrongdoing. However, it is important to recognize that moral ambiguity exists and challenges the notion that ignorance alone leads unequivocally to evil. By fostering a society that values both knowledge and moral development, we can strive for a world that is not only informed but also compassionate and just.

Plato: 'Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.'

Plato: 'there are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.'.

The Pleasures of Ignorance by Robert Lynd

The pleasures of ignorance.

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Born in Belfast, Robert Lynd moved to London when he was 22 and soon became a popular and prolific essayist , critic, columnist, and poet. His essays are characterized by humor , precise observations, and a lively, engaging style .

From Ignorance To Discov ery

Writing under the pseudonym of Y.Y., Lynd contributed a weekly literary essay to the New Statesman magazine from 1913 to 1945. "The Pleasures of Ignorance" is one of those many essays. Here he offers examples from nature to demonstrate his thesis that out of ignorance "we get the constant pleasure of discovery."

by Robert Lynd (1879-1949)

• It is impossible to take a walk in the country with an average townsman—especially, perhaps, in April or May—without being amazed at the vast continent of his ignorance . It is impossible to take a walk in the country oneself without being amazed at the vast continent of one's own ignorance. Thousands of men and women live and die without knowing the difference between a beech and an elm, between the song of a thrush and the song of a blackbird. Probably in a modern city the man who can distinguish between a thrush's and a blackbird's song is the exception. It is not that we have not seen the birds. It is simply that we have not noticed them. We have been surrounded by birds all our lives, yet so feeble is our observation that many of us could not tell whether or not the chaffinch sings, or the colour of the cuckoo. We argue like small boys as to whether the cuckoo always sings as he flies or sometimes in the branches of a tree—whether [George] Chapman drew on his fancy or his knowledge of nature in the lines:

When in the oak's green arms the cuckoo sings, And first delights men in the lovely springs.

Ignorance And Discovery

• This ignorance, however, is not altogether miserable. Out of it we get the constant pleasure of discovery. Every fact of nature comes to us each spring, if only we are sufficiently ignorant, with the dew still on it. If we have lived half a lifetime without having ever even seen a cuckoo, and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more delighted at the spectacle of its runaway flight as it hurries from wood to wood conscious of its crimes, and at the way in which it halts hawk-like in the wind, its long tail quivering, before it dares descend on a hill-side of fir-trees where avenging presences may lurk. It would be absurd to pretend that the naturalist does not also find pleasure in observing the life of the birds, but his is a steady pleasure, almost a sober and plodding occupation, compared to the morning enthusiasm of the man who sees a cuckoo for the first time, and, behold, the world is made new.
• And, as to that, the happiness even of the naturalist depends in some measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each bright particular with his eyes. He wishes with his own eyes to see the female cuckoo—rare spectacle!—as she lays her egg on the ground and takes it in her bill to the nest in which it is destined to breed infanticide. He would sit day after day with a field-glass against his eyes in order personally to endorse or refute the evidence suggesting that the cuckoo does lay on the ground and not in a nest. And, if he is so far fortunate as to discover this most secretive of birds in the very act of laying, there still remain for him other fields to conquer in a multitude of such disputed questions as whether the cuckoo's egg is always of the same colour as the other eggs in the nest in which she abandons it. Assuredly the men of science have no reason as yet to weep over their lost ignorance. If they seem to know everything, it is only because you and I know almost nothing. There will always be a fortune of ignorance waiting for them under every fact they turn up. They will never know what song the Sirens sang to Ulysses any more than Sir Thomas Browne did.

​The Cuckoo Illustration

• If I have called in the cuckoo to illustrate the ordinary man's ignorance, it is not because I can speak with authority on that bird. It is simply because, passing the spring in a parish that seemed to have been invaded by all the cuckoos of Africa, I realised how exceedingly little I, or anybody else I met, knew about them. But your and my ignorance is not confined to cuckoos. It dabbles in all created things, from the sun and moon down to the names of the flowers. I once heard a clever lady asking whether the new moon always appears on the same day of the week. She added that perhaps it is better not to know, because, if one does not know when or in what part of the sky to expect it, its appearance is always a pleasant surprise. I fancy, however, the new moon always comes as a surprise even to those who are familiar with her time-tables. And it is the same with the coming in of spring and the waves of the flowers. We are not the less delighted to find an early primrose because we are sufficiently learned in the services of the year to look for it in March or April rather than in October. We know, again, that the blossom precedes and not succeeds the fruit of the apple tree , but this does not lessen our amazement at the beautiful holiday of a May orchard.

​The Pleasure Of Learning

• At the same time there is, perhaps, a special pleasure in re-learning the names of many of the flowers every spring. It is like re-reading a book that one has almost forgotten. Montaigne tells us that he had so bad a memory that he could always read an old book as though he had never read it before. I have myself a capricious and leaking memory. I can read Hamlet itself and The Pickwick Papers as though they were the work of new authors and had come wet from the press, so much of them fades between one reading and another. There are occasions on which a memory of this kind is an affliction, especially if one has a passion for accuracy. But this is only when life has an object beyond entertainment. In respect of mere luxury, it may be doubted whether there is not as much to be said for a bad memory as for a good one. With a bad memory one can go on reading Plutarch and The Arabian Nights all one's life. Little shreds and tags, it is probable, will stick even in the worst memory, just as a succession of sheep cannot leap through a gap in a hedge without leaving a few wisps of wool on the thorns. But the sheep themselves escape, and the great authors leap in the same way out of an idle memory and leave little enough behind.

​The Pleasure Of Asking Questions

• And, if we can forget books, it is as easy to forget the months and what they showed us, when once they are gone. Just for the moment I tell myself that I know May like the multiplication table and could pass an examination on its flowers, their appearance and their order. Today I can affirm confidently that the buttercup has five petals. (Or is it six? I knew for certain last week.) But next year I shall probably have forgotten my arithmetic, and may have to learn once more not to confuse the buttercup with the celandine. Once more I shall see the world as a garden through the eyes of a stranger, my breath taken away with surprise by the painted fields. I shall find myself wondering whether it is science or ignorance which affirms that the swift (that black exaggeration of the swallow and yet a kinsman of the humming-bird) never settles even on a nest, but disappears at night into the heights of the air. I shall learn with fresh astonishment that it is the male, and not the female, cuckoo that sings. I may have to learn again not to call the campion a wild geranium, and to rediscover whether the ash comes early or late in the etiquette of the trees. A contemporary English novelist was once asked by a foreigner what was the most important crop in England. He answered without a moment's hesitation: " Rye ." Ignorance so complete as this seems to me to be touched with magnificence; but the ignorance even of illiterate persons is enormous. The average man who uses a telephone could not explain how a telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone , the railway train , the linotype, the aeroplane, as our grandfathers took for granted the miracles of the gospels. He neither questions nor understands them. It is as though each of us investigated and made his own only a tiny circle of facts. Knowledge outside the day's work is regarded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction against our ignorance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. We revel in speculations about anything at all—about life after death or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled Aristotle , "why sneezing from noon to midnight was good, but from night to noon unlucky." One of the greatest joys known to man is to take such a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. The great pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as [Benjamin] Jowett, who sat down to the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our squirrel's hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a school of omniscience. We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realised at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.

* Originally appearing in  The New Statesman , "The Pleasures of Ignorance" by Robert Lynd served as the lead essay in his collection  The Pleasures of Ignorance  (Riverside Press and Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921)

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Essay Samples on Ignorance

Examples of ignorance is a bliss and origin of the word.

The word Bliss originates from German and Middle English language and associates with extreme happiness and joy. To feel Bliss literally means to be in the state of ecstasy or in spiritual joy. The meaning of the word can also be represented as a metaphor...

• Linguistics

Knowledge & Understanding Of Ignorance In A Bible

The Republic contrasts forms, which is knowledge, form opinion, represented by appearances and its benefits in leadership. Knowledge, from a biblical basis is acquired through the Holy Spirit as a gift. In Theological-Political Treatise, knowledge is the basis of understanding the role of a state...

The Philosophy Of Ignorance And Knowledge In Buddhism

In order to prepare for the job interview, I had to hack into Buddha’s iPhone. At first, I did not know what I was looking for, but for some reason, something was telling me to do it. When I was looking through the phone I...

Motives That Drive People Towards Discrimination

Why do people discriminate against others? What is the motive? What do they hope to gain? If we understand the answers to those questions, it can help us stop discriminating against others, and enable us to understand and help those who discriminate against us, people...

• Discrimination

An Essay on Liberal Arts and Sciences: Ignorance is Bliss

The statement, ignorance is bliss implies that not having information about something negative makes one happy. Ignorance might be motivated or natural due to inadequate education or limited access to information. Some people find motivated ignorance to be invaluable especially in avoiding information that they...

• Liberal Arts Education

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The Invisible Man: The Problem of Social Blindness and Ignorance

Invisibility sounds like a great super power that anyone would want. Even best of us can get annoyed by this world and sometimes just wishes everyone would leave them alone and stop bothering them, but not everyone wishes that. Some might be wishing for the...

• Invisible Man

The Ignorance of Hitchiking in the Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Have you ever wanted to go exploring out in the wild all by yourself? If so you might want to change your mind. Based on Jon Krakauer’s novel, “Into the wild”, The author explores the life of a young man named Chris McCandless who hitchhikes...

Socrates' Ignorance to the Mythological Concept

Myth has been known to play an important role in the lives and beliefs of people throughout time. Myth is often more closely associated with ancient Greece and its use in telling their history and creation stories. People would worship the many Greek gods and...

The Ignorance of Reality in the Ancient Times

Two prominent and correlating idioms of today are widespread throughout society. Firstly, that “Ignorance is bliss”. Secondly, that “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. We live in a society dominated by these common phrases. Demonstrated in ancient times by two complacent and stubborn brothers...

• Ancient Civilizations

Salem Witch Trials as an Example of Extremism and Ignorance

Scattered through the history of humanity are certain episodes of inexplicable extremism. In some cases, it is strongly linked to the culture of a society, but in others it is merely the fruit of a seed planted by something or someone more important, that is,...

• American History
• Salem Witch Trials

Best topics on Ignorance

1. Examples Of Ignorance Is A Bliss And Origin Of The Word

2. Knowledge & Understanding Of Ignorance In A Bible

3. The Philosophy Of Ignorance And Knowledge In Buddhism

4. Motives That Drive People Towards Discrimination

5. An Essay on Liberal Arts and Sciences: Ignorance is Bliss

6. The Invisible Man: The Problem of Social Blindness and Ignorance

7. The Ignorance of Hitchiking in the Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

8. Socrates’ Ignorance to the Mythological Concept

9. The Ignorance of Reality in the Ancient Times

10. Salem Witch Trials as an Example of Extremism and Ignorance

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David French

Maga turns against the constitution.

By David French

Opinion Columnist

You may not know this, but the United States is in the grips of another crisis — perhaps its greatest crisis of all. In addition to confronting a recession, a collapsing stock market, unemployment rates at a 50-year high and skyrocketing crime, the Constitution itself is now essentially dead. It’s broken. It failed, and unless there is revolutionary change, the nation we love is lost forever.

Welcome to Joe Biden’s America.

Sharp readers will recognize immediately that nothing I said above is true. The economy is growing , the stock market is at historic highs and the unemployment rate is near a 50-year low . That doesn’t mean the economy is perfect. Inflation and higher interest rates have caused real economic pain, but the American economy is still, as the EconForecaster economist James Smith recently said, the “ envy of the world .”

Crime in America is too high, especially compared with the rest of the developed world. But crime rates have dropped after pandemic-era increases , and overall crime rates are substantially lower than they were in the relatively recent past: Violent crimes and property crimes are occurring at less than half the rates they were in the early 1990s.

Yet countless millions of Americans simply don’t know any of these facts. According to a recent Harris Poll, 55 percent of Americans believe the economy is shrinking, 56 percent believe that the United States is in a recession, 49 percent think the S&P 500 stock index is down for the year and 49 percent believe — incredibly enough — that unemployment is at a 50-year high. An overwhelming majority of Americans (77 percent) believe that crime is rising — one of the most pessimistic assessments in a generation.

If you’re a Democratic strategist, the perception gap between opinion and reality is a profound political problem. It’s hard for a presidential incumbent to win re-election when so many Americans are so deeply discontent, and these same strategists are confronting a political party that has every incentive to magnify American problems. Republicans want a stink of failure to surround the Biden administration.

But the problem of public ignorance and fake crises transcends politics. Profound pessimism about the state of the nation is empowering the radical, revolutionary politics that fuels extremists on the right and left. In fact, absent catastrophic alarmism, the MAGA movement would never have come close to power.

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Voter ignorance is Trump’s superpower. It can also be his weakness.

A recent CBS/YouGov poll on how well Republican voters understand the stakes of Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House included an interesting, albeit alarming, statistic. Only 35% of Republicans polled, as noted by The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, say they know that Trump has been indicted for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Almost the same number — 34% — don’t think he’s been indicted for his attempts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

As readers here undoubtedly know, special counsel Jack Smith has, in fact, charged Trump with multiple counts of conspiring to defraud the government and hold onto power. “The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment charges .

Those charges are on hold pending a Supreme Court decision on Trump’s claims of presidential immunity . But for a majority of Republican voters, those charges simply do not exist.

Welcome, once again to Trump’s fact-free alternate reality universe, in which Trump is relying on disinformation, ignorance, and voter amnesia to propel himself back to the Oval Office.

On the stump Trump freely rewrites history, peddles bizarre conspiracy theories, and aggressively memory-holes the darker parts of his record.

Thus far, it has been working for him.

Last year, nearly 70% of GOP voters thought Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate, according to a CNN poll — despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.

A recent poll from Marquette Law School found that half of Republicans don’t believe Trump had any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, despite photographic evidence of their presence. Without evidence, Trump has also convinced an overwhelming majority of his supporters — 80% — that the charges in the New York hush money case came at the direction of the Biden administration, rather than solely by New York prosecutors. There is, of course, no basis in fact for that claim . Even one of Trump’s high-profile former attorneys, Joe Tacopina, has dismissed the allegation as nonsense.

“Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan district attorney office,” Tacopina told MSNBC . “We know that’s not the case, and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case,” he said. “People who say that — it’s scary that they really don’t know the law or what they’re talking about.”

But, as Tacopina surely knows, this is precisely the message that Trump is pushing. And it is working, fueling Republican calls for retribution and payback if Trump returns to power.

Trump is also relying on GOP voters believing his revisionist history of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. At a recent Nevada rally , he called rioters who attacked the Capitol “warriors” who had been treated “horrifically.” Trump has repeatedly suggested he would issue sweeping pardons for the attackers. Increasingly, he has embraced conspiracy theories suggesting that government agents may have incited rioters to enter the Capitol building that day.

“All they were doing is protesting a rigged election,” Trump told supporters in Nevada. “That’s what they were doing. And then the police say: Go in! Go in! Go in!”

Trump also referred to several other conspiracy theories that have flourished in the right-wing fever swamps.

“How about scaffold Joe, the guy on the scaffold?” Trump asked at one point. “Or how about the big FBI guy or wherever he comes from: ‘Go on in, everybody! Go on in! What a set up that was! What a horrible, horrible thing!”

All of those rumors, theories, and allegations have been repeatedly debunked , but that has made no difference to Trump or, apparently, to the MAGA base. Last December, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll f ound Republicans more sympathetic to the rioters than ever. Only 18% of Republicans say the Jan. 6 protesters were “mostly violent,” while 72% of Republicans polled said that “too much is being made of the storming” of the Capitol. Only 24% thought it was an “attack on democracy that should never be forgotten.”

Those numbers are consistent with Trump’s success in convincing Republicans of the big lie. Polls consistently show that most Republican voters do not believe that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Last year, nearly 70% of GOP voters thought Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate, according to a CNN poll — despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.

Trump has especially benefitted from this widespread amnesia about his actual record when it comes to younger voters. A recent poll of voters ages 18-30 found that many of them simply don’t know what Trump has said or done in the past.

A poll by the Democratic-aligned public opinion research group Blueprint found that less than half of registered voters under 30 had even heard of Trump’s call for a Muslim ban, his “very fine people on both sides” comments relating to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in 2017, or his insistence that John McCain “is not a war hero” because he was a prisoner of war. Similarly, most young voters have never heard of Trump’s more egregious comments about women, minorities or his denigration of immigrant communities.

“It might shock those of us who eat, sleep, and breathe politics, but young voters really don’t remember the daily controversies of the Trump years and grew up understanding this kind of rhetoric as politics as usual,” Blueprint pollster Evan Roth Smith said.

In one sense, this voter ignorance is a kind of superpower for Trump. But it is also a potential weakness, especially because he is relying heavily on “disengaged voters” for his current political strength. A recent New York Times analysis found that Trump’s narrow polling lead “is built on gains among voters who aren’t paying close attention to politics, who don’t follow traditional news and who don’t regularly vote.”

But what happens when the disengaged voters become engaged or when tuned-out voters start to pay attention? What happens when younger voters are told that Trump once said that two non-white congresswomen should “go back” to the “totally broken in crime infested places from which they came”? Or that in 2017, he said Haitian immigrants to the United States “all have AIDS” and that Nigerians would never “go back to their huts” after seeing the United States. The Blueprint poll found that huge majorities of young voters are actually bothered by the comments when they learned of them.

And what happens when voters get more details about Trump’s crimes, or are reminded of what and who he is? What happens when the memory holes are filled?

This is a potential opportunity not just for the Biden campaign, but also for the media. If Biden’s camp plays its cards right, Trump may find out that a campaign that relies on ignorance and amnesia is far more fragile than it looks now.

MSNBC columnist Charlie Sykes is founder of The Bulwark. His most recent book, "How the Right Lost Its Mind," was published in October 2017.

A remarkable new era begins in South Africa

A national unity government can save democracy and the economy.

D ESMOND TUTU once wrote that “we in South Africa…sell ourselves short.” In a country with many problems it is easy to forget its “remarkable achievements”, argued the late Nobel peace laureate. He felt that the world had much to learn from the largely peaceful transition to democracy in 1994; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he chaired that shed light on the darkness of apartheid; and the forgiveness of ordinary black people scarred by decades of white rule.

If Archbishop Tutu were still alive he might have added the events of June 14th to his list of feats. Members of parliament were set to re-elect Cyril Ramaphosa as South Africa’s president, with the 71-year-old now expected to form a “government of national unity”. The coalition, anchored by Mr Ramaphosa’s African National Congress ( ANC ) and the erstwhile official opposition, the Democratic Alliance ( DA ), was necessitated by the results of elections held on May 29th. The ANC won just 40.2% of the vote , depriving it of its parliamentary majority for the first time. To gain the support of most MP s Mr Ramaphosa could have joined with dangerous populist parties. Instead he and his new partners have swiftly opted for a government that adheres to the values of the 1994 settlement and has a chance of overseeing vital reforms. Its formation will reflect well on the rainbow nation’s fledgling democracy.

The outcome was not inevitable . In the aftermath of the result many figures in the ANC were against a deal involving the DA , which won 21.8% of the vote. Gwede Mantashe, the powerful party chair, reportedly preferred a tie-up with a few smaller parties and the “devil we know”: the Economic Freedom Fighters ( EFF ), a race-baiting hard-left party run by former leaders of the ANC ’s Youth League, that won 9.5%. Others wanted to work with uMkhonto weSizwe ( MK ), a new party led by the former president, Jacob Zuma, and which won a stunning 14.6%.

In characteristic style, Mr Ramaphosa trod carefully. On June 6th, after a meeting of the ANC ’s main decision-making body, he announced that the party had chosen to form a government of national unity—and would talk to every major party about potentially joining. At first this seemed a ludicrous case of Mr Rampahosa trying to have his cake and eat it. Negotiators from other parties joked that the president was leaving it to his opponents to decide on the coalition on his behalf.

If that was the case it worked. Both MK and EFF made such unreasonable demands that, in effect, they ruled themselves out. The EFF wanted the finance ministry and insisted it would not be part of the same government as the DA , which its deputy leader suggested was a puppet of the “white capitalist establishment”. MK , which has been spouting Trumpian lies about the election being rigged, demanded the resignation of Mr Ramaphosa—a stipulation the ANC quickly ruled out.

Mr Ramaphosa was probably relieved by the hubris. He could tell his caucus that he had at least tried to talk to the populists. But while never publicly stating his preferences, they have been implied. After the ANC meeting he spoke of coalition partners needing to respect the constitution (ruling out at least MK , which wants to ditch the “colonial” document) and non-racialism (excluding at least the EFF , whose leader has spewed vitriol against whites and Indians). In a newsletter sent on June 10th he wrote of the importance of Operation Vulindlela, a presidential initiative to accelerate market-friendly reforms. It was an unsubtle nod: by this point DA negotiators had already highlighted the same scheme as one of its priorities.

To its credit the DA has been conscious of the time constraints (the vote for president will take place just 12 days after the election results were formally announced, or 1/54th of the time it took Belgium to form a government in 2018-20) and the gravity of the moment. It drew a few reasonable red lines. For example it emphasised respect for property rights and central-bank independence, both of which the EFF wants to weaken. It stressed fiscal prudence and Operation Vulindlela but, notably, did not ask for anything more than the existing pledges of the outgoing ANC government.

In separate talks the ANC hammered out a deal with the Inkatha Freedom Party ( IFP ). It is a Zulu nationalist party but one that believes in democracy and the constitution, unlike MK . Its involvement in the coalition is an important nod to the interests of Zulus, the country’s largest ethnic group. Velenkosini Fiki Hlabisa, the IFP ’s leader, may get a prominent cabinet job. On June 12th he spoke of how the coalition could also heal wounds between his party and the ANC ; the two fought an undeclared civil war in the early 1990s that killed thousands. For the ANC the presence of the IFP , and a few tiny parties, in the government is crucial as it makes the coalition seem less like just a tie-up between it and the DA , which some of its base sees as a “white party”.

The ANC , IFP and DA have also agreed to work together in the two largest provinces, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, after no party gained a majority in parallel regional elections. In KwaZulu-Natal, where MK won 45.4% of the vote, the coalition will have a wafer-thin majority: parties other than MK and EFF have 41 of the 80 seats.

A lot remains to be worked out. A formal written agreement, including details of how decisions will be made (a key aspect for the DA , which must show its supporters it is not giving the ANC a blank cheque), is expected soon. Then Mr Ramaphosa will need to appoint a cabinet. He is  expected to assign seats roughly in accordance with the vote shares of the constituent parties.

The government will then need to govern. South Africa could do with radical reforms to solve its entrenched problems. But simply having competent administrators would go some of the way. Expect the coalition to focus on the priorities of Operation Vulindlela, such as reforming Eskom, the state-run utility; unclogging ports; fixing water infrastructure; streamlining skilled visas; and attracting more mining investment.

There is much that could go wrong. There will be tensions within the administration. Moderates in the ANC share many of the same goals as liberals in the DA . But they come from different political cultures: the former sees itself as a movement, the latter more like a Western political party. And they will not see eye to eye on issues such as race-based policies. There is also the risk that the sheer dysfunction of the state will make it hard for even well-meaning ministers to get results.

Then there are the challenges from outside the government. MK and EFF will argue that—like 1994—this is a shady deal cooked up by black and white elites who are the puppets of big business. Julius Malema, the EFF ’s leader, said that he would work with MK to oppose the new government. He called the DA “zionists” and the “enemy”. Mr Zuma is showing himself to be a Zulu Mugabe, implying that his supporters will turn to violence unless “satisfied” with the election. In KwaZulu-Natal, the epicentre of mass unrest in 2021 encouraged by Mr Zuma’s henchmen, law enforcement will need to be vigilant. Even if things are peaceful, Mr Zuma will want to destabilise the fragile coalition that will run the province.

Mr Ramaphosa will have the hard task of keeping the support of the ANC . Some in the party blame him for its disappointing result in the elections. Without a majority he has fewer cabinet jobs to use as currency to buy loyalty. If his government’s policies threaten the interests of important constituencies, such as civil servants and trade unions, he will come under pressure. Since he is expected to step down as party leader at the next major ANC conference, probably in 2027, there will be senior figures who will be biding their time before trying to nudge him out of the presidency, too.

The DA will have to square its participation with its base. At present it can make a convincing case that keeping EFF and MK out of power is worth it. But as time passes, the salience of that threat will fade. If the DA does badly in its stronghold of Cape Town in local elections in 2026 then the party might have second thoughts.

Yet all these potential problems are for the future. Whatever happens next, the incoming government of national unity has already achieved something profoundly important: keeping Mr Zuma and the EFF away from power. This coalition may not be imbued with the optimism and idealism of the one Nelson Mandela ran with his former enemies from 1994 to 1997. But it is also impressive proof that there is a pragmatic and principled centre in South African politics. Thirty years after 1994, the Rainbow Nation has shown that it still has lessons in democracy for the rest of the world.  ■

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