Ignorance Is Not Bliss Essay, Research Paper

Nicholas Sine

Period Four

4-6-98

Ignorance is Not Bliss

“Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice.” –Victor Cousin. As

knowledge gives us the power to create, ignorance gives us the power to destroy. Over

time, man’s creations that may be awesome, turn against, and kill him. In Kurt Vonnegut’s

Cat’s Cradle, man destroys himself with his own creation. The wrong uses of any creation

lead to destruction. Destruction comes unquestionably from the ignorance of man.

Mankind wants to know the answers to any question. Knowledge is something

that few people can handle. It holds more power than anything else. While it can put a

man on the moon, it can also take man off the earth. Over and over again in history, man

has been ready to do anything for power. The want for power is a sign of ignorance

because man will not think correctly while trying to get power. What is not realized is

that the paths man takes to get power, are often the trails that lead to the loss of power.

Yearning for power is very dangerous and causes destruction in that way. Just the same

as knowledge and power, stupidity also plays a main character in destruction. The

ignorant, or untrained have no idea what they mess with until they have done it. Like the

Ice-9 in Cat’s Cradle, the Hoenikker children were too stupid to realize what they were

playing with. When the world was destroyed and their destiny was certain to be death,

they realized what they had done; they had destroyed themselves and all of Earth with

them. The wrong use of power is one of the leading causes of destruction, and the most

evident show of man’s ignorance. When people give a man too much power, he will play

with it and use it for his own reasons. Ice-9 was given to just a few powerful people and

eventually led to the end of the world. War is a familiar form of destruction. While a

country tries to gain power ignorantly from war, they are actually losing their profits

because they are killing them. There is no excuse for such massive destruction and

ignorance that war produces. Finally, destruction is a side effect of ignorance. If it is true

that knowledge creates, then only one thing can destroy. There is no possible way to

destroy something with reason except for ignorance.

Feeble-mindedness is the cause for misery. All life comes from knowledge while

death and destruction are products of stupidity. Mankind can destroy anything he creates

with his own foolishness. Man will one day, when it is too late, realize all the dumb things

he did that led to his extinction.