Is ignorance a palpable weapon against enlightenment?

Question

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" If you ever used the excuse "I didn't know that was a law", you know what I'm talking about. Today, if you don't know things, it's alright. The U.S. has lowered it's standards to allow certain masses of people to advance. This is called "Dummying Down" where I come from.

Answer 1

Yes and the answer to this is Forgive Affirmed Spirit.

Answer 2

Ignorance if the law is different than ignorance in general.

Ignorance of the law is based on the doctrine of constructive notice. Because the laws are posted and available for anyone to read, failure to do so does not constitute true ignorance of the law. Otherwise, anyone could claim they don't know the law, and there would be no way to prove it.

Constructive notice says that if the information was available (which current criminal laws are) and the person has a duty to check (which everyone does -- to follow the law), than failure to find out what the law requires is not an excuse.

However, there is an exception. If the law is not publicly available (because it's too new and hasn't been posted) or because it's too complex to understand (like federal tax codes), it is a legal excuse if you make a good faith attempt to follow the law, but somehow got it wrong. So, lack of information about the law (in rare situations) can be a defense.

That's different than general ignorance about social or contemporary issues. And yes, ignorance is a weapon against enlightenment, because deliberately ignoring reality (ignore-ance) does harm the process of gaining understanding.

Answer 3

I don't know about that - ignorance of the law is still not an excuse in the US. You can try it in court, but you will probably still get punished.

At the same time, there are a lot of people who choose to remain ignorant. Those people are actively working against enlightenment.

Answer 4

No. Ignorance would be the objective, it would have to be accomplished in a variety of ways - limmitting educational opportunities, for instance, and clamping down on freedom of speach and information.