Ignorance is Freedom

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
— from Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Ode”

Indeed, ignorance is bliss, but in a deeper sense, it’s freedom. Recently after reading a blog post over at the most excellent Basement.org (with an awesome title like “Google, Corn Syrup And Treadmills : Our Boundless Desire For Achievement And Inconvenience” I coudn’t resist) I started digging around. I remember my dad telling me about Neil Postman, a few times actually, growing up. I didn’t understand much who he was, or what he was talking about, but the name remained with me over the years.

Postman passed away in 2003, but even so, was around long enough to start analyzing the Internet and what I may, in my youthful ignorance, call the “Modern Age.” I started combing through some excerpts and transcripts available online, and stumbled across a speech he made in 1990 called “Informing Ourselves to Death” (this a variation on his seminal work’s title, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”). I have taken a fairly large chunk out of it to expound on my idea here, or whatever I’m trying to say (emphasis is mine):

But I think there is still another and more important conclusion to be drawn, related to Orwell’s point but rather off at a right angle to it. I am referring to the fact that the world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact — whether actual or imagined — that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction. We believe because there is no reason not to believe. No social, political, historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual reason. We live in a world that, for the most part, makes no sense to us. Not even technical sense. I don’t mean to try my experiment on this audience, especially after having told you about it, but if I informed you that the seats you are presently occupying were actually made by a special process which uses the skin of a Bismark herring, on what grounds would you dispute me? For all you know — indeed, for all I know — the skin of a Bismark herring could have made the seats on which you sit. And if I could get an industrial chemist to confirm this fact by describing some incomprehensible process by which it was done, you would probably tell someone tomorrow that you spent the evening sitting on a Bismark herring.

Perhaps I can get a bit closer to the point I wish to make with an analogy: If you opened a brand-new deck of cards, and started turning the cards over, one by one, you would have a pretty good idea of what their order is. After you had gone from the ace of spades through the nine of spades, you would expect a ten of spades to come up next. And if a three of diamonds showed up instead, you would be surprised and wonder what kind of deck of cards this is. But if I gave you a deck that had been shuffled twenty times, and then asked you to turn the cards over, you would not expect any card in particular — a three of diamonds would be just as likely as a ten of spades. Having no basis for assuming a given order, you would have no reason to react with disbelief or even surprise to whatever card turns up.

The point is that, in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.

The feeling seems to permeate throughout modern culture: I’m not surprised. We live in an age where information is only a click away, we don’t want to be left behind the curve, we feed on information, we process it, obsess over it. There are patterns that have emerged on how people process the Internet, how information is communicated, we are foraging for what we believe may be the answer to a question we have yet to ask. “Well, at least now I know, and knowing is half the battle!” We have read so much, seen so much, been exposed to more than we have ever been exposed to before, so why should anything surprise us? And what if we were surprised, would that make us gullible? Naive? Would people think less of us if we let it slip that we don’t actually keep up on such-and-such?

Historically knowledge was hard to come-by: Before the printing press, only the rich and the religiously devout could have such a luxury as a book. So now that there is so much information, we have decided that we’re going to take it all in, as much as we can, fill ourselves up with it, busy ourselves with it.

But today, as I was thinking again about these concepts, something else struck me: Ignorance is freedom. I suppose it is very similar to “ignorance is bliss” but it’s different: “bliss” denotes more of a state of stupor, of simple contentment, while “freedom” is more focused, more intelligent. When Postman said “We believe because there is no reason not to believe.” it’s a double-edged statement.

Not having any reason to not believe means we can’t, ever, truly know something to be false (check out Epistemology for super interesting philosophical ideas on how we know anything at all). On the other hand, it also means that we don’t ever know when something is true. What I’m attempting to convey here is that we don’t know our limitations, thus, we are empowered to “dream the dreams” without reservation. Not understanding what can and can’t be done (by conventional wisdom) means that we do not have a solid anchor to hold us back. Although I sometimes wish for more of that “anchor” feeling in my life, the lack of it tells me that I am free to do anything, because nothing is absolute. At least in the realm of web design and development.

I don’t know many worlds in which, when you talk to a client about a project of theirs, nothing is out of reach. If I don’t know how to do it, I bet I know somebody who does, or I bet I can find out. Would you like a $2500 brochure site or a $100,000 social/ad network? Do you have an idea that could make a trillion dollars? We can make it come to life for you. We can do whatever we want, we can dream whatever we want, we can control and influence, we can evoke emotion and convey knowledge.

As designers and developers we have the opportunity to exercise that lack of set limitations and create something that millions of people will be exposed to, by their own volition.

World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
— from Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Ode”

Disclaimer: This post is a massive over-simplification of multiple concepts, but broad generalizations is the only way to tackle huge, complex themes.

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Love = Heart

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On Risk

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