Overview

A dazzling exploration of our wish to remain innocent and ignorant--and its consequences. Aristotle claimed that ""all human beings want to know."" Our own experience proves that all human beings also want not to know. Today, centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerized crowds still follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Why is this? Where does this will to ignorance come from, and how does it continue to shape our lives? In Ignorance and Bliss, the acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human will not to know. With erudition and brio, Lilla ranges from the Book of Genesis and Plato's dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves. He also exposes the fantasies this impulse lead us to entertain--the illusion that the ecstasies of prophets, mystics, and holy fools offer access to esoteric truths; the illusion of children's lamb-like innocence; and the nostalgic illusion of recapturing the glories of vanished and allegedly purer civilizations. The result is a highly original meditation that invites listeners to consider their own deep-seated impulses and taboos.

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Mark Lilla was born in Detroit in 1956. He is Professor of Humanities at Columbia University and a regular essayist for the New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, and G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern, as well as The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin with Ronald Dworkin and Robert B. Silvers. He was the 2015 Overseas Press Club of America winner of the Best Commentary on international News in Any Medium for ""On France."" For nearly twenty years, David Colacci has recorded audiobooks around his busy schedule in regional theater as an actor, a director and as Artistic Director of Hope Summer Repertory Theater in Holland, Michigan. David has recorded more than 70 audiobooks, which include mystery and suspense, science fiction and fantasy, and literary works. He is married to Susan Ericksen, who also narrates for Brilliance Audio. For nearly twenty years, David Colacci has recorded audiobooks around his busy schedule in regional theater as an actor, a director and as Artistic Director of Hope Summer Repertory Theater in Holland, Michigan. David has recorded more than 70 audiobooks, which include mystery and suspense, science fiction and fantasy, and literary works. He is married to Susan Ericksen, who also narrates for Brilliance Audio.

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