Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know by Lilla, Mark

Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

"Mark Lilla is always a challenging, fascinating mind - alert to all the power, paradox, and dangers...
CHF 36.23
CHF 36.23
SKU: 9780374174354
Product Type: Books
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Author: Mark Lilla
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
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Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know by Lilla, Mark

Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

CHF 36.23

Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

CHF 36.23
Author: Mark Lilla
Format: Hardcover
Language: English

"Mark Lilla is always a challenging, fascinating mind - alert to all the power, paradox, and dangers of ignorance." --Rory Stewart, author of Politics On the Edge and co-host of The Rest Is Politics

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.

Author: Mark Lilla
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 12/03/2024
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 7.50h x 5.00w x 1.11d
ISBN: 9780374174354

About the Author
Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics; The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction; The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West; and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics. He lives in New York City.

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