What is ignorance?

Column 2019-3 (1/21/19)

The American Heritage Dictionary defines ignorance as; “The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.” If this brief definition said it all about ignorance, this would be a very short column.

I don’t find the AHD definition satisfactory. It is too vague. So I tried Merriam-Webster. I was rewarded with; “the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness .” It is a bit wordy, but it found the key.

Ignorance, like cold, isn’t any thing. Cold is absence of heat. Ignorance is simply lack of knowledge. It doesn’t need to be embellished with judgmental type words.

If mere ignorance is a fault, everyone is at fault. Everyone begins life totally ignorant. A life time later, even the most knowledgeable are still mostly ignorant. Imagine a test covering all the knowledge accumulated by humanity. How well do you believe you would score? For anyone to pass this test it would have to be graded on a curve, or else accept something well under 1 percent as a passing score.

Ignorance as an absolute is meaningless. It becomes meaningful only if tied to a body of knowledge. It is meaningful to refer to ignorance about nuclear physics, or college basket ball. Neither ignorance is a fault, except for those who need to know. For a college basketball coach to be totally ignorant about college basketball would, to say the least, be a problem.

To identify ignorance we must identify the type of ignorance. Ignorance about one’s own ignorance can be dangerous. Even more dangerous is being ignorant of the fact that some things one believes are not true. Another way to put it, ignorantly believing falsehoods is dangerous. This is especially true when the ignorant one tries to impose his beliefs on others.

Unfortunately many people don’t bother to verify their beliefs before being sure they are right. Such people can be dangerous when wrong about something important.

Of course, being allowed to vote doesn’t magically eliminate the voters ignorance. Even if a person tried to learn all about government and the consequences of what it does, he would be unable to come close to his goal.

In the real world the shrill voice of ignorant zealots drown out the quiet voice of reason. We need a baloney detector to identify the voices of the advocates of ignorance. There are a few badges of ignorance we can use to identify the advocates of ignorance.

Their response to “Why?” is often telling. If they can’t explain why they are right, they probably aren’t. Those who attack and vilify their opponent probably do so because they can’t defend their own ideas. Those who try to silence, or even imprison, opponents to their ideas should never be taken seriously. They are driven by emotions, not facts and reason.

There are few topics where ignorance and wrong ideas dominate more than in economics. In most elections economic concerns are the strongest force. If voters learn the truth about economics and vote accordingly, ignorance about the other issues may not be terribly important.

The poster boy and girl for economic ignorance are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If their version of ignorance prevails,the future won’t be bright. Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren would make good replacements if Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez decline the honor. It would take a book to analyze the economic ignorance of any of the four.

If you are looking for sound economics, check out FEE.org or mises.org.

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Copyright 2019

Albert D. McCallum