Some of today's "progressive" politicians, for lack of other ideas, give us the rattle every day with the mantra of "equality". It seems logical to me that they ask for equal rights among people, but not equality in everything. With that second "achievement" the rich and the wise would be suspected of lack of solidarity. In addition, capacity, effort and merit would be undervalued, in order to reward spontaneity and occurrence, which are behaviors without reflection. The possible absurdity is already becoming a reality. The opinion of the wise and that of the ignorant begin to be worth the same. This is the great paradox of the current society of knowledge: ignorance is on the rise:

-What worries you more, ignorance or indifference?

-I don't know and I don't care.

WHY DOES IGNORANCE REMAIN IN THE SOCIETY OF THE KNOWLEDGE

1. We are fundamentally building the information society. Powerful technologies do not invite us to reflect, but to accumulate an excess of data that intoxicate us, thus preventing us from discriminating between what is important and what is superfluous. Thoughtful knowledge is replaced by "knowledge" without thought. Today there is an unlimited faith in technology, which often becomes idolatry. We forget that technology is for man and not man for technology.

2. We are settling for partial knowledge, detached from an integral wisdom, perhaps because the model proposed to us is not that of the sage and the educated man, but that of the specialist.

3. We are much more concerned about the means than the ends. We advance spectacularly in the scientific field and in new technologies, but very little in what makes man happy and saves him. We are sailing faster and faster, but we do not know where we are heading. To orient ourselves we no longer need to look at the stars, but having stopped looking at the sky impoverishes us.

4. We are puppets of the consumer culture. We read the book that is in fashion, not the one that responds to our concerns and needs of subject cultural.

These four factors keep us in ignorance. It is already being stated that the pretended society of knowledge is in reality "the society of ignorance". That is precisely the degree scroll of the book written by Antoni Brey and Daniel Innerarity (2009)

I think that ours is, simultaneously, the society of knowledge and that of ignorance.

RADIOGRAPHY OF IGNORANCE

There is an ignorance from which one often emerges: the non-guilty one. Children who were not able to go to school due to a premature work (for example taking care of their humble family's flock of sheep) usually see studying as a pending challenge . There are many historical figures who were late students. On the other hand, those who had the opportunity to learn and missed it, tend to maintain indefinitely this disinterest and conformism; it is as if they were vaccinated against the "evil" of study. Their unconvincing lament is frequent: "If only I had studied...".

These guilty ignorances are not usually recognized by their protagonists: the regret for not having studied does not include being aware of one's own ignorance, which makes it more daring. "The first step of ignorance is to presume to know" (Baltasar Gracián).

An intelligent ignoramus is more recoverable than an intellectually limited ignoramus. The latter ignores his ignorance and even comes to believe that he knows everything, while the former knows that one cannot be an expert in all subject of subjects, so before talking about what he ignores, he studies. "There is nothing more fruitful than an ignorance conscious of itself" (Ortega y Gasset).

Nowadays, there is a proliferation of those who dare to pontificate in public on any subject topic without any fear of making a fool of themselves. However, some of the audience shun them, because they have found that, as Kant said, "it is impossible to refute the ignorant in a discussion".

A research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger, (started in 1999) professors at Cornell University, found that people with little skill and preparation have a feeling of illusory superiority over others who are more intelligent and educated. This is because they suffer from a metacognitive inability to recognize their own ineptitude.

The less we know, the more we think we know. This has at least two consequences. The first is that presumptuous ignoramuses are very irritating to those who try to dialogue with them. The second is that they contribute (naturally without knowing it) to making the world worse, as Bertrand Russell said: "A great part of the difficulties the world is going through is due to the fact that the ignorant are completely sure while the intelligent are full of doubts".