When I asked my sister if she’s seen the news about the Israel-Gaza war, she simply stated, ‘I don’t really know enough about it to have an opinion,’ and we moved on to how much she hated her roommate who doesn’t wash her own dishes.
Obviously, I’m an insufferable cunt, so I love talking about politics, everything is politics, come on now. Politics is not everyone’s cup of tea, I get that. However, isn’t it still important to at least know a bit about how the world operates the way it does? In the words of a wise man (my boyfriend), ‘Why is it normal to not give a shit about anything??’
This is what I theorize as the Politics of Ignorance and the Right to Comfort.
The Politics of Ignorance was actually first conceptualized by Lise Lowe as the “politics of our lack of knowledge”, the erasure of ‘undesirable’ history to create a society which doesn’t recognize the atrocities it has committed to get to where it is (heavily employed in the USA, most/all colonial powers, and Nazi Germany) and justify its own position as the rulers of said society. However, I interpret it as the choice to be willfully ignorant out of apathy. While I do not want to directly say it is done out of malicious intent (Hanlon’s Razor), it is certainly done out of selfishness.
The Right to Comfort derives from the white supremacist belief that those in power have the right to emotional and psychological comfort. Such as demanding an apology when accused of racism, ignoring racism, or redefining what racism is in their image as to rid themselves of responsibility for racism. Employed similarly, I use it to mean a person’s perceived right to comfort; therefore, they will not speak of injustice, will not comment on politics, and will just end the conversation by saying, ‘This makes me uncomfortable, can we not talk about this?’
According to a recent study published by the American Psychological Association, 40% of people choose to be ignorant. I believe this happens out of comfort (i.e., the right to comfort). We want to detach and avoid our problems; thus, we actively choose to believe the world is just and fair. We choose to ignore the devastating effects of climate change, and we choose to ignore the fact that the people of Gaza (and Palestine in general) are subject to genocide and ethnic cleansing due to Zionism. Our greed will cause climate catastrophe, our silence will cause the death of a people. All because we were too selfish to act. Our silence on world issues implies our consent and acceptance, the same way those who turned a blind eye to anti-semitism in Nazi Germany were complicit in the Holocaust.
Additionally, we choose to ignore or forget about the negative effects and consequences of our actions because we are selfish; whatever happens outside our periphery simply ceases to exist. Behavioral ethics professor Shaul Shavi argues that people are willing to be altruistic if they are fully informed on the consequences of their actions (e.g., pressing a button to dunk someone in water for a dollar vs not pressing the button without a reward). However, this simply isn’t true. Even the way we consume causes harm; we shop on Shein to get the best prices despite its exploitative practices, we get coffee at Starbucks despite its anti-union, anti-worker stance, we (those who can afford to) fly private despite its effects on the environment. In a way, we can blame capitalism, which encourages selfishness in place of altruism to promote the self and the individual.
We must change our mindset of ‘Well, it doesn’t affect me’ because that’s what the politics of ignorance and the right to comfort truly is — selfishness. Be more informed, have an opinion, accept that the world is full of injustices, and actively try to fight them.
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