Ignorance can be blissful, and give you a joyful, innocent outlook on life. You see and breathe in everything with pure, eyes and ears seeing life and goodness in every way. It can be destructive also. The ignorance you have towards your struggles and issues arousing in the environment around you is self-destructive. To cope, you are trying to deny anything that is occurring around you, making it so you won’t have to face what life throws at you. If you don’t accept that there are problems existing in your life, there is no meaning. Dilemmas are always present and will fester and fester inside of you, unless you take on the problem.
Throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451, the reader is presented with a conflict between knowledge and ignorance. What does true happiness consist of? Is ignorance bliss, or do knowledge and learning providing true happiness? Montag, in his belief that knowledge reigns, fights against a society that embraces and celebrates ignorance.
The fireman's responsibility is to burn books, and therefore destroys knowledge. Through these actions, the firemen promote ignorance to maintain the sameness of society. After befriending Clarisse, Montag finds himself unable to accept the status quo, believing life is more complete, true and satisfying when knowledge is welcomed into it. After making this discovery, Montag fights against ignorance, trying to help others welcome knowledge into their lives. For example, when his wife's friends come over, he forces them to listen to poetry. Although they become extremely upset after listening to what he reads, they are able to experience true emotion. In Montag's view, this emotion will give these women a fuller and more satisfying life.
Intentional unawareness is a vicious cycle. All in all intended ignorance is pure sinful. Emotional and physical wars are toiling in the Hunger Games, and the Capitol people don’t care that children are being slaughtered on live T.V. purely for their own entertainment. It makes me sick the way that these people view the children and the dying districts in the Hunger Games.
Unlike the selfishness of intentional ignorance, innocent ignorance is a part of your childhood. You need this time in your life when you don’t realize the chaos and problems the real world is facing. Yet, in the story “HB” Hazel is an adult in a corrupt utopian world with a damaged government. She is naïve and as not yet passed the guiltless adolescent stage. Hazel has no knowledge whatsoever of how the world really is at that point in time. This is not healthy in a moment in time like this. An adult needs to be aware of the issues arousing in the world around them, yet she is in her own little self absorbed, protected conscious shell. Something needs to break this shell of hers, or something grave will for her.
Naïvete, cruel intentions, and denial are all ignorance. In Harrison Bergeron, Hazel is naïve to her problems when everything around her is breaking; while she is not realizing any of it. Mildred is in denial to everything around her, not wanting to notice any of it. She is depressed and miserable, yet she wants to wallow in her own self pity just living on like that. Last, the Capital people honestly and truthfully don’t care. They are all so wrapped up with money, partying and their appearance to realize all the death and slaughtering of children on live T.V. All the issues around them are all because of them! They enjoy the comfort of knowing they are safe in their posh homes, while thousands are in poverty and living in horrible conditions. Why would you want to live this way?
Ignorance is too easy and people want to take the low road and not have any effort in their actions. They all wear the masks of ignorance.
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