Feigned Ignorance

Feigned ignorance is veiled denial. It is a primary tool of propagandists and deceivers. When we want to make a point and go out of our way to ignore the facts to win our argument, who do we think we’re fooling? Often, not the people we think we are. Usually we end up “fooling” the people who agree with us already. Unfortunately, they might not know the ignored facts and end up thinking the argument is reasonable. Suddenly the rest of us are burdened with an unknowingly ignorant population, who more often are as unreasonable as they are ignorant. When the facts are introduced they are predisposed not to believe them, because now they would have to throw out all they think they “know” to then accept they’re wrong. This is a very hard pill to swallow for most people. Denial is frequently the more comfortable choice. Those who would spin the truth are doing all of us a disservice. They polarize us and create divisiveness, frequently out of nothing.