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How could they be so ignorant!
Oh, they’re not ignorant. They’re nasty. They know exactly what they’re doing.
But they act like complete idiots.
Sure, but see that’s part of their plan. You’ve got to be clever to pull off success like theirs.
I dunno. Maybe they’re stupid and nasty.
Maybe. You can get pretty far on nasty. People get out of your way.
Or they join you.
Who among us hasn’t debated whether someone is stupid or just acting stupid for a nasty power advantage and perhaps both? It could be anyone, an ex or a current partner, a co-worker or family member, a celebrity or leader—someone who, for lack of a better term, we could call an ignoranus: ignorant and nasty.
The lack of a better term is surprising given how often ignorant and nasty are paired. It’s odd: English is full of terms for ignorance and nastiness but there’s no term that explicitly combines them.
I suspect that ignorant is how nasty often starts.
Will Rogers noted that everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.
It’s true and understandable. It’s a big old world and we each just have our little trickle-stream of consciousness. We dip the paintbrush of our attention into that stream and dab a little of it on this or that. The rest we ignore. We couldn’t do otherwise. So much world, so little attention.
If we’re all ignorant, what makes someone an ignoramus? And beyond that, what turns them into an ignoranus: ignorant plus nasty?
When we call someone ignorant, we don’t probably mean that their stream of consciousness is a drier trickle than ours. With rare exceptions, we assume people have about as much attention to dab with. Rather, we mean they’re not paying attention to what we think is important.
To call someone ignorant is therefore subjective, though it usually doesn’t sound that way. We call someone ignorant as though it’s an objective fact as if we’re the objective authorities on what to attend to and what to ignore.
Lots of words get wielded with that kind of fake objectivity. We call people uncaring when they don’t care about what we care about. We call people pessimistic when they think something will go worse than we do. We call people arrogant as if it’s a fact when really it’s just our (arrogant) opinion.
What do we get when people can wield a word like “ignorant” with fake objectivity? We get warring factions calling each other ignorant.
Is there an objective standard for ignorance?
Yes and no. There’s the standard operative throughout life’s 3.8 billion year history.
No one can afford to ignore natural reality. If you do, you’ll be no one in no time — dead because natural reality doesn’t mess around.
So yes, there’s a standard that isn’t subjective. Ignoring natural reality is ignorant.
But no because there’s a whole lot of natural reality and you can’t attend to all of it. You have to prioritize, and prioritizing will be subjective.
Is there a way to prioritize more objectively?
Science yields us humankind’s best guesses at how to prioritize being realistic about natural reality for our survival.
If humankind has a lookout, it’s science. It can’t catch all threats and opportunities. It often mis-prioritizes. Still, you wouldn’t want to fire and replace science because all the alternative lookouts are worse.
We all know science is our best lookout even if we don’t all admit it. Even the people who insist science should be fired and replaced don’t mean it. You can tell by their behavior despite their talk. They trust science for their survival. The holiest of holy science bashers still rely on science for all their practical needs.
Science is often disappointing – not just boring but burdening. Coronavirus is a stone drag. Many of us hoped it would just go away. It would be nice if what we didn’t know couldn’t hurt us.
Ignorance is bliss, and it comes easy to us all, born yesterday and only dabbing at natural reality with our little paintbrushes. Even when ignorance isn’t bliss, it feels a whole lot better than attending to disappointing natural realities.
With the coronavirus, natural reality let us know it wasn’t messing around this time. Two million cases, 200,000 dead and counting. Very few of us are ignoring COVID-19.
But take slower-burning disappointments, like cancer from smoking or climate collapse from greenhouse gasses. Many of us ignore such disappointments.
Imagine ignoring a disappointing feature of natural reality and people nagging us, calling us ignorant for ignoring it. For example, imagine being a heavy smoker or drinker with people trying to intervene for our sake and theirs.
That’ll get annoying. So maybe we snarl to get them to shut up and back off.
And maybe they would. After all, it’s no fun being snarled at.
Ignorance is bliss but well-defended ignorance is blissier. Get nasty to shut out the nagging.
That well-defended ignorance is the bridge from being ignorant to being an ignoramus.
Or maybe they don’t back off. Now they’re nagging us for being defensive.
We’d want to ignore that too and it’s not hard. Just turn up the nasty. Or better yet, come up with any reason why we’re not being nasty but heroic, not defensive but defending something important.
So we call our ignorance something more positive-sounding: Call it right or righteous, clever or cunning, patriotic or spiritual. Whatever. We can ignore the details about that too. And if they keep nagging, just get nastier. The naggers are the problem, not us. Stick it to them. Flood the air with self-righteous accusations and outrage, a smokescreen to defend our defensiveness about our willful ignorance about disappointing aspects of natural reality.
With that, we cross the bridge ignoramus to an ignoranus. At that point, there’s no useful distinction between stupid and acting stupid for nasty power advantage. We needed nastiness to defend our ignorance which we justified with further nastiness.
Being an ignoranus shouldn’t pay but it often does. People get out of their way or bend to make room for them. It flummoxes people who think words have meanings since ignoranus don’t. And the gullible will be enthralled by it. Ignoranuses often end up with a fawning following.
Being an ignoranus is often lazy or indulgent but it isn’t always. It’s often circumstantial. Different people have different appetites, aptitudes, and opportunities.
Some people are education-deprived. Some are stuck with ignoranus role models, for example, born into a goon squad culture. Other people get lots of education and encouragement to respect natural reality and attend to our scientific lookouts. Some people so rich and powerful they can afford to be ignoranuses. Some are so poor and oppressed they can’t afford not to be. Non-ignoranuses shouldn’t get too proud of their respect for natural reality. It could be circumstantial.
Of course, natural reality doesn’t discriminate. It’s doesn’t cut ignoranuses any slack no matter how circumstantial their ignorance is. Being an ignoranus can pay socially but natural reality doesn’t care. You cross it, you’ll pay.
Here and here are two short videos I've made this month depicting the process by which someone can become an ignoranus. And here's my podcast series that puts that process in perspective.
