Pleading Ignorance

When Life Is More Complex Than We Knew

In a courtroom, the accused cannot plead ignorance. We are responsible for following the laws of the land, even if we don’t know what they are. The onus is on us to adhere to the myriad laws of cities, counties, states and nations—all at once. We are at the mercy of the power society wields.

In our personal lives, we wonder at the very nature of reality. We may not know what we want, who we are and why we’re here. We may not understand the motivations of the people and institutions around us. We can feel lost in a world bustling with activity and enterprise. Are we violating unseen laws of reality?

I am reminded of an 80’s TV show called Greatest American Hero. The lead character had a super suit, but never got the instruction manual. So he would crash and spin and flail for the whole episode and eventually succeed and help the person who needed his heroism. This reminds me of our plight as humans: making do with our barely provisional understanding.

We don’t magically know what to become or how. We don’t automatically have needed skills, nor are we taught discernment. Armed with a minimal education, we are not taught how to find our way psychologically and spiritually. We are largely expected to just figure it out. The world goes on like this and seems to thrive, and yet, it’s chaotic. Some of us may have gone through much of our lives feeling lost, wishing we had that instruction manual for our super suit.

Spiritual traditions and religions abound. They can offer guidance but can be self-serving. So we either follow the teachings or we forge a path on our own. This can feel quixotic. One can emerge beleaguered from decades of disjointed searching for meaning, purpose, direction and happiness. We just don’t know much about this place and our place in it.

Why are we here? Who put us here? We seek meaning, togetherness and a better life despite or perhaps because of our relative ignorance about our very nature. We seek to create our art as catharsis and to help others. We do this not knowing where our efforts will take us or if it matters.

So when I speak of pleading ignorance, I mean it from the most humble and bewildered place. A place of wonder and genuine surprise. I didn’t know life was like this. I didn’t know I could waste so much time, or come to love so deeply. I had dulled my capacity to love and was unaware we could come back from such places, and that this return would bring such pain. I didn’t know I could want something so much until I experienced it and then lost it. I was so certain of my beliefs around such subjects. What else didn’t I know? How else have I deceived myself?

We speak of our inner child glibly, but no one ever verifies that we have one until things on the outside fall apart. How would we have known to learn about such things? We have cars and planes and an internet, but we’ve not even begun to meet ourselves. We, like the deep sea, are functionally uncharted and fluid. We are part of a grand mystery, and yet we are at the mercy of that mystery. We walk around like we know what we’re doing. We do what everyone else does, like the first day in yoga class. Go to your job. Go on vacation. Buy things. Talk about what people talk about.

I don’t seek to shirk responsibility by pleading ignorance. I see my errors, but most are the fruits of my misperceptions. Self-deception is just that: we don’t know we are doing it. We think we speak our hearts clearly, and yet can be fundamentally misunderstood. And the meanings morph as more events pile up and the days and years pass. This is where we are.

I make the following petition to the court of life:

I request the benefit of the doubt. I am innocent until proven guilty. I deserve grace, like the grace I willingly offer. I want my counterparts (inner child, friends, family, lover) to accept that I’m acting from a place of benevolence: an honest place. That I am a friend, not a foe. And to realize I need and deserve a chance to prove such things. And further, that when mistakes happen, that they are not a sign of malignancy, of ill-intent, or of deep character flaws. They are the errors of a loving and growing human.

To me, our innocence is self-evident. I can’t confidently say that I know everyone is innocent. But I can’t think of the last mistake I made that was not made innocently. I was mistaken about someone’s intent. I had bad information. I didn’t consider the consequences. I reacted. I panicked. I deceived myself. I’m still culpable, but I’m also still good. These days, I think we must be careful to manage and filter our beliefs around self and our innate goodness. We must be willing to defend ourselves and our character too.

We can unwittingly buy into character assassination, often in the form of generalizations about ourselves as an representative of our various subcultures. We can look to social media as one culprit. Often in our zeal to be accountable, we may self-gaslight as we try to fit in.

If we are fish and trauma is the water in which we swim, then we don’t see the water. It’s ubiquitous.

To question a person’s perception is not manipulation, unless you’re doing it for nefarious purposes. That’s the difference, the intent. We so casually buy into the oft-misleading messages of the meme we saw on our feed. Critical thinking can be easily bypassed by repetition. Some of us who remember a time before the internet may spot this more easily.

A level of sophistication is needed to navigate the pitfalls of this moment in time. We can look back on the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age and realize that some things never change. Some of those we follow on social media are grifters and charlatans. They play on our ignorance, our desperation for happiness, our limited attention span and our bandwagon tendencies. Sophistry abounds. But if we don’t keep a critical eye to manipulation or a fallacy, it’s hard to notice it in real time. Thus we risk our capacity to perceive our realities. This is propaganda in high tech. I seem to have a Spidey-Sense of such things, in retrospect, but am just as susceptible. I remember buying a Jordan Peterson book and acting like this guy had all the answers. Then I watched some videos about him, Mel Robbins, Andrew Huberman and others who are everywhere. I was astonished at the manipulative use of language, the appeals to authority, the mass hypnosis of it all. The shady deals and the dishonesty. We take them on faith because they’re rich and successful. Look what that has gotten us politically. We do this at our peril. The dividing line is awareness.

We’re so modern and yet we’re still rubes, especially because we can’t see it. It’s just human nature. We love when the snake oil salesman pulls into town. We love to be sold. We love the charisma, the theater, and the promise of a better day. We want to turn our minds off and to push that easy button. We could all plead ignorance and we’d be forgiven. And yet it’s not a question of absolution, but of survival, for our selves, our nation, and our souls. Can we see what is real? Can we decode the internal and external messages that bombard us? Can we maintain a greater level of awareness?

In the richest nation, we are all a paycheck away from disaster. In the Land of the Free, we fear rendition to a South American prison. In the 21st century, women don’t have the bodily autonomy they did in 1973, when you could smoke in an airplane or a hospital. We can send a probe out of the Solar System, but can’t stop the constant forest fires raging across the globe. We are awash in stark contradictions and social upheaval. The Pope is a White Sox fan. The President is a pretend TV show business man. And I’m sure when he’s gone his supporters will plead ignorance. And we’ll throw up our hands and let them. Not because of veracity, but because we have grace. This grace is the glue that holds our affiliations together.