# Is ognorance ever the better option? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969 "2002-05-14T04:18:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chekmate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/46a35a/32.png) [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/1 "2002-05-14T04:18:56Z")
What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![Chekmate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/46a35a/32.png) [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/2 "2002-05-14T04:20:53Z")
I can’t type… It’s not that I am ignorant of the spelling of ignorant, it’s that I am ignorant of the preview button. ARG! ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/3 "2002-05-14T04:24:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chekmate \* > \*\*I can’t type… It’s not that I am ignorant of the spelling of ignorant, it’s that I am ignorant of the preview button. ARG! \*\* Regrettably, the preview button does not help us review the thread title – the most important part. What does this topic mean? I’m missing the point. ---
**Author:** ![Chekmate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/46a35a/32.png) [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/4 "2002-05-14T04:53:41Z")
Is it ever better for someone to not know something then it is to know it. EX: if you were going to die tomorrow, would it be better to know, or not know? EX: if you’re child had gotten an abortion, without your consent, everything worked out fine, etc. Would it be better to know or not know? I guess what I am asking is: is it **ever** better to be ignorant then to know? ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/5 "2002-05-14T05:22:31Z")
[ul]… \*\*Ignorance is BLISS \*\* …😃 [sup]Just keep a smile on your face.[/sup][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/6 "2002-05-14T05:47:27Z")
Ognorance always better option! OG SMASH! Dr. J ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/7 "2002-05-14T06:06:18Z")
I thought Chekmate was trying to answer his own question in the OP. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/8 "2002-05-14T06:13:19Z")
If I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. [sub](Ha ha.)[/sub] Seriously, I guess it probably is sometimes, but we still don’t generally want to be ignorant. Maybe we’re intellectually curious, or maybe we’re just gluttons for punishment. Example: If a spouse cheats, just once, and there’s no pregnancy or disease or any other physical harm, and the spouse immediately regrets it and is never tempted to do it again, and in fact never does it again, and no one else ever finds out, would it really help anything for the other spouse to know about it? The knowledge would probably hurt, and the ignorance really wouldn’t do any harm at all. There are certain things that I sort of wish I didn’t know, though I’ve worked through them. And I still want to know more, even though I know that some of what I have yet to know might not make me happier. Seems to me that if we know that there is something we’re ignorant of, most of us want to know about it. Maybe what we need is a way to un-know the stuff that we don’t want to know anymore. The old “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then” line from the Bob Seger song. Then again, I guess true ignorance is not even knowing that there’s something we don’t know. Heck, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![MrO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/9 "2002-05-14T06:14:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MrO \* > **If I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. [sub](Ha ha.)[/sub]** Oops. Screwed up my own lame joke there. Strike that “if.” ---
**Author:** ![Payne\_N.Diaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Payne\_N.Diaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payne_N.Diaz)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/10 "2002-05-14T20:49:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DoctorJ \* > \*\*Ognorance always better option! > > OG SMASH! > > Dr. J \*\* I was waiting for this… ---
**Author:** ![auntie\_em](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@auntie\_em](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auntie_em)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ognorance-ever-the-better-option/108969/11 "2002-05-14T21:15:45Z")
I’d say yes, sometimes, but it depends on whether or not your knowledge of something would affect your behavior. For example, if you are ProLife, then you would have done everything you could to stop your daughter’s abortion, had you known. If you’re ProChoice (and would have let your daughter make her own choice, had you known), then sure, maybe you would have wanted to be there with her during the procedure, but otherwise, you would just have worried (and would forevermore look askance at that weaselly little boyfriend of hers, whom you USED to like…). Similarly, if you were going to die tomorrow, it might be nice to know so that you wouldn’t have bothered going in to work today, or so that you could mend fences with your estranged uncle… …but then again, if you don’t work, and feel like you could die without regret at this very moment, then what else would there be for you to do but sit and wait (maybe catch one last episode of _Gilmore Girls_) and make yourself all twirly?