Agnotology – the study of the cultural production of ignorance:
(Agnotology) – There is a broad cultural movement to intentionally induce ignorance and/or doubt across broad swaths of science, medicine, health care, public health, politics, news reporting, the humanities, basic economics and much more. This activity is manifest via the publication of intentionally inaccurate or misleading ideas and data through all communication media (fiction and lies as fact). This movement has sufficient traction and mass to drive its ideas and “data” into the most politically and financially powerful organizations across the globe – creating useful narritive and manufactured controversy to achieve varied goals.
The U.S. government’s executive leadership currently seems a concentrated expression of this movement (emphasizing the use of historical negationism, the illusory truth effect, the misinformation effect and by harnessing a range of other biases) – consider their:
- treatment of migrants,
- attacks on individual & group rights and on the rule of law,
- cryptocurrency marketing, deregulation and implementations,
- environmental harms,
- devaluing of science in all forms and across all fields,
- disassembly and disposal of what they call the deep state or administrative state,
- enlarging and and obfuscating financial risks throughout business and non-business environments,
- recharacterizing of presidential power as absolute and embodying immunity (absolute and presumptive) and then using that power to murder humans on the high seas, threaten repeatedly to annex Greenland – via fiat or military force, to kidnap a rogue head of state and elevate their second-in-command while claiming to own that country’s resources, to unilaterally start a war with Iran, on April 7, 2026 threaten Iran with “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”
- materially disrupting global shipping/global energy markets/global food production/global air travel and more while
- driving up prices and financial risks throughout the United States and across much of the globe.
Supporters of this “movement” seem to assume (quoting Isaac Asimov) “the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.” Also see: false equivalence, whitewashing and reputation laundering.
To one extent or another, most of us are involved in choosing our leaders. It is important to get that electing right, please take the time to thoughtfully read and think about the essay: “How (Not) to Choose Our Leaders.”