Ignoranza: Una storia globale

by Peter Burke

Nel corso della storia, ogni età ha creduto di disporre di maggiore conoscenza rispetto alla precedente. Gli umanisti rinascimentali vedevano il Medioevo come un periodo di oscurità; gli illuministi cercarono di spazzare via la superstizione con la ragione; nel mondo contemporaneo interconnesso, sembra che su richiesta si possa accedere a un numero illimitato di informazioni.
Ma cosa ne è stato della conoscenza perduta nel corso dei secoli? Come possiamo spiegare i negazionisti del cambiamento climatico? Siamo davvero meno ignoranti dei nostri antenati?
In questo testo di grande leggibilità, Peter Burke esamina la lunga storia dell'ignoranza dell'umanità attraverso religione e scienza, guerre e catastrofi, affari e politica, e ci rivela storie straordinarie dei promotori e degli avversari dell'ignoranza, dai politici che arbitrariamente ridisegnarono i confini dell'Europa nel 1919 a quanti oggi segnalano illeciti nell'interesse generale.
Il risultato è una vivida esplorazione della conoscenza umana attraverso le epoche e l'importanza di riconoscerne i limiti.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, World History, Cultural, Sociology

410 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 21, 2023

About the author

Peter Burke is a British historian and professor. He was educated by the Jesuits and at St John's College, Oxford, and was a doctoral candidate at St Antony's College. From 1962 to 1979, he was part of the School of European Studies at Sussex University, before moving to the University of Cambridge, where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Fellow of Emmanuel College. Burke is celebrated as a historian not only of the early modern era, but one who emphasizes the relevance of social and cultural history to modern issues. He is married to Brazilian historian Maria Lúcia Garcia Pallares-Burke.

Reviews

[Danilo Weiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Título intrigante, atual, autor com boas credenciais (professor de história de Cambridge), mas alguma coisa deu errado.

A promessa do livro (reforçada pela sinopse e pelo prefácio) era compreender como o pilar do Iluminismo, de que conhecimento traz as luzes que nos proporcionam o progresso material, espiritual e moral, parece estar tão em baixa hoje em dia, dando espaço para a ignorância deliberada e as avalanches de fake news nas redes sociais.

Uma das coisas que talvez tenha mais me incomodado foi a decisão do autor em dividir os capítulos por tipo de ignorância (religião, ciência, geografia, guerra, negócios, etc), quando eu a vejo muito mais entrelaçada nesses campos e se retroalimentando em cada um deles.

Dito isso, o livro é chato. O autor remete a exemplos, personalidades históricas, lendas e segue recheando cada uma das partes com um monte de dados. Não me incomoda que o autor não tenha tentado chegar numa solução - em algum momento ele comenta a ausência de literatura sobre o assunto, então vejo aí um começo de um diagnóstico -, mas talvez, parte de mim queria ter saído dessa experiência um pouco mais otimista.

Infelizmente, trazendo uma frase do livro: "Talvez cada novo conhecimento crie um lugar para si mesmo dando origem a uma nova ignorância" do C.S. Lewis, é isso aí mesmo e - outra frase - o Max Planck tenha razão: "A ciência progride de funeral em funeral. Uma nova verdade científica não triunfa ao convencer seus oponentes e fazê-los ver a luz, mas sim porque seus oponentes acabam morrendo, e assim cresce uma nova geração que está familiarizada com ela".

[June · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pensaba que iba a ser un análisis sociológico o antropológico de la ignorancia, pero es más bien una recopilación de datos históricos sin mucha reflexión al respecto. Se me ha hecho muy aburrido (10 meses para leerlo, lol)

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bailed at 200 pages. This had such promise! But it soon becomes tiring to read what are essentially lists disguised as paragraphs. The examples of "ignorance" are not always truly examples of ignorance, but of one person knowing more than another or of bad decision-making based on faulty assumptions (i.e., "life"). We get strings and strings of examples, the effect of which is that it's difficult to remember them. I felt like a kid flipping channels. One representative example would do so much better than a series of disconnected ones. Burke also moves into odd rhetorical places, as when, writing about the mafia (as an example of "clandestine business," which doesn't seem connected to ignorance, but let that pass), he offers this paragraph:

Clandestine crime has to be fought by clandestine methods, including informers as well as plain-clothes detectives who observe and sometimes infiltrate the organizations that they are fighting. The parallel with the political world of spies and secret police is an obvious one. Ignorance in politics is the subject of the following chapter. (155)

What? As in, "Why is this stated?" Is the reader supposed to learn here, for the first time, that there are "informers" and "plain-clothes detectives" at work? He does this move all the time: he'll announce a kind of ignorance and then move into a quick description of travel books, the Franco-Prussian War, or the South Sea Company and make the reader think, "Wait--what happened to ignorance?" It's like writing a history of gravity and using anything that happened on the earth as evidence. Well, yes, gravity affected the Vietnam War, but it's kind of a round peg pushed into a square hole. He also makes irritating allusions to what has been said and what is coming. Imagine sentences where the writer notes (as seen in chapter 8) what has been said and what will come (in chapter 21).

There's also an expected but tiresome leftist slant to the whole presentation. Only conservatives are ignorant. The book was published in 2023 but implies that American history ended in 2020.

[DS25 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un Burke più compilativo che teoretico (quindi mi piace meno), ma sicuramente un testo che mostra l'immensa capacità espositiva e riassuntiva di questo grande storico.
Ignoranza come incapacità di capire, come dimenticanza, come censura, come "girarsi dall'altra parte". Tutte accezioni che vengono sviscerate dal punto di vista politico, culturale, economico, militare, geografico, con innumerevoli esempi interessanti - ma forse un filo troppo specifici e pedanti, a meno di non volere una conoscenza enciclopedica.

Forse il testo mi ha dimostrato di essere ignorante, almeno rispetto a Burke. Ma lo sapevo già.

[Lloyd Earickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I spend too long in the echo chamber of my own head, I am sometimes inclined to begin thinking “you know, I’m a pretty smart person.  I’ve read all of these books and studied all of these subjects.”  Fortunately, it is not difficult to demonstrate how erroneous that thinking is; all I have to do is read a scientific paper or think about building some piece of technology from scratch to remind myself that no, I don’t really know anything, even if I think I might have some less wrong answers.  Intellectual humility is not difficult to maintain if I’m actively engaging with the world and maintaining a skeptical approach to information.  Of course, there are other times when I go too far down the path of knowing nothing, which can be as hampering as intellectual arrogance.  Socrates might have said that “the beginning of wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” but that can also be a recipe for a degree of fatalism.  If we can’t know anything at all, why bother trying to learn?

That’s where my little saying about the pursuit of less wrong answers comes in, and all of this goes to explaining why I thought a book about ignorance was bound to be of interest to me.  Even if you accept that there are things that we can know fully and completely, that would still leave far more of which we remain in ignorance.  Ignorance is the impetus to learn more, a perpetual state, perhaps, against which we strive to form fragile bastions of rebellious knowledge.  The ignorance that we know – that is, that which we know we do not know – shapes our inquiries, drives our research, and forms the frontier into which we venture with each new thought experiment or research paper.  It is a defined ignorance, and quite distinct from the ignorance of which we are ignorant – that is, that which we do not know we do not know.

Burke does well in defining these states of ignorance, and even attempts to add additional forms of ignorance that strike me as being less universal in scope and applicability, and the first part of the book in which he makes these definitions and discusses the meaning and history of ignorance is quite interesting and well-written.  It met my high hopes for Ignorance (what a strange phrase to write, if you ignore the italics), which is why much of the book’s remainder was so disappointing.  Instead of examining ignorance in a fundamental manner, such as someone like Zeno might have done, Ignorance devolves from concepts to historical and modern examples of what I will term partial ignorance.

Partial ignorance being the state in which some people know something and others do not, a distinction of which Burke makes much.  Most of his discussion of ignorance is not about what cannot be known, or what can be known but has not been probed, but rather about inequalities of knowledge, which he treats as if it is a revelation that not everyone knows everything that everyone else does, and a source of great evil.  He examines history and the present for different types of ignorance amongst different groups, and pins all manner of ills upon that partial ignorance.  While that may have been a contributing factor, it seems unlike a root cause.

More concerning, though, is Burke’s intellectual arrogance in a book about ignorance.  His attitude comes across as “the peons are ignorant, but us elite scientists know things that the peons’ lesser minds cannot begin to approach.”  I’ve complained about the arrogance of the modern scientific enterprise/intelligentsia, and that damage such an attitude does to the fundamental concept of a discipline of skepticism.  More relevantly to this review, Burke consistently fails to acknowledge his own ignorance whilst calling out others’ ignorance.  It betrays a colossal blind spot that permeates the entire book and forces the reader to call into question all claims and conclusions he makes.

Ignorance is a topic worthy of study, as odd as it might sound to study ignorance (at preliminary analysis, it might even seem impossible, but it is not).  Ignorance is adequate for introducing the topic, providing an idea of where the examination of ignorance sits in modern scholastic circles, but it fails to provide significant insights on the topic, and its author’s intellectual arrogance strikes a discordant, ironic note.  While it might be expected that the authors of books on other topics should exhibit such an attitude, it is quite off-putting in a book that is supposed to study ignorance.  Of all topics, one would imagine that to be the one to inspire humility in the author.  Alas, that was not the case.

[Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

La ignorància de Peter Burke és una obra profunda que ens invita a reflexionar sobre com la ignorància forma part de la nostra vida quotidiana i de la història. Burke explora la manera com la societat maneja el coneixement i la falta d'aquest, des d'una perspectiva que abasta tant la història com les ciències socials. És un llibre que ens ajuda a entendre millor els mecanismes de poder, control i creació de saber, tot convidant-nos a qüestionar les veritats establertes.

[Rik · Rating 4 out of 5]

interessant boek!! goed geschreven overzicht van allerlei soorten ignorance, leerzaam en leuk om te lezen. had misschien iets korter gekunt voot dezelfde boodschap

[Ian Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zips along nicely and covers a lot of ground. Interesting. Ignorance is definitely not bliss if the people making the decisions are ignorant as they all too often have been, still are, and likely will remain.

[Marcelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Embora o tópico seja fundamental e o livro traga uma boa amplitude de perspectivas, falta um arco narrativo mais amplo que contemple tudo que está sendo dito. O autor traz muitos fatos e acontecimentos, mas todos acabam sendo abordados muito rapidamente. A maioria das situações descritas tem um parágrafo de extensão, pouquíssimos tem mais de uma página. O início é a parte mais instigante, com as diferentes perspectivas sobre a ignorância. Fora isso, é um catálogo de exemplos.

[Alecsphys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting essay showing how many facets the ignorance can have, and how it affects our life in different ways.
And ignorance is not just one, but there are many types. In the glossary the author lists three pages ranging from "Agnotology" to "Unknown unknowns".
Any new knowledge opens the space for a new ignorance. [C.S. Lewis]

[Luis Manuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Espectáculo de libro.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un buen libro, pero yo le encuentro un defecto como lector. Tal vez el autor no lo ha visto así. Ello es que no es lo mismo la ignorancia de las masas (8000 millones de habitantes somos demasiados, sobre todo si el 90% somos ignorantes y además queremos vivir todos en grandes capitales). Pero llega un momento que, esto explicado, y donde según autores como Maynard Keynes, por ejemplo, basandose en la gran crisis de 1929, ciudades como Madrid o similares, están al borde del colapso, sobre todo para los que la desconocen porque nacieron en lugares muy ajenos a ella, pues es ahí más o menos donde el libro da un giro que a mí me interesa menos, porque se trata ya de la ignorancia mantenida por los políticos y espías, sociedades de inteligencia y demás, para tratar de gobernar y que con sus actividades no se sabe si previenen guerras o las provocan. Si el pais afectado es débil, desde luego ocurre lo segundo (Irak, Vietnam, El Sahel...).
Ese es un tema que aunque muy serio, está fuera de mi alcance, se ha expuesto en multitud de novelas y relatos de espías y ciencia- ficción, género que no me gusta, y el ciudadano, aun el de paises "democráticos" puede hacer poco o nada para eliminar esa ignorancia.
Puesto que en ese terreno, salvo unos pocos que además han olvidado el pasado más reciente, los demás, al ser temas y técnicas secretas, lo ignoramos todo, aunque nos barruntamos malos asuntos.

[Peter Zomer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A vast listing of all things we tend to (choose to be) ignorant about. So vast, that the book is offering the very ‘information overload’ that it is arguing to be causing ignorance. This book is supposed to offer knowledge about ignorance, right?

I am fascinated by the psychology of ignorance, for institutional secrecy, denial and propaganda only works when a public chooses to be credulous. What makes people follow partisan fake-news communicated by autocratic leaders? Could insight into these mechanisms help to break such mechanisms?

The first, introducing chapter was perhaps the one I learned most from. It is about the desire not to know (or for other people not to know) whatever threatens or embarrasses us. Denial is a defence mechanism for both individual and institutions confronted with “information that is too disturbing, threatening or anomalous to be fully absorbed or openly acknowledged. Public denial is a form of disinformation, while private denial, or silent refusal to acknowledge, is a form of wilful ignorance, ‘knowing what not to know’.

But then, in the fourteen chapters that come next, there is this vast listing of all kinds of aspects of ignorance. The author may thus have nicely categorized all different kinds of ignorance and imposed a structure upon it; this vast collection of facts may be impressive indeed; but for me it all was a cumbersome read. The problem with online desk research, that seems so much at vogue in this era, is that it wrings all life out of a text. This illustrates how important personal observations are to the reader. Burke offers little of those.

I realize that I hoped the book offered philosophy of a practical kind, giving a view on what ignorance entails and how it could be avoided in groups and societies. None of that. It is a history of ignorance, not a philosophy.

[Dejan Dukovski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knjiga koja se čita zajedno sa još 2, 3, 5 drugih. Antropološko-istorijska knjiga o neznanju! i autor je sve to podelio u nekoliko važnih celina (istorija neznanja, neznanje o ratu, ekonomiji, politici, katastrofe...) i svaka celina sadrži u sebi još podcelina.
Nije sa akademskim štihom ali smeta što za svaku podcelinu postoje mnogo detalja koje ponekad su nepotrebni, kao i veliki broj primera za koje smatram da ponekad su bili suvišni.
Kao što rekoh, pročitate par stranica pa je ostavite, za neki dan opet, saznate neke stvari koje možda niste znali i otvarate put novom neznanju da se pojavi na horizontu, pošto ste stekli neka nova znanja.

[Liberis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Προσωπικά ο Peter Burke μου ταιριάζει πολύ, έχουμε πολύ όμοιο τρόπο σκέψης. Πετάγεται από δω κι απο κει, μαζεύει πράγματα από τα πιο ετερόκλητα πλήθη και φτιάχνει τελικά υπέροχες διαδρομές πολιτισμού που συναπάζουν τον αναγνώστη, προκαλώντας τον σε νέες περιπλανήσεις έξω και πλαί στο δικό του έργο. Ετσι, η Ιστορία της Άγνοιας, γραμμένη από έναν πολιτισμικό ιστορικό της γνώσης, ήταν όχι απλά must read αλλά και μια απολαυστική διαδρομή με άξονα το σωκρατικό Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδέν οἶδα σε όλες τις εποχές και τα μέρη του κόσμου.

[Captain Absurd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am all for the demanding reads, but the effort we put in should always be rewarded with some epiphany. I didn't find anything interesting here, and the notebook, which is usually filled to the brim, lays empty. Moreover, the conclusion that everyone is ignorant in some field (and that power and knowledge rarely go hand in hand) is hardly groundbreaking. 3,5!

[Montecristo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Argomento troppo astratto, se ci scrivi sopra un libro è inevitabile che finisci per parlare di tutto e niente. Qualche spunto interessante, ma manca di unitarietà, non si capisce bene di cosa parli.

[Mihai Crăiță · Rating 3 out of 5]

Citită in limba română “Istoria ignoranței”

[Viola Inui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho letto questo testo per un esame in Università, é stato interessante ma forse l'autore poteva essere più approfondito su alcuni passaggi storici ed eventi.

[Hussein · Rating 5 out of 5]

رائع جدا علميا لتوسيع الرؤية العلمية للمجهول وشرح رائع للظاهرة الذي لم يفكر به احد من قبل

[Arnau Fernández Pasalodos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decepcionante.
La introducción y los primeros capítulos son muy interesantes, pero va perdiendo fuerza y termina siendo una relación inconexa de hechos. Me esperaba más de Burke :(

[Manish Tushar · Rating 2 out of 5]

As is often said: Life is too short to read a bad book.

Perhaps the delta between the expectation of such a fascinating topic (how has human ignorance impacted the course of human history?) and the delivered product (a not-so-well-written book without any clear narrative arc) is what makes my feelings regarding this book so negative. I called it quits when discussions of human ignorance in war made it clear that nothing about the jumbled narrative was going to change.

That we all make decisions without perfect information? That is life.

That we sometimes willfully avoid obvious truths? That is the stuff of interest!

Too much of this book is a list of the former and no real explorations of the latter. Perhaps another author will pick up the thread of human ignorance and light a spark in his readers’ minds.

[Marcelo Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seja por vontade própria do indivíduo de não querer saber ou por imposição social, através de sigilo e outras formas de privação de conhecimento, o autor consegue desvendar as motivações da existência da IGNORÂNCIA, que percorre vários meios: religião, ciência, geografia, guerra, negócios, política e afeta várias pessoas por muitas gerações, independentemente do nível de instrução. Isso ocorre visto que informações e conhecimentos são passíveis de atualizações, com o maior acesso, principalmente, a produtos de informação transmitidos pela internet.

Os leitores encontrarão referenciais teóricos ricos, tanto antigos como contemporâneos, sobre fatos que aconteceram no mundo até o ano de 2021 e que se relacionam com o tema. A obra foi uma das melhores leituras que já fiz no ano de lançamento em língua portuguesa, em 2023.