The Upside of Ignorance; the Downside of Knowledge

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
    the more knowledge, the more grief.
--Ecclesiastes 1:18

"Ignorance is bliss; 't is folly to be wise."
--Thomas Gray

* * * 

It's interesting. We live in what has been called the information age. We're completely inundated with information on nearly anything we want to learn more about. Has this made us happier?  

There are a variety of ways in which ignorance can be more satisfying than knowledge. Here are a few examples that I've observed.

In my article Data Analytics: The Three Most Important People in the Room, I show one way in which company decision makers can be happily self-deceived by ignoring the risk factors with regard to a desired decision. 

As has often been noted, "we don't know what we don't know." Sometimes this ignorance is simply a lack of experience. Sometimes, it is the result of our own efforts to block out what we don't want to hear. 

In the political realm two instances come to mind. When the governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, some of his efforts to make a positive impact were thwarted because he brought his own team of people he trusted to Washington, people who didn't really understand how to get things done in the Federal realm. They were ignorant because of their lack of experience inside the Beltway.

According to Michael Lewis in The Fifth Risk, this ignorance of how things work at the Federal level was amplified more than ten-fold when Donald Trump was elected because it was a willful ignorance. The incoming president didn't understand the complexity involved in the transition process. When former governor Chris Christie saw this he stepped up to assist in what is generally one of the biggest challenges of a new administration. According to Lewis, the newly elected president chose to shut his ears.  

Lewis went on to cite Jared Kushner's surprise that when taking over the government the incoming leadership team has to appoint all new department heads to run everything. Kushner assumed that the people working there would still be at their posts, as would happen when a new CEO takes over a company. 

A reviewer of The Fifth Risk at Amazon.com wrote these thoughts, which were the impetus for today's blog post:

Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.

* * * 

It happens in boardrooms. It happens in government. It happens in life. There are no sure things when it comes to the future. Life involves risk. How to find the balance between worrying too much and too little about every little thing is just one problem we face. If we knew how many ways our little world could be upended in the next 24 hours, we might never be able to sleep. 

Some disasters are unavoidable. Others, however, are set in motion by willful ignorance. 

For example, an acquaintance of mine was hospitalized for eight days due to a health-related condition that he'd ignored. It almost cost him his life. When I spoke with him afterwards, his sage advice was this: "Don't ignore the signs."

Disasters (generally) don't just happen. Whether running a country or just taking care of your own day-to-day health--both physical and mental--you usually have clues when things need to be addressed.  

* * * 

All these things reminded me of the Rolling Stones hit single, "Mother's Little Helper".

     "Kids are different today, " I hear every mother say
     Mother needs something today to calm her down
     And though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill
     She goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper

And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day  

The song is about pill-popping as a way of escape. Of course there are other ways people self-medicate, choosing to avoid rather than face issues. The end result, whether it's a car, a business, your health or a relationship, is a breakdown.

* * * 

Life is hard, and knowledge can be painful. How we choose to address all the issues that we grapple with is up to us.  

One useful starting point might be what is known as The Serenity Prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept   

the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can, 

And wisdom to know the difference.”