There was a time when I was impressed by strong opinions. Whether they came from a politician, a writer or a talk show host, he told me: “Wow, things are so clear!” When I started writing opinion columns seventeen years ago, I looked for knowledge under stones even though I had the same awareness of ignorance as today. Then he had it worse, since he had not yet given up learning any more of the six thousand languages spoken in the world or resuming piano and singing classes so he could imitate Nina Simone. At that time I had nightmares at night in which I considered issues to discuss in the articles although they all seemed regrettable to me. And already in the morning, after writing the piece, a tough doubt invaded me with which I mentally attacked my own theses.
“Admit your ignorance,” I often repeat to myself in the face of the habit of taking things for granted. How are our thoughts going to calm down if the futuristic story has us in a constant state of alarm? As I read Ignorance, a global history (Alianza Editorial / Arcàdia), by Peter Burke, I feel comforted. The eminent historian, 87, compiles the different classes labeled as such – “one more of the 57 varieties of Heinz sauces,” he jokes – which range from active to virtuous ignorance, including deliberate, unconscious or selective. A great family that, in the midst of the information age, extends further than its antagonist, knowledge. Burke calls “corporate ignorance” what caused Chernobyl to explode, or what emanates from multiple terrorist attacks whose warnings were silenced by the suffocating flow of information collected. Notices ignored in full display of ironclad security.
We live in times in which the roller of words assembled as ideological artifacts escape all quality control. There are hoaxes that end up becoming beliefs, to which the most pilgrims wield active ignorance. Burke gives as an example the resistance, in his time, to the theories of Copernicus, Darwin, Pasteur or Mendel. Denialisms seem to lighten the vital burden of those who support their truth with conspiracy theories. Montaigne summed it up briefly: “What do I know?” According to La Rochefoucauld, there are three types of ignorance: “Not knowing what should be known, knowing poorly what is known, and knowing what should not be known.”
The truth is an increasingly elusive concept in a world that handles fakes better than reality. Even so, the guardians of memory unearth names overshadowed by inertia, like those of so many eminent women. Until the 19th century, the color chart that we use today was not recognized; Only the so-called primary ones were identified, and I can't imagine what life would be like without aqua green or pearl gray.
We attend daily banquets of unenlightened ignorant people very comfortable in their skin, those who shout a lot and never hesitate. Their forms, lit with the gasoline of money, seduce. The model of the uneducated and rapturous world leader advances impassively, perhaps as a symptom of hopelessness, putting a false order before defenestrated well-being. Half-truths abound, which are nothing more than half-lies, while the desire for knowledge turns to artificial intelligence. In Olga Ravn's dystopian novel, The Employees (Anagrama), from a ship of no return they end up wondering if they are human or humanoid. It seems like a warning for the ignorant.
