Ignorance and the issues

I often find myself in situations where my own ignorance of certain political issues comes to the forefront. In such moments, I oscillate between embarrassment that I lack necessary facts and pride that I lack wholly unnecessary prejudice.

Take, for example, my original experience with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. In my ignorance of politics, when I was in my early teens and first heard of the policy, I was fairly convinced that the article must be some sort of horrific joke or archived material from the 1950s.

Finding out the reality of the policy much later, I thought the seeping discomfort of missing or neglecting the importance of a major concern.

But at the same time, I thought the simultaneous, simple pleasure that I, at least, did not have to say that I was one of those who fell prey to the idea that the issue could be thought of in terms of “group cohesion,” rather than very basic rights of equality.

In today’s reactionary politics, I think there is something to be said for the innocence that comes from ignorance of party lines and agendas. And yet, it is against my scientific nature to tout “ignorance” on any subject without giving some stipulations first.

Which leads me to the question: What forms of ignorance can be seen as suitable to the political dialogue, and what forms can be seen as harmful?

To begin with, let’s consider the appropriate form — the form that maintains lack of prejudice or preconceived attitude.  

There is a sense in which one who is “ignorant” in this way carries with them always a higher likelihood of innovation and unique ideas — of “thinking outside the box.”  

With bipartisanship more of a myth than a method these days, the ability to think outside the proverbial boxes of “right” and “left” can be an exceedingly powerful skill.

On the other hand, there is a darker ignorance which is precisely the cause of the continued existence of political polarization: the inability or unwillingness to consider unbiased, non-partisan evidence.

This is the ignorance of political rhetoric — of the pet phrases and stock ideas of one’s political affiliation which are not tested but believed. It is the ignorance of repetitive phrasing and lack of growth.

But what differentiates these forms of ignorance? Surely it is not simply that one is good and the other bad.

Perhaps it is the self-awareness of the state itself. One who is ignorant and knows of their own ignorance can be constantly in the act of seeking knowledge and of eliminating ignorance where it prevents a specific aim.
 
One who is ignorant not only of the facts themselves, but also of their own ignorance to these facts, can only ever be in the act of maintaining a mental status quo.

It is the first kind of ignorance which is mobile — which admits and then flushes out its own faults — which keeps in mind always that it can decide otherwise when new evidence arises.

It is the second kind of ignorance that is incapable of hearing new evidence and finds itself perennially stuck in rhetoric.  

I think political dialogue could use a bit more of the first and a bit less of the second.


E-mail: cmcglass@indiana.edu