IT was the English poet Thomas Gray (1716–1771) who coined the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’. So can ‘ignorance be bliss’?

I remember in the ‘good old days’ (which, by the way, is a phrase only those who are . . . well, old have the privilege to use) when it seemed everyone was poor. Well, at least there was no ostentatious show of wealth. I recall that we all seemed to be happy. I am talking about the 50s and 60s. People did not seem to see the need to enter into the race rat to make more and more money. There were not too many things we could buy then. On second thought, maybe I should correct that statement. People were not aware that there were many things they could buy. So we were content just to have three basic simple meals a day, and we were happy. Ah… blissful ignorance.

Then came the age of consumerism with its aggressive advertisements to promote the sale of electronic gadgets, giant meals, faster cars, etc., like the biblical first man our eyes were open and we came to realise that there are many thing in this world we could covet. Perhaps, that is the seed of the general unhappiness we sense around us. People with perfectly good functioning mobile phones in their pockets, enticed by the glossy adverts, yearn and hanker for the more up-to-date, state-of-the-art phones with features which they would never use. Such is the avaricious desire generated that some would resort to ‘beg, steal or borrow’ (I should add ‘rob’) to acquire those goods of their craving.

Is ignorance really bliss? What about the case of the people in one African village who used toxic waste drums as their water containers? That was in the 80s when some ruthless companies from the industrialised countries, in order to save costs in disposing industrial waste which the stringent requirement of their home countries demanded, resorted to dumping them in Africa.

The story came to light when an aid worker wrote to the newspaper. She related how she was shocked to notice that traders in an African village market happily used drums marked ‘Dioxin’ to store their water. On further inquiry, she found out that they had retrieved those drums from a beach nearby. The drums were made of very good material, very strong and light, perfect as water containers but unbeknown to the villagers they could have residue of the deadly poison the vessels once held.

Those poor villagers might just been plain ignorant, unable to recognise the deadly name ‘dioxin’ and the universal symbol of danger like the crossed bones and skull. What about those of us who are ignorance by choice?

There is now evidence that our world is facing a global warming which could spell the end of life, at least of humans, on this planet earth. When this claim was put forward some years ago it was regarded as merely a scientific conjecture. Now it has graduated from a scientific fiction to a scientific fact, driving all the nations in the world from one Climate Summit to another (Berlin, Kyoto, Bali) in their efforts to find a solution to this ‘end of days’ problem.

It is a fact that while the world’s governmental wheel, true to its nature, is grinding ever so slowly to find a workable and enforceable treaty, the ordinary people could do their bit by adopting a less energy consuming life style. There are many instructional materials about how we can do this, both in paper form and in the electronic media. However, I believe on the whole we tend to shun them and prefer to wallow in our blissful ignorance.

We all have our share of encounters with ignoramuses. Some years ago I was on a diving trip.

“Don’t go there,” said the boatman, pointing to a spot in the bay. I was just donning my scuba gear, getting ready for a dive.

“Why?” I asked.

“It is very deep, at least two hundred feet.”

I was thinking of pointing out how wrong he was. We were on a continental shelf where the bottom sloped out very gradually, and we would have to be at least 20 kilometres out in the open sea before we get anywhere near to a depth of a hundred feet. Furthermore, I have dived off this coast for a number of years and never once had my depth gauge even hit 50 feet.

However, looking at Ahmad, with his sun baked dark skin, sea bleached hair and the “I have eaten more salt than you rice” look, I decided to bite my tongue. After all, his lack of knowledge of physical geography was not doing any harm apart from the fact that I could not dive at my chosen spot while I was with him.

However, sometimes the impact of one’s ignorance may not be as benign as that. Recently, I came across a report in the monthly newspaper of a religious group. It reported a talk given by one lay preacher who warned the congregation of the dangers of the New Age Movement. I don’t intend to discuss the merit or de-merit of the so called New Age Movement. However, I was appalled that this speaker lumped many things under that label. His list included Scientology, Reiki, Fengshui, Chi Kung, Tai Chi, Yoga and Motivational talks. He went on to air his ignorance further by saying that these activities have ‘initiation rites’ which will open the participants to ‘other spirits’. Having given quite a number of motivational talks and also having a fair knowledge of some of the activities he condemned, I can say that the preacher was wrong and thus an ignoramus in this field.

However, it is one thing to be ignorant but it is quite another to urge people to act on one’s misguided belief, especially when this view is published by a gullible journalist who ended her article thus, “it is hoped that more people will be aware of the dangers and keep away from such activities.”

Thus, while Thomas Gray with his poetic bent might have said, “Ignorance is bliss. ‘Tis a folly to be wise”, I think it is wiser for us to strive to get away from the darkness of ignorance and move to the brightness of knowledge.

The writer can be contacted at desee@pc.jaring.my