Ignorance: (n.) lack of knowledge. Since the very beginning of time wisdom and knowledge have been cherished as qualities relegated to gods and higher level human beings. Even today we spend the vast majority of our childhood entrapped inside white walls trying to fight the very idea of ignorance. Our innocence as children is inherent, and the transition towards our pre-teen period is dreaded due to the loss of it. The correlation between our gradual aging and the loss of our innocence as well as our ignorance is a tough issue to tackle. We've all heard the cliché, “ignorance is bliss” but do we truly believe this? And how much of it is true? The spectrum of our age and the gradual loss of our innocence along with our ignorance is tremendous. In today's society we value our elders for their wisdom and enlightenment, however, we look down our noses at them for their lack of innocence. In contrast, the other side of the spectrum celebrates our youth for their potential and innocence. Meanwhile, we realize their inabilities to take care of themselves along with their complete ignorance are qualities we do not give praise for. Also, our elders are sometimes given the moniker of grumpy, pessimistic, and downright mean, while our children are often construed as pleasant, happy, and careless. Do these attitudes come from the elders’ wisdom and knowledge of the world? Or are they negative due to the realization of their waning years of mortality? And are children particularly happy because of their ignorance to the reality of our world? Or are they simply less temperamental? In The Road, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the ignorance of his two main characters by setting them in a blackened post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is here where the child and his father are forced to survive while still maintaining their morality. Their ignorance is obvious as they have no idea where they are nor what they will find as they move towards the sea. The child resorts to labeling survivors between good and evil, with his father and him being perceived as the only two “good” people left on earth. Throughout the novel the child’s innocence is a way of symbolizing hope for a future society. Meanwhile, his father’s wisdom plays a pivotal role in the novel’s conclusion. Neither the father nor the child seems blissful in any sense of the word. While this may be an extreme example of the spectrum between ignorance and it’s correlation with happiness, McCarthy seems to believe that innocence trumps wisdom, because in the end the child is united with another “good” female whom will supposedly help him resurrect society. So, based on our perception is ignorance truly bliss?
