RFP Staff
♦ “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley
The Urban Dictionary Defines Willful Ignorance as: “The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs.”
According to Rational Wiki: “Willful Ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict one’s inner model of reality. At heart, it is almost certainly driven by confirmation bias.
It differs from the standard definition of “ignorance“ — which just means that one is unaware of something — in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them. Indeed, calling someone “ignorant” shouldn’t really be a pejorative, but intentional and willful ignorance is an entirely different matter. In practice though, the word “ignorance” has often come to mean “willful ignorance”, and indeed, in many non-English languages, the word based on the same stem actually carries that meaning.
It is sometimes referred to as tactical stupidity.
Depending on the nature and strength of an individual’s pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet one’s expectations. Often excuses will be made, stating that the source is unreliable, that the experiment was flawed or the opinion is too biased. More often than not this is simple circular reasoning: “I cannot agree with that source because it is untrustworthy because it disagrees with me”.
In other slightly more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the person’s worldview. With regard to oneself, this can even extend to fake locked-in syndrome with complete unresponsiveness. Or with regard to others, to outright censorship of the material from others.”
Surely we’ve seen persons who attempt to deny and suppress information contrary to their beliefs. They don’t want to “talk about it” or they hurriedly change the subject. Perhaps they utilize a simple mental brush stroke to quash what they are hearing by minimizing the speaker. “Oh they’re too negative” or “they must by lying.” Often persons suffering from “willful ignorance” fail to examine the evidence by “trusting their feelings”. The challenge is feelings will support any long held or habitual belief. At one time persons believed the Earth was flat or that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Their feelings supported those beliefs. The challenge is feelings are not facts or evidence.
Is there a reality or truth we are resisting or ignoring?
