Leadership & Ignorance

John O’Neil
March 14, 2017

Now is a propitious time to reflect on leadership and its relationship to understanding and ignorance.  At this time in the United States, we have a new president transitioning into office, another who has just transitioned out and four other, living past presidents.  Also, a Russian president who has occupied the Office for seventeen years and is a figure of Global prominence.

In exercising the art of leadership, there are two fundamental options to be pursued.   One is to focus on unifying messages, mutual understanding, aspirational feelings and the language and content which reflect that ambition.  The other is to sell the hot, nasty, bits which appeal to and reinforce ignorance.

Americans have often looked to home spun philosophers for wisdom. They have trusted Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Samuel Clements, Will Rogers, May West, John Gardner, H.L. Menken and cartoon characters like Peanuts, Pogo, and Doonesbury. These “folks” spoke plainly and wisely.

Pogo, the cartoon brainchild of Walt Kelly, was a possum, a shrewd animal who survived by his wits. One of his classic aphorisms – “we have met the enemy and he is us” was quoted again and again. Because it is true. We are our worst enemy, especially how we learn, or don’t, as a society.

One of the signs of a culture that is decaying is a lack of common, plain language we can trust. Today’s society is divided into digital pockets and communications are designed to appeal to quite narrow portals of consumers and voters. 

Different messengers with carefully crafted messages appeal to particular audiences. They aim to not only sell to their special crowds, but they also go much further to alienate them from others. Fear and anger are often embedded in the messaging, look, and feel of these communication strategies. Long ago social scientist learned how to control people with appeals to the reptilian brain. It is standard procedure for would-be dictators and tyrants. They always sell the hot, nasty, bits; they reinforce ignorance.

Good leaders search for unifying messages, mutual understanding, aspirational feelings and their language and content reflect that ambition. They want followers who have common interests in learning, growing in competence; and a spirit of caring for their neighbors, close by and far away.

The subject of ignorance is dicey in part because it is most often used to label an enemy as unworthy or even subhuman. Ignorance as a label is almost always projected on others, but not turned on ourselves. And yet the most dangerous form of ignorance is our own lack of self-knowledge. We fail to know whom we really are, preferring to hide behind a mask, a persona we eventually decide is our true self. We live a great lie.

The timing for spreading, or viraling (ugh, I did it), ignorance is perfect since we have clear choices about how, when and where we get information. By selecting our special diets of sensationalized facts we can stay comfortable in our knowing. We can avoid awkward, confounding information, and certainly knowledge and wisdom, by simply changing the channel. We can find our tribe and feel the comfort of not knowing.

What makes these diseases so virulent is that they are truly airborne. Every slice of the “white bread and sugary news” is tailored to fit your tastes and to feed you in your happy bias bubble.

We live in what C.G. Jung called “the dark collective unconscious”. He and others saw this dark cloud of ignorance and prejudice building day by day across Europe as the Nazi messaging machine did its nefarious work and resistance melted away.

There are many forms of ignorance, but the most virulent starts with the belief that we know more than we actually do and what we know is superior to others. That thinking, which is the core of arrogance, or hubris, is fatal. The condition starts with the source of our information and knowledge. If we get our news and opinions from the same consistent sources we are heading into ignorance. And, once we live inside a loop of streaming words and images, we are trapped in a never-ending cycle of propaganda, cossetted by the purveyors to grow comfortable and proud of our biased views.

Not only do more and more people travel increasingly narrow alleys of viewpoints and beliefs, but also they learn to fear people in other similarly narrowing worlds. This tendency to sip the same cool-aid with like-minded people guarantees that encounters between them and others will be non-productive, full of projections and often hatred. The ability to listen or read open-mindedly begins to diminish and differing news are viewed as hostile apostasy to be defended against, stomped out as dangerous.

There are many ways for ignorance to prevail. Children and adults can be denied learning opportunities. Or, what they are offered as education can be merely an indoctrination into a belief system, too often religious. Or, learning can be too narrow, devoid of humanity; disconnected from moral dilemmas and self-awareness. What comprises a complete education goes far beyond fact gathering, technique absorbing, or becoming a true believer in a cult.

Ignorance is too often a pejorative term of judgment of one pointing fingers at others who lack their knowledge. In fact we are all ignorant. As Will Rogers said, “we are all ignorant about different things”. We have no formal taxonomy of ignorance, but at the top would be the ignorance created by hubris, isolation, looped and narrow thinking with others who agree with us. This type of ignorance is especially dangerous because it often strikes people who have power. When we look at examples of such ignorance among leaders today and down through history we realize how truly dangerous it is.