Word of the Day: Ignorance
I’m sure most of us have heard the saying "ignorance is bliss.” The idea is that ignorance can support a feeling of happiness. What’s interesting to me is that ignorance is also sometimes used as an insult. There are both positive and negative expressions involving ignorance. I enjoy investigating contradictions and seeing where they might meet in the middle.
Today we’ll dive into the meaning of ignorance and explore the history of the word through etymology.
ignorance (noun) : lack of knowledge or information
ignorant (adjective) : lacking wisdom or knowledge; unaware
Root words of ignorance include the Old French word ignorant and Latin ignorantem meaning “not knowing, ignorant.” Another related root word is the Latin word ignorare which means “not to know, to be unacquainted; mistake, misunderstand; take no notice of, pay no attention to.” Ignore is made up of the prefix in- meaning “not, opposite of” and Old Latin gnarus meaning “aware, aquainted with.” The PIE root is *gno- meaning “to know.”
These days, I typically hear ignorance used as an insult. From context clues, I gather that often when someone uses ignorance in this way they mean rude, uneducated, unintelligent, or unkind. I do not see any of these words used in the definition or history of ignorance. As we discussed when sharing about the word toxic, sometimes words become overused and lose their true meaning.
If someone were to call us ignorant, there’s a good chance we might be offended. This is true despite the fact that we do not know everything and ignorant means not knowing.
Part of the reason behind this is that intention imbues words with feeling. We may recognize that we are ignorant in some ways and still feel a sting when someone uses the word with negative intention. Receiving a word spoken with love feels very different from receiving a word spoken with anger. This is a core principle in sound healing — intention affects sound.
One way we see the word ignorance used is in the concept of “willful ignorance.” This usage also skews towards the negative in connotation. Willful ignorance is conscious avoidance of truth, responsibility, learning, or consequence. To be willfully ignorant is to remain deliberately uninformed. Reasons one may choose to remain uninformed include: avoiding responsibility for a consequence, staying out of other people’s affairs, not wanting to admit truth, maintaining positive image of self and others, and avoiding implication in a crime.
Here again, we see that intention changes the feeling of a word. Willful ignorance and unintentional ignorance have a different connotation despite both involving a lack of knowledge or information.
We also see ignorance used in the phrase “ignorance is bliss.” This phrase originated from an 18th century poem by Thomas Gray called “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” The original line from the poem reads, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”
The idea behind this line, or at least by interpretation, is that sometimes it is happier to not know the truth. Sometimes ignorance, willful or otherwise, is more comfortable than knowing all of the information. I have also heard it expressed in this way — “a lack of knowledge equals an absence of concern.”
Ignorance is in fact a neutral word. It simply means not knowing. Despite being educated and experienced, there are so many things I do not know. There is still so much to learn. As someone who highly values learning, I find this exciting!
Lessons I glean from exploring ignorance are that words are infused with the qualities of our intentions, there is always more to learn, and truth — though uncomfortable at times — conquers all.
