To the layperson, there are subjects that simply never seem interesting. They only pay attention to these topics superficially, sticking to a surface-level knowledge of what they perceive as an endless stream of information — a stream that only serves to allow them to slip into conversations. It is, in essence, what Brel called “getting by”: a sickness of the soul that decides to settle for the minimum, accepting to never go beyond it. Such was the conviction of many thinkers, who saw in what they called “the people” a kind of intellectual laziness.
High Culture and Trickling Down
Although it is uncommon today to take a haughty stance toward someone who doesn’t yet know what we know, many early on judge those we’ll term “the ignorant” as possessing a deeper social malady, rooted in a popular culture that’s detached itself from “High Culture” as a source of knowledge. It would thus be the duty of knowledge holders to guide — to ground those who have lost their way and chosen to cut themselves off from the mentorship of higher learning.
Steiner wrote:
“Culture suffocates when confined to an elite; it flourishes only when accessible, without mediation, to all who thirst for it.”
He saw it as the responsibility of the wealthy classes to let knowledge “trickle down” from above, to act as gatekeepers and keep popular culture from “contaminating” the source. Thus, the ignorant become subject to the dominant social rules and submit to this cultural contamination without realizing it. Looking back, it’s easy to rationalize this panic among the privileged classes as an outcome of societal evolution: Man, freed from feudal and wage slavery, no longer follows the arduous path of social ascension but builds a culture of opposition — a machine that gave rise to all the popular subcultures of the 20th century.
If we follow this sociological reading, the elite “up top” suddenly saw themselves forced to claim they were “of the people,” appeasing those who, deceived, pointed out their disconnect. But these theories, while highlighting the limitations of Steiner’s views and those of his followers, overlook a core reason behind this writing: the right to information.
The Right to Information
The majority of readers of this essay will likely read it on a device that holds the entirety of human knowledge in the palm of their hand. And while I’m certainly not the first to say it, it’s evident that the trickling down that Steiner spoke of simply no longer exists. If there is hidden information, it’s restricted by state agents who view it as a potential public hazard. Today, nearly everything is known, for better or for worse. So this laziness of mind that allegedly compels people to submit to the “illness of Ignorance” — where does it come from?
Cultural Apathy
To begin, let’s revisit our definition: here, Ignorance is the conscious choice to limit access to certain knowledge, not from lack of opportunity, but from a desire to preserve a sense of identity amid the flood of information. It’s not a “laziness of mind,” but rather a protective system — a way of keeping one’s existence intact in the face of an overstimulated world.
Can we, then, refute Brel by asking if it’s okay to “just get by”? Can one seek inner stability by choosing to ignore information deemed superfluous? Cultural Apathy, which some see as taking hold within popular communities, is it something that can sincerely be reduced to simple laziness? Anecdotally, could the overwhelmed man, burdened with responsibilities and choosing not to wade into the ocean of daily news, be representative of someone who simply has no time to plunge into it? Or perhaps it’s the adolescent, free in time, who finds too intense a stimulus in deepening certain knowledge?
There are identity markers we are not always conscious of. A cultural filter allows us to gravitate toward subjects we truly care about, figuratively “making room” for superficial information layered over our core interests. Certainly, Information is easier to access today, but perhaps that very accessibility fuels the desire for Ignorance — the desire to join communities containing only the essential information, free of elements we’d rather avoid. This enables membership in a group that gradually develops a broad subculture: islands of specialization.
The Myth of Ignorance
These islands of cultural stability create an environment that generates a strong sense of belonging. Jokes only understood by initiates, a syntax or even an entire language of their own that, by itself, makes any outsider feel like an intruder in these corners of the web — knowledge, even popular knowledge, is no longer an institutionalized system but a collective creation where the Ignorance of external information becomes a structuring choice.
Faced with these new realities, the idea of a “sickly” Ignorance becomes an obsolete concept. Our contemporaries make cultural autonomy — and a more superficial approach to other subjects — an essential element of their relationship with culture and, by extension, with information. This is a new social system, where the desire to ignore frees one from the obligation to know everything and submit to others’ communities.
Conclusion
When deconstructed, Ignorance initially appears as a former, true lack of access to information, with elites historically being the sole keepers of knowledge and therefore responsible for its dissemination. However, with universal access, opposition fades, giving way to increasingly fragmented subcultures that evolve within a vast “sea of information.” This phenomenon creates an escape where people can congratulate themselves on having carved out a space free of the superfluous. It’s a response to the world that deserves to be seen as a choice and not as an “illness” for which we should hold the age accountable.
- yaro