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Why do we engage in wilful ignorance?
- hilux 3y agoThat was so convoluted that I understood literally nothing. But I can answer the title question: we engage in willful ignorance because it is physically impossible to consider all the consequences of all our possible actions, all the second-order consequences, and so on. Even trying to do so would be paralyzing. Therefore we make choices based on incomplete consideration of incomplete facts, and we commit to those choices because it's all we can do.
- wjb3 3y agoIt seems like a distinction is necessary here between what I would call "necessary ignorance" and willful ignorance. While it is true that we cannot know all the consequences of our actions (necessary ignorance), so we resort to heuristics to avoid paralysis - as you suggest - it is also true that we sometimes resist easily knowable information (willful ignorance), rather than confront the cognitive dissonance that taking it on might induce.