#243: Strategic Ignorance, Plausible Deniability & Sanity Through Ignorance
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on the Art of Not Knowing
I. Strategic Ignorance
Sometimes it’s better not to know. Or to play dumb. It’s not about being uninformed by accident. It’s Strategic Ignorance, choosing to stay clueless about something to avoid stress, responsibility or distractions so you can stay focused on what matters to you.
In its performative form, it shows up as the Columbo Method, named after the TV detective Columbo. His shtick was to act awkward and clueless around suspects. Once they lowered their guard, he would ask a seemingly naive but precise Gretchen Question that pushed them to reveal too much.
In its clumsy form, Strategic Ignorance is easy to spot. Even when faced with clear evidence, someone keeps pretending not to understand or denies awareness. Instead of protecting them, this usually backfires. They lose credibility because the ignorance no longer looks strategic, just dishonest.
What they need is…
II. Plausible Deniability
Plausible Deniability is the ability to say “I didn’t know” and have it sound believable. It usually works because there’s no clear evidence that you did know, even if you were involved somehow. Unlike simple ignorance, this is often prearranged. People keep a certain distance from information so they can deny responsibility later if needed.
You’ll often see this in politics (of all places). A politician might avoid being directly informed about questionable decisions, so if things go wrong, they can honestly claim they weren’t aware. The key is that the denial has to be plausible. There needs to be just enough separation between the person and the action to make the claim believable.
In small doses, it can be a practical way to manage risk. But overused, it erodes trust. Plus, what does it say about a leader if he or she doesn’t know what’s going on under his or her leadership? If people sense that someone is trying not to know, the whole thing starts to fall apart. It no longer sounds plausible, just convenient.
III. Sanity Through Ignorance
Ignorance can also be clarity and even sanity, as British rascal extraordinaire Alan Watts explains:
We also speak of attention as noticing. To notice is to select, to regard some bits of perception, or some features of the world, as more noteworthy, more significant, than others. To these we attend, and the rest we ignore — for which reason conscious attention is at the same time ignore-ance (i.e., ignorance) despite the fact that it gives us a vividly clear picture of whatever we choose to notice.
—Alan Watts
🐘
Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com