Ignorance: Everything You Need to Know about Not Knowing

The flip side of knowledge is ignorance. This book explores the vast scope of ignorance, even in an age when we think we know more than ever before. By marking off this ocean of ignorance into manageable categories, the author provides a kind of navigational chart to the unknown, and a series of red flags to all those who claim certitude.

The book first lays out the many branches of ignorance–in education, the media, politics, religion, science, and other major institutions. It then assesses the costs and consequences of that ignorance. World conflicts, endemic poverty, environmental damage, waste, racism, and the manipulative forces of industry and politics that use propaganda to manipulate the public may all be seen as rooted in ignorance.

But there are positive aspects of ignorance as well. Scientists and artists, by recognizing what they don’t know, are spurred on to new creative approaches and discoveries, which would never be found by those too comfortable with the tried and true.

The author cites Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle declared to be the wisest of all people simply because he realized how much he didn’t know. This book gives you ways to follow in the path that Socrates forged, to counter the closed minds whose false sense of certainty cannot help but distort reality, and to be better prepared to take on even the most serious challenges of today.