Is Ignorance Bliss?

I got into a very good discussion with a student about the ignorance-is-bliss assertion. I then got into another discussion of it (sort of) with my friend Leah and her friend (and my friend) Kaiden (which I forgot to mention is not his real name). They asked me one night to explain my analysis, but I was lazy and enjoying just hanging out on FaceTime; I did not feel like going into professor mode. “I’m the laziest devil to ever stand in shoe leather.” —Sherlock Homes

So, is ignorance bliss? My initial response is to say no, that ignorance is ignorance. There’s nothing particularly blissful about it. But then folks will point out that not being ignorant brings with it a certain set of woes. If I am aware of all the bad in the world, it’s going to have a depressing effect. I suppose that is partly true.

But I would suggest that we take a closer look at the word “bliss.” The question is then: Are the people unburdened by the harder things in life happier? Does bliss = happiness? And if it does, what kind of happiness are we talking about?

There is having fun at a party happiness. This happiness, I would argue—as would Plato and Aristotle—that this happiness is pleasurable. It’s thin. It’s here today, gone tomorrow. In a sense, it’s cheap. Laughing your head off at the party is surely enjoyable. But it lacks depth. It does not enrich your life.

The happiness I would say that has greater depth, one that does indeed offer enrichment, is the happiness the Greeks called eudaimonia. This is a deep, contemplative, abiding happiness. It is a long-term investment.

This is what philosopher John Stuart Mill is talking about in his essay on utilitarianism when he says that it is better to be Socrates unsatisfied than a pig or a fool satisfied. Mill is pointing out that it is easy to satisfy a pig or a fool. It takes almost nothing. But for Socrates, it’s three steps forward, two steps back: he wrestles with intellectual problems, things weigh on him. It’s not cheap and easy happiness. Yet, is the fool happier? Sitting on his barstool, getting high while playing video games all day?

I would say the fool is less alive, that he or she is doing something less than living. They are, in a sense, hiding from the world. They fear being connected to the world. They, like the fool, are children—just tall ones. Becoming educated and informed is to march toward eudaimonia. It connects you to the world. Furthermore, it accentuates your responsibility as a person living in the world, as someone embedded in a society. Adults confront their responsibility; cowards and fools and children evade it.

So, is ignorance bliss? I would say ignorance is weakness. Would we prefer weakness over strength? Because when we say ignorance is bliss, that is what we are saying. We are saying ignorance is pleasurable and preferred. We are saying it’s better to be a child than an adult. It’s better to hide from responsibility; it’s better to be disconnected; it’s better to be a coward.

Only strength can lead us to eudaimonia. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s the opposite.

My Friend Leah—update 2

As you can see, I have included a photo of Leah with her two friends. I thought it might be a good image to obscure her identity and post with the next update. Leah came up with the butterfly stratagem.

Leah is approaching week two at her residential facility. It’s been a mixed experience. The facility itself is beautiful; one couldn’t ask for nicer accommodations. But Leah’s situation is, to say the least, unique. We were skeptical if the staff there could meet her needs. However, that seems to be improving.

We had an interesting evening earlier in the week. I received a phone call at around 7 or 8 pm from a number I did not recognize. Upon answering, the woman on the other end said, “Is Craigory there?” I replied, “Who’s speaking?” But I was thinking, “Did she just call me Craigory??” Leah calls me Craigory as a nickname (long story), and that is how I appear in her phone. I said it was me, and she put me on the phone with the … EMT.

“Hi, this is Jessie, and I’m from the fire department.” I tersely replied, “Why is the fire department there?” Jessie said the staff found Leah on the floor, that she’d had a panic attack, and called 911. Jessie asked me, “Does Leah have any medical issues we should be aware of?” I said that there were too many to condense into a quick chat.

After requesting I be left on speaker phone to listen in, Jessie began asking Leah the usual questions: “Leah, do you know what day it is? How many quarters are there in a dollar?” I could tell the way Leah was mumbling that something was wrong. I said, “Jessie, um, she has dissociative identity disorder, and you might not be talking to Leah.” Jessie replied, “Good to know.”

Her vitals were fine, and I spoke with Leah shortly thereafter. She had indeed switched. Jessie was not talking to Leah.

Leah recently entered a new phase of “twilight,” as I call it. Sometimes people with dementia can get worse when the sun goes down. Leah has been having such difficulties, despite not having dementia. After 3 pm, she can bottom out, start having suicidal thoughts—called “suicidal ideation”—and switch; it’s up for grabs. Sometimes she’s fine. It just depends.

Last night was fair to middling. She was taking her frustrations out on a floor-mounted punching bag. It looks like a speed bag that wobbles on a thin stand. Leah wasn’t wearing full boxing gloves, but smaller training gloves. I was really proud of her. She looked kinda bad ass, and I could see that it was doing her a lot of good.

She had not eaten much that day, so I was on her case (as I usually am) about getting at least a small amount of food in her. There was much discussion over a pear—too much any one pear deserves.

So, she made her way to the kitchen. There she bumped into one of her buddies, Kaiden. He is a younger fellow, quite funny, and irritatingly has fabulous hair. He is very sharp.

At one point he was telling me something and used the phrase “with regular frequency.” He then corrected himself and said “Those two words are the same, never mind.” Later I said, “Kaiden, I don’t mean to be obnoxious, but can I tell you something?” He said, “Sure.” I pointed out that regular and frequency are not synonymous. He very quickly said, “Ah yes, regular is consistency and frequency is speed of consistency.” I became the proud professor.

I really like Kaiden. But his hair I’ll just have to learn to tolerate.

On balance, Leah is doing well. She wants to come home. Being gone is hard for her. I try to be supportive, but sometimes I just offer platitudes and become tiresome instead of reassuring.

When she leaves, she’s going to sorely miss her new four-legged friends.

Oh, I have a nickname for Leah, as well: it’s Cuckoo Bird. She did not love it at first, but now she does. At least I’m 78 percent certain.

Leah the Auteur

 My friend Leah sent me this video she made today. She put a very lovely song over it, and I must say it had me almost emotional. Maybe it’s the song, maybe it’s my connection to Leah. But I found it meditative and sweet. I just wanted to share it.

Curious there’s a fence, because usually Leah is right in the mix with the animals. But there it is.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Blogger is not processing the video. See my Instagram profile.

My Friend Leah—an update

I mentioned my friend Leah in a recent post about my re-reading of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She battles dissociative identity disorder (DID), more commonly known as “multiple personality disorder.” It’s the brain’s way of dealing with trauma and abuse at an early age, which Leah was treated to an abundance of as a girl.

I will not go into specifics, but what I have to tell would keep you up at night. Society jokes about being scarred for life. Leah is. Due to the trauma, her mind has fragmented and has become compartmentalized. One might say it became modular.

As mentioned, Leah is not her real name. As a matter of fact, she hates that name. But it’s the one that I selected, and she is stuck with it. She’s absolutely thrilled.

At any rate, she is currently in a residential mental-health facility. It’s quite nice, located in a secluded and scenic area. They have goats and pigs. I have seen them on FaceTime, and I kept urging Leah to go pet one of the pigs, but they were too far. Leah is well accustomed to me acting like a four-year-old.

We bicker endlessly. Like children. “You’re weird” “No, you’re weird!” “You are!” We recently got into one of our bickering matches, and Leah said, “Is this all we do??” To which I replied, “It’s about 80 percent of it.”

She has had a rough few weeks. Leah bottoms out. Think of the trough of a sine curve. When the emotions get too intense, she is prone to “switching.” This is when one of the parts or alters (personalities) comes to the front. I have talked to a number of these. How many? Hard to say. I would say maybe six. There are fifteen in total.

A few nights ago we were talking, and Leah looked off. I asked her if she was okay. The eyes are always a dead give-away. They go dull and start darting to and fro. She had switched.

I ended up having a rather lovely half-hour conversation with Bailee (not the alter’s name). She now knows her codename is Bailee, and she doesn’t much care for it. “That’s a weird name.” But there it is.

During our conversation, she asked some interesting questions. She said, “She [Leah] loves you.” I replied that I loved Leah as well. Then Bailee said, “But we’re kinda the same person, so what does that mean for me? I replied, “I love you both, of course.” “You love me?” “Yes, Bailee, I love you.” She smiled and said no one had ever said that to her before.

She began painting during our chat. I’ve been nudging Leah in that direction for a while now. Not necessarily “pushing” it, just encouraging it. I think she loves it—hard to say. She definitely enjoys buying art supplies, that’s for sure.

At first she was apprehensive. She didn’t want to fail—something she fears in general. I said, “It’s art. You’re 100 percent going to fail. You’ll paint one crap painting, then another, then another. You might paint fifty crap paintings, but on painting 51, you might be like, ‘Huh, that’s interesting.’ Then it begins.” But Leah is already conducting interesting experiments.

Her last painting, however, was … um, not great. We laughed hysterically. “Okay, it’s not your best work,” I said, trying to be supportive. But then I said, you’ve done two interesting things here. After pointing them out, I said, “Let’s commit those two ideas to memory.”

So, back to Bailee. She begins painting, and she says “Do you think we [Leah and I] can have different abilities?” I said, “Of course you can. However, you do paint like her.” She replied, “I think we both like red.” “Yes, it would seem so,” I said laughing.

Near the end of our conversation—we both desperately needed to get some sleep—Bailee asked me, “How come you don’t write about us anymore?” (I was impressed she knew and remembered.) I pointed out that I had only done the one essay—and a half-essay at that. She said, “Can you write about us some more?” I said that I would, hence this piece.

Bailee, this essay is for you. And thanks, Leah, for letting me post it. I love you and I believe in you—and that goes for Bailee, too. Of course.

Detectorists

A friend recommended this British comedy series. I found it endearing and charming. It's about two metal detector hobbyists, Lance and Andy (played by Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook),—they're called detectorists!—who are best friends. The series is calm, rather funny, and humane. It's really unlike any series I've seen.

There are also two rival detectorists—Lance and Andy's arch enemies, really—who happen to look like Simon and Garfunkle. When the four exchange words, which occurs frequently, one of our detectorists invariably cites a line from a Simon and Garfunkle song. Lance and Andy then always fist bump. I love this.

If you're looking for calm and charming and light, this is the series for you.

https://tubitv.com/series/300006335/detectorists

The Arrogance of Ignorance

Note: This is kind of a footnote I am putting at the beginning of my essay. It simply runs through the generations’ dates.

• Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964)

• Generation X (1965–1980)

• Millennials (1981–1996)

• Generation Z (1997–2012)

• Generation Alpha (2013–2025?)


Okay, this essay was inspired by Gen Z. My students know that I am not casually critical of their generation. I am not one of these self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, blowhard Gen Xers (or Boomers) who pat themselves on the back for riding their bikes without helmets when they were children. Wow, what an inspiration you are.

The Boomers also love to punch down at the Millennials and Gen Z for being fragile and wimpy; this is because the Boomers are—like my generation—impressed with themselves for being rugged and resilient.

Point of order: What two generations have brought the country to a low point? Why do we not have universal healthcare? Why is there a sociopathic circus clown in the White House? Why is the infrastructure falling down around our ears? Why is Wall Street signing us up for another 2008? Gen X and the Boomers, in all their rugged resilience, are responsible for the worst political cowardice and compliance maybe this country has ever seen.

So, to reiterate, I do not casually criticize Gen Z. I do in fact have a lot of experience with them. I spend five days a week in their company and have for years. I am familiar with their culture. And that said, I have noticed something that I cannot unsee.

Now, this behavior is not peculiar to Gen Z. It can be found in all generations. It’s prevalent in my generation, the Boomers seem to traffic in it, and the Millennials are not innocent of it.

Maybe it’s an American phenomenon; I’ll have to think on that a bit more. For now, I’m going to proceed like it is indeed an American phenomenon.

But like I said, it clicked first while observing Gen Z. I noticed that there lies a deep (and eerily quiet) arrogance in their culture. How did I arrive at this conclusion? Consider the following argument:

Premise 1: There exists among Gen Z culture (and others) the thinking that “If I don’t know it, it’s not important.”

Premise 2: The contrapositive of that conditional statement is “If it’s important, then I know it.” Contraposition is valid. (The contrapositive of a conditional statement is going from If P then Q, to If not Q then not P—valid.)

We proceed:

Premise 3: A person who knows all important things is intellectually complete.

Premise 4: Anyone who is intellectually complete is perfect.

Conclusion: The person who holds this view operates from the assumption that they are perfect.

And there it is. The ignorance that prevails in the culture (American culture) betrays an almost pathological arrogance. I know people who are 18 who think this way; I know people who are 78 who think this way.

But I am most concerned about Gen Z. I like them. I want more and better for them. I am honest with them. I share analytical observations with them—critical ones—that they don’t necessarily want to hear. But what kind of intellectual would I be if I did not tell people what they don’t want to hear?

I don’t want to see Gen Z make this terrible mistake. I don’t want to see them act like Boomers. The way to go through life—if one wishes for a richer life—is to live with a sense of curiosity and wonder. One must live one’s life open to new information, new ways of thinking, and new experiences. For all their very good qualities, I just don’t see this in Gen Z. And it scares me.

Episode 17

Well, we finally got copyright scolded by YouTube. Not badly, just a note. At 5:36 in the episode, we had Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" accompanying the text, which was originally posted up by some jamoke. So, I though we could use the audio at least. I was wrong. I then opted for YouTube to delete the audio, and they did a poor job. We therefore did a new version, where the text beginning at 5:36 is now accompanied by silence. I think this might be even better than the Hendrix. 

We lost our viewer count—39!—but at least now we're fully compliant.

Thought you should know.