Ignorance and Bliss - by Mark Lilla

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"A wise and wonderfully enjoyable book. Mark Lilla treats weighty matters with a light touch, in an elegant prose style that crackles with dry wit . . . Invigorating." --John Banville, The Guardian

A dazzling exploration of our wish to remain innocent and ignorant--and its consequences.

Aristotle claimed that "all human beings want to know." Our own experience proves that all human beings also want not to know. Today, centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerized crowds still follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Why is this? Where does this will to ignorance come from, and how does it continue to shape our lives?

In Ignorance and Bliss, the acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human will not to know. With erudition and brio, Lilla ranges from the Book of Genesis and Plato's dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves. He also exposes the fantasies this impulse lead us to entertain--the illusion that the ecstasies of prophets, mystics, and holy fools offer access to esoteric truths; the illusion of children's lamb-like innocence; and the nostalgic illusion of recapturing the glories of vanished and allegedly purer civilizations. The result is a highly original meditation that invites readers to consider their own deep-seated impulses and taboos.

We want to know, we want not to know. We accept truth, we resist truth. Back and forth the mind shuttles, playing badminton with itself. But it doesn't feel like a game. It feels as if our lives are at stake. And they are.

Review Quotes

"This is at once a wise and wonderfully enjoyable book. Mark Lilla treats weighty matters with a light touch, in an elegant prose style that crackles with dry wit . . . Ignorance and Bliss is a splendidly invigorating antidote to the vapid nostrums and mindless pieties--from right and left--that swirl about us in a poisoned fog." --John Banville, The Guardian

"An avowedly informal excursus on a complex topic . . . Ignorance and Bliss is lucid, nuanced, ironic and stimulating." --Michael Saler, The Wall Street Journal

"Lilla is a fluid, perceptive, and engaging essayist . . . The enjoyment of the book is in experiencing a supple mind and lucid writer. A welcome reminder that ignorance is not the antithesis of knowledge but essential to self-knowledge." --Kirkus

"Lilla's conversational foray through a broad array of religious, philosophical, and historical examples produces many surprising, thought-provoking insights . . . This will provide the intellectually curious with more than enough to chew on." --Publishers Weekly

"If a genie offered to tell you the exact year and month and day that you were going to die, you would almost certainly shrink back and refuse the offer. There are things you don't want to know. In this tour de force, Mark Lilla explores the deep sources of this refusal. An exuberant, inexhaustible storyteller, Lilla finds the hidden, self-protective will to ignorance at the center of our most cherished religious myths, philosophical systems, and literary masterpieces." --Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve and The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve

"Ignorance is bliss, a poet once said, and Mark Lilla offers us a learned, humane and astringent guide to our incorrigible attachment to ignorance and our wavering commitment to truth. At a time when our politics is debauched with lies and fake news, Lilla asks a question which challenges our alibis: what if the root of the problem lies not with our leaders, but with us?" --Michael Ignatieff, professor at Central European University and author of On Consolation

"Ever since Aristotle, philosophers have assumed that human beings want to know the truth about the world and themselves. What if this is an illusion? Gleaning insights from ancient myths and modern novels, Saint Augustine, Sigmund Freud, and a rich variety of other thinkers and writers, Mark Lilla argues compellingly that a will to ignorance is as strong in human beings as any interest in knowledge. Writing with admirable clarity and subtle charm, Lilla gives us a highly original study of what our desire not to know means for our lives." --John Gray, author of The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism

"In these murky days when we all seem to be at sea, Mark Lilla's elegant and perceptive handbook serves both as a compass and a hopeful sail." --Alberto Manguel, author of Maimonides and A History of Reading

About the Author

Mark Lilla was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1956, and was educated at the University of Michigan and Harvard University. He is currently Professor of the Humanities at Columbia, where he focuses on Western political and religious thought.

He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and publications worldwide. His books, which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, include The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (2017), The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction (2016), and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001). His most recent book is Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know (2024).