Ignorance is a Limitless Resource

And a powerful one, at that

A line from a horror movie keeps coming back to me. It’s throwaway dialogue from Rob Zombie’s 2005 film The Devil’s Rejects, a line you won’t find among the quotes on IMDb. As the titular murderers wreak mayhem throughout Texas, a nebbish movie critic appears at the Sheriff’s office with an apparent breakthrough in the case. The fugitives, he explains, have assumed aliases from Marx Brothers films: Otis B. Driftwood, Rufus T. Firefly, and so forth. The critic rambles on with movie minutiae until Sheriff John Wydell interrupts him with the following line:

“Well, I’m sure your knowledge of bullshit is limitless.”

These words returned to me with force in November of 2016, and would echo in my mind’s ear throughout the four years that followed. This past November, they came back again, and I’m reminded of them daily. They help account for what I see every day in American politics and in majoritarian culture at large. This idea that bullshit — or more courteously, ignorance — has no boundaries is profound. I think many of us underestimate the power of ignorance and the unfortunate reality that it is a limitless resource.

Empowered by Ignorance

We have all seen and heard Donald Trump’s ignorant statements. Even the most devout MAGA-ites will concede that Trump says some truly asinine things. Recently, for instance, he talked about displacing Palestinians and developing Gaza as a luxury resort like…