These days, ignorance is bliss

John Merli
Published: March 19, 2008

If it’s really true that “ignorance is bliss,” and I believe it is, then such ignorance will never come in handier than in these troubling days of economic uncertainty, the see-saw presidential campaign and overall global unrest. The less we know about all of these potentially unnerving topics, the happier we are, and if you believe some of the polls lately (always a risky business) there are a great many of us enjoying bountiful amounts of shocking ignorance. But I suspect many of us know how much we don’t know, so maybe we should call it “willful ignorance” for the sake of candor.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sort of thankful that I’m no monetary expert when it comes to following the day-by-day ups and downs (literally) of the stock market. The other day on CNBC (which I tune into every five years when it appears Wall Street is about to implode) they mentioned when this big bank, Bear Stearns, lost nearly its entire stock value overnight, some poor guy lost nearly $1 billion in a single day.

Thanks to some basic ignorance about financial matters which I’ve learn to cherish over the years, I was sort of relieved that I couldn’t relate to this poor slob (much less his billion dollars) because I figure how hard would it have been for him to just keep the money in some everyday savings account and merely live on the annual interest generated by a billion dollars? How many of us couldn’t live pretty darn well on the hundreds of thousands a dollars a year that would be?

I also figured if someone could have enough money to actually lose a billion overnight, especially knowing how risky the market has been lately, how much more money might he have stashed away somewhere that losing a billion overnight was even possible? Don’t you just hate people who have so much money they really can’t keep track of how much they might lose? And maybe not knowing how dire the situation really might be is a good thing for some of us since we have no power to correct it, unless fretting somehow helps.

Willful ignorance of other major events also seems to serve a purpose, especially if you don’t like to feel depressed or anguished over things. Recent polls have indicated that most Americans are not the least bit aware of the official casualty numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan, now that daily coverage of have been largely bumped off the front page by the economy and the presidential race. Among other things, this seems to indicate that a large percentage of people read only the front page of the paper (and maybe the sports section) and the best way to hide a story is to tuck it inside somewhere. (Of course, I’ve always heard that the brightest people make it a habit to read the Opinion page very day, so as you’re reading this, I’m sure you’d agree.)

While a lot of people think the death toll in Iraq is “around 2,000” as we enter the sixth year of combat this month, others have no idea what it is. Sadly, the truth is it’s just about to reach the 4,000 mark of American military deaths. As usual, the civilian toll is many times higher. But not knowing this, or at least keeping it out of direct line-of-sight of the casual observer, means we don’t have to think about it. And if we don’t have to think about it, it’s not a problem, yes? Or so we tell ourselves.

The fact that there are far more ways of getting (and sending) news and information by more people to more people than even a decade ago poses an odd irony, since it seems the typical American’s awareness factor of the world around him remains abysmally low.

I suppose especially when news is bad, it’s human nature to avoid it more than usual.

Ignorance, indeed, can be bliss -—except for those who may have a lot to lose, and there are probably a lot more of us in that category than we care to admit. Even to ourselves.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984 and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at