Is Volitional Ignorance the New Nirvana?

Once upon a time, while I was still in law school, my Torts professor was doing all he could to explain to the class the keys to Intentional Torts. In common parlance when we hear the word “Intentional” we often default to the idea that something one person did that resulted in harm to another was “intended” to cause that harm. Unfortunately for your average Tortfeasor that’s not quite the case. m-w.com offers this definition of “Volition:” “1: the power of choosing or determining : WILL OR 2: an act of making a choice or decision also: a choice or decision made.” Thus in the world of Torts an “Intentional” act is merely something one decides or chooses. Years after graduating from law school I encountered something I’d never expected to find - the process of deciding or “choosing” to be ignorant. The same website offers as a first definition of “ignorant” “1a: destitute of knowledge or education.” Accordingly, volitional ignorance is the decision or choice to BE destitute of knowledge or education.

In the Information Age it at least seems that knowledge and education are always but a few keystrokes away. In fact it appears the precise opposite has come into existence. A de facto barrier to the process of learning - CHOICE. If one chooses to NOT know and to eschew the opportunity to learn or become educated that is the essence of “volition.” It took me some time to realize volitional ignorance is what I was seeing in social media and among those who dared call themselves “journalists” or otherwise claimed to be in a position to identify and explain actual events in the country and around the world. Consider the Mainstream Media. CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, etc… and their ilk in print. During the most recent campaign cycle I observed numerous elected officials glibly lying about themselves and their personal histories yet the media remained silent. Ultimately we were left with two candidates for President of the United States who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse and assault. Between them they received over 150 million votes. Less than half of the nation’s population but the largest single number of voters in history. Knowing the ACTUAL histories of both candidates left me wondering exactly how a once proud nation had been reduced to these two pitiful choices.

In the age of Google Lawyers and Doctors (as well as Google experts in EVERY academic field) one might expect the “opinions” of the volitionally ignorant would be disregarded out of hand - unfortunately one would be wrong. Instead, those with carefully researched and analyzed opinions were beaten down by the sheer number of volitionally ignorant self-imagined “influencers” with nothing better to do than take a meaningless headline entirely out of context and turn it into their social media opus. Indeed, the cacophony of baseless braying caused many to suspend their involvement with social media, even if they themselves had been engaged in the same non-processes along the way. I had MANY people tell me either that Joe Biden hadn’t said what I was able to watch him say on old C-SPAN recordings OR that he’d changed despite saying “I regret nothing.” As an old Philosophy student I can tell you this much - ONLY those with regrets have reason and motivation to change. On the other hand there were MANY individuals promoting Trump while literally disregarding things he had provably said or, in most cases, Tweeted. I mean, quelle horreur to think one might lose one’s “COVFEFE” if one weren’t careful.

In all of this I finally had to accept that the volitionally ignorant are more than comfortable with their ignorance and, if anything, regard TRUTH with suspicion and disdain. Truth makes them uncomfortable because, increasingly often, the truth contradicts and undercuts the lies they’ve come to accept as gospel. Consider a dialogue I had in the 2016 election cycle. A supporter of Hillary Clinton told me in no uncertain terms that Hillary had unequivocally apologized for referring to brown urban kids as “super predators” who needed to be “brought to heel.” Intrigued by the prospect Hillary had finally revealed her humanity and admitted an error I asked for a citation. While I reviewed several “news” sources they all boiled down to this (as stated at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-on-superpredators-remark-i-shouldnt-have-used-those-words/)
“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is walking back comments she made nearly two decades ago, when she implied, in a 1996 speech supporting tough-on-crime legislation, that at-risk youth were "superpredators." "In that speech, I was talking about the impact violent crime and vicious drug cartels were having on communities across the country and the particular danger they posed to children and families," Clinton said in a statement obtained by CBS News Thursday. "Looking back, I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today."

I will certainly concede that Hillary did NOT attend Catholic schools for 16 years as I did. In fact I don’t think she attended them at all. Even so I suspect that when she attended whatever church she was raised in that “Looking back” does NOT translate to “I’m sorry.” Frankly, I don’t consider it a form of apology whatsoever. Yet the naysayer insisted it was most certainly an apology. So I was forced to ask myself what would make someone choose such self-delusion over acknowledging and accepting the truth. The only answer I’ve come up with is that they find it easier to entrench themselves in their own peculiar, entirely subjective world and ignore all else because it might force them to understand that there IS an outside world and it’s anything but their personal playground. Indeed, perhaps the old adage that “ignorance is bliss” has become the de facto mantra of the 21st century and those who seek nirvana must first choose to always seek ignorance.