On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we're exploring three ​different kinds of ignorance and how recognizing them in ourselves can help us ​to grow, take responsibility, and respond ​to others and life with more curiosity and compassion.

I talk about innocent ignorance, when we simply don’t know​ or don't yet know better; willful ignorance, when we avoid information that challenges us​ or makes us uncomfy; and belligerent ignorance, when we aggressively reject (like an asshole) what we could actually learn​ if we kept our hearts and minds open.

You’ll hear why staying open-minded matters and how practicing curiosity can help us ​to understand ​ourselves and ​e​ach another ​in a deeper way.We can forgive ourselves and other clumsy humans when we make innocent mistakes...And we have to commit to taking action to shed our ignorance, and then doing a whole lot better, once we know better​!

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, speaker, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self​-discovery, and transformational change work.

Karen helps people to navigate this whole “being human” experience with more love, curiosity,​ courage, and creativity.

She encourages people to learn and explore by using personal stories and a bunch of different practical tools and universal principles.

KK's been a yoga teacher for 25+ years and has been offering Thai Yoga Massage since 2008.

She's also the creator of WRITE CLUB , and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She coaches clients individually 1:1 in her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS and in her program, THE QUEST.

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It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey, you guys!

Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm just diving straight

into this sucker. You want to know why? Number one, couple of

reasons. I'm a little tired. I'm recording this at like 7o'clock

at night, which I like never ever do, and my sweetie and I

got to stop getting our yummy vegan dinner snacks to go. You

don't want me doing this while I'm hangry. Double A men hands,

if you know that you literally transform into a totally

different human being. It's like you're you're taken over by the

hangry the hangry monsters. Okay, so here we are. You know

what? I I don't know what I'm gonna call this one. Maybe it's

like the three types of ignorance. Now there could be a

lot of others, but just for the sake of this episode, we're

gonna dive into the three types of of ignorance, and I think

this is wicked important for a lot of different reasons, one

especially because the state of the world right now is so

insane, and people just people just refuse to like read a read

a book or two or to educate themselves. Obviously, not

everybody, but I think at a time when we're coming up on like

time just to vote, like November, and to educate

ourselves and to learn some fucking facts and stuff. Okay,

so let's just dive into this and beyond it. I also just think,

look, every episode that I do is also for me and my ears. These

are reminders to me as well to to take a look at kind of the

human condition and the ways that we often do things, and the

patterns and the habits that we fall into, and just basically

the blind spots to our own bullshit. You guys have heard me

say 1000 times, like we have to own both our brilliance, double

amen hands for that, but and our bullshit, right? And we often

have a little bit of a teeny tiny blind spot, if you don't

know or believe that you have a blind spot, ask the people

closest to you because I am sure that they will inform you.

Hopefully, in a kind way. Okay, well, this all started with

Dolly, good old Dolly Parton. You know, God bless her. We lost

her recently, as everybody knows. And I was reading a story

about her, and I've been thinking about this ever since.

So back in the day, she had a place called the Dixie Stampede

Dinner Show. It was a dinner theater show, one of the very

many business you know ventures that she had. And after 2017, in

the criticism, in the wake of the criticism of the

Charlottesville white supremacist rally, I think

that's where her her show her place is. You know, people were

getting upset because it was called the Dixie Stampede, and

so she decided to rename the attraction, and she says, like

she did an interview with Billboard. I'm just reading this

here, and she said Patton addressed that controversy,

saying that she was guilty of innocent ignorance, and that she

would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose, and I love

this. Let's talk about this. We've all experienced, I'm sure.

If we didn't do it ourselves when we were wee little ones,

we've heard your own children, you know, strangers, kids in a

checkout aisle or at a store, or your nieces, your nephews,

somebody. You've heard a child blurt out something that is

maybe mean or unkind or what might be considered rude.

They're very inquisitive. They point at somebody and they say,

"Why is that person? and then fill in the blank, or "Why don't

you? and then fill in the blank, or "What happened to your? and

fill in the blank. Right? We know little kids are notorious

for just blurting out things before they learn that that is

not maybe considered kind or polite, or that's rude or that's

hurtful or whatever. And there is this thing as of innocent

ignorance, which is like an unintentional, right? An

unintentional lack of knowledge, and it just usually stems from

being young, right? People's age. It stems from a lack of

experience and a lack of exposure. A lot of times, rather

than a choice, right? An active adult choice, like to avoid the

truth or to avoid reality. A lot of times, it's very passive.

It's not done out of meanness. It's done out of you know again

lack of experience, lack of age, lack of exposure. And when Dolly

talks about this, she says, and I'm quoting her here. She says,

you know, there's such a thing as innocent ignorance, and so

many of us are guilty of that. But as soon as you realize it's

a problem. You should fix it. This is a key part to my next

thing, right? As soon as you realize it's a problem, or

there's a problem, or maybe you've stepped in it, or you put

your foot in your fucking mouth, or you said something you

shouldn't have, or whatever, right? Like we of all, I'm sure,

said something, blurted something out, did something

when we shouldn't have, and it wasn't to be mean or harmful,

even if that's how it came across. But it doesn't matter if

the harm was done. You know, we have to kind of own it, even

though, like Dolly, we may never dream of intentionally trying to

hurt somebody. Sometimes we're clumsy. That is just the human

condition, and it's on us that once we realize that we've made

a mistake, that we're guilty of doing doing it, that it's become

a problem with somebody, that we should try to fix it. You know,

and it's it's temporary, and it's there's a usually a pure

intent behind the question. We again going back to little kids,

we see them; they're really asking something out of

curiosity or confusion, or they've never seen something

before, heard something before. They don't understand why

somebody looks different or sounds different or whatever it

is. And there's not, there's no malice attached to it. You know,

there's no desire to cause deliberate harm. And I'm sure,

like I said, it's usually, hopefully, fingers crossed. You

know, it's forgivable, or it's something that resolves itself

naturally over time as the parents educates them, or you

educate yourself as you gain more life experience, as you

expose yourself. And this is why reading books is like so

important. As you get to, like you know, I think music does

this too. My sweetie and I were just talking about this: music,

dance, movies, books, the arts-you know what they do is

they show us the lived experience of other people. We

can literally read about and insert ourselves or imagine

ourselves in somebody else's shoes, and this totally expands

our worldview. It expands our education. It expands our point

of view, right? We're able to see what it might be like to to

be in another person's shoes. It gives us direct exposure when

you travel to new places. We think we know all kinds of

things until our ass is actually in the grass, right there on the

ground. You know what I mean? So it's really important because

sometimes we may not know something because again, there's

a lack of resources. Maybe we didn't know. Another reasons why

I champion libraries because I think we have so much access to

incredible resources, and that we can, you know, help us to,

you know, grow out of. It gives us the opportunity to grow out

of that innocent ignorance, right? And like I said,

sometimes people just don't know better. But once you know

better, once you know better, it's on you, it's on us, it's on

each of us to do better. Okay, so that's innocent ignorance,

which sometimes happen. Then we come into what I think we are

currently in a lot of the times, which is what's called willful

ignorance, right? Willful ignorance is when we are

consciously making a choice. When a human being is being

deliberately ignorant, they are avoiding, avoiding, or

rejecting, like ping, ping, ping with their Wonder Woman

bracelets, just ping, ping, ping, ricochet, rabbiting away,

like facts, relevant facts, things that matter. They're not

looking for for for more knowledge. They're not looking

for evidence. They don't want anything that is going to cause

them cognitive dissonance. They don't want to accept or look at

or read or hear or whatever anything that's going to cause

them discomfort because of what view or belief or story or

whatever they are currently holding. They don't want their

existing beliefs to be challenged. They don't want to

feel obligated, right? They don't want the responsibility.

They don't want to feel morally obligated, especially to have to

change, or to act, or to do something different than what

they're used to doing. You know, again, when we go back to

innocent ignorance, which is simple ignorance, you know,

that's just a lack of knowledge and information because people

again may not have been exposed to it yet. But willful ignorance

is when you actually have the opportunity and look with all of

the libraries, all of the books, all of the podcasts, all of the,

all of the information that's available to us. Right, we

possess the opportunity to learn more, to learn more, to learn

facts, this is why they ban books. P.S. This is why they are

banning books at an alarming rate because they don't want

people to be educated. Educated people, especially educated

children and women, become dangerous because you can't

control somebody who has a mind that is able to critically. And

to think for themselves, and to point out, like, oh yeah, aren't

we repeating the past? Aren't we repeating this? Aren't we just

kind of whitewashing everything and pretending like all of this

genocide and all of this awful shit, everything like didn't

happen? Like it's like the people who deny the Holocaust or

the people who, you know, deny genocides. People who don't

believe in slavery. Like you might as well just believe that

the world is flat. You know what I'm saying? But when you

willfully, willfully give up the opportunity to learn more, to

possibly change your mind, to be a more informed citizen, to

educate yourself, to expand your point of view, this is why I do

believe we should talk to people across the aisle. We should try

to understand how another human being got there. At some point,

I agree that there's just no listening or talking to. It's

like talking to a wall sometimes, right? You know,

going into there's a difference between going into a

conversation trying to convince somebody of something versus

going and curious and really trying to listen, and even if

you do that with the most well intentions, the best intentions,

you're going to find that some people just do not want to give

it up. They do not want to learn anything. Called Papa, I have

this great quote here. I'll hold it up. You can see it, right? So

he says, true ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but

the refusal to acquire it. Let me say that again: true

knowledge is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to

acquire it. So that that's a really big thing, right? It's

like when we are deliberately and consciously choosing to

avoid or reject relevant facts, or knowledge, or experience. So

much is available to us, and there are just times when I I

write about this in my memoir, and I say there were times when

I just did not want the truthy truth. To accept the truthy

truth was going to mean that I was going to have to change. I

was going to have to look at some people in my life

differently. I might have to end some relationships. I might have

to make different choices. I might have to stop acting X, Y,

and Z like a victim or ignorant or I didn't know, or whatever,

whatever racket I was running on myself. Right? When we choose to

be willfully ignorant, we are just not accepting. We are

actively pushing away learning the truth. We're looking away.

We're ignoring. We're denying. We're rejecting what's right in

front of us, and we do this a lot. We do it a lot in our

relationships. We do it in in I would say we do it in situations

where we are benefiting from something, and it's like you see

it all the time with people. Like you see it what they're

doing,

what they're doing

right now, raping and pillaging and building data

centers and doing all this shit and they're just saying stuff

like oh there's plenty of water oh climate change doesn't exist

it's a bunch of bullshit for a bunch of people to become

billionaires and get rich you know what I'm saying there is so

much where people just put on the blinders and they go non

like when we were little kids and you didn't want to hear

something and you would close your eyes, you'd stick your

fingers in your ears, and you would start making nonsense

noises. Right, right now I see a lot of adults around the world

making a lot of nonsense noises with their fingers in their

ears, their thumbs up their ass, and they're not changing shit

because they don't want to. They're enjoying being willfully

ignorant because they're benefiting from it, or they

believe they're benefiting from it in some way. Mostly, they

just don't want their beliefs to be challenged-the ones that

exist, the ones that they were taught, the ones that they were

brought up on, the ones that were crammed down their throats

from their people and their people before them, right? And a

lot of times, people don't want to know, because then they'll be

forced to act. We see it a lot in relationships too, where

you're an enabler, right? And we would say, like, whether it's

you're enabling somebody in your life who is fill in, fill in any

kind of behavior, whether they gamble too much, drink too much,

drug too much, shop too, whatever the thing is, right?

Watching people, you know how they behave, and you're like,

okay, this is not juris. This isn't good, and then you just

put on the blind is because it would be way too uncomfortable

to have that conversation with them, or sometimes even with

ourselves. So willful ignorance is is not is not so great, and

you know Plato talks about it. You know, I'll actually I'll

save the study. I'll save the end because I love it. Okay. The

third type. I don't. I didn't even know if this is a thing,

but there's one thing when you're willfully ignorant, when

you're just kind of like deliberately and consciously

choosing not to see things. You don't want to see things. You

don't want to have to think about it. You don't want to have

to change. But then there's what I call. Belligerent, belligerent

ignorance, and this is when you have a fucking attitude where a

person not only lacks knowledge, they lack understanding, but

they actively, adamantly, right reject correct information. Not

only are they just not willing to see it, or do any research,

or read a fucking book or educate themselves. They're

refusing, like doubling down, refusing to learn, or they

behave aggressively when you question something of this.

They're very like some s words, some s words that come up when I

think about it is selfish, smug, and self righteous. Does anybody

here know anybody like that? Just, just double in hands if

you know what I'm talking about, right? This is like an active,

adamant refusal to learn, right? Simply, rather than just not

being like not interested in a fact, right? They literally just

like avoid and reject evidence. They they won't listen to

anything logical. They'd rather argue and just go in circles

instead of God forbid, maybe seeing somebody else's point of

view, trying to understand another person's lived

experience, and maybe look, we've all maybe have been there

at some point when we feel threatened, when something about

us, our own identity, you know, feels threatened, we can double

down. You know, I I experience this as a sort of like

stubbornness. You know what I'm saying? So there's hostility and

aggression, this pushback, this overcorrection. When when you

mention like hey did you read that study or hey did you talk

to so and so or hey did you look this up you're often met with

the number one thing is defensiveness you're you're met

with anger people get combative you know people like really

start to push back they come out swinging this is what I say they

come out swinging so rather than engage with something or another

person through curiosity, like "huh, tell me more about that. I

don't know that I agree.

I don't know that you're going to change my mind, but like,

tell me more about that. Rather than approaching it that way,

they just absolutely are smug. They have an inflated. Somebody

once said it like this: They have an inflated sense of

certainty, and the one thing that I will say, having just

turned 58, the older I get, right, it is just so painfully

clear to me that there is so much shit that I don't know.

There is so much that when I look back when I was younger and

I thought I knew a thing or I thought I knew a person and I

just thought Jesus Christ I didn't know anything right I I I

I just realize more and more and more you know and especially if

you're patient and you pause and you give things a little bit of

time, things will reveal themselves. You'll be so adamant

and so sure. Like when you know when we're kids, when we're

teenagers, we thought we knew everything. You couldn't tell us

jack shit. And then you get a little older and you realize,

like, oh my god, I was kind of an idiot. I was so certain. I

was so sure. I was so full of myself, right? So, and some

people even take this like lack of information, this lack of

education, this lack of proper like like literally like doing

your due diligence and having proper information. They take it

as a point of pride, right? It's a point of pride that they have

this what they consider like some unshakable truth, but it's

just like you see this a lot. I think with conspiracy theorists,

you know what I mean, who just like double down and they're

belligerent about it, but they're not just like doubling

down and standing their ground. They do it like with this sheer

conviction and smugness and self-righteousness and and it's

gross. They behave aggressively and they refuse to learn. They

refuse to see anything other than what they believe and what

they've been taught. And it's just it's just negative. It's

just negative. Not going to happen. Not on my watch. Not

interested. I find it so fucking dull. I find people like that so

dull. Maybe that's mean of me to say, but right now that's how I

feel. And I always say I reserve the right to change my mind. I

can, you know, I can forgive a lot of things in life, but

stubbornness is just so unattractive to me. It's like

I'm not talking about when people take a stand for what

they believe in, I'm talking about when they have been

presented with proof and evidence and facts and

testimonials and other people's experiences, and they just go,

"Nope, nope, not true, not happening, not all men, not all

men. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so these are the three

types of ignorance. That I'm kind of talking about today, and

I want to talk about them because we are all, we are all.

What's the word I'm looking for? We can all be susceptible.

That's the word. We can all be susceptible to these kinds of

things, and it can be dangerous. And if we're not curious and

we're not open-minded, that that's the one thing that I

think of when I think of ignorance. It's

close-mindedness. It's small-mindedness. It's to me, it

is a thought system totally based on fear, where I

experience that like I'm making fists right now, like tight,

tight, right? And I think of fear like that, and I think of

curiosity and love and an open mind. It's like opening the

hands. The hands become soft. It's like lean in. Tell me more.

How did you get there? Let me understand your point of view.

Because a lot of times, once you hear somebody's stories, once

you hear their past, once you hear what they've been through,

their choices, their beliefs, right, their stories, their

identity. It starts to make a little bit more sense, so you

can have a little more empathy and compassion. It doesn't mean

we're just going to forgive all kinds of ignorance all the time

for everything, but it helps us to kind of be a little bit more

approachable, a little bit more kind to each other.

But when you're when you are willfully being ignorant

consistently all the time, or when you step into that

belligerent smirking like smug assholery, it's like no, no, not

interested. You know, no, not a zip, nothing, no negatory. Okay,

here's the Plato quote that I love, and this is a great quote

to kind of wrap things up on. And again, take what I'm

sharing. You know, I don't. I'm not using these titles because

these are very like, you know, there's nuances to everything.

And this isn't to call people out or to point fingers. I'm

saying that these are like things, red flags to watch out

for in our own thinking, in our own attachment to being right,

in our own behaviors, because it's just going to get weirder

and weirder and weirder. Like right now, like you turn on,

like we we leave Bob Ross on for Bunch, right for Bunchy. So we

watch, we hear Bob Ross a lot, and just the political ads right

now are just like out of this world, insane, and it's just

going to get crazier and crazier and crazier. So we have to look

at the places within ourselves where we have that simple,

innocent ignorance, and how can we do better there? How can we

apologize and and do more? Then we have to notice the places in

ourselves where we have that willful ignorance, where we

really don't want our existing beliefs to be challenged. We

don't want any facts or figures, right? Because it's

uncomfortable. We don't want to be uncomfortable. And then we

have the belligerent ignorance, where we are just doubling down

on nonsense and we're being kind of assholes, you know. Like I

said, not attractive. So we want to look out for this in

ourselves. You might want to look out for it in the people

close to you, in your friend group, in your family, in the

politicians, in the people that you give your money to, spend

time with, learn from, etc. Go to church with, whatever. Okay,

this is the Plato quote. He says, "I'll hold this one up too

because it's it's really fantastic. He says we can easily

forgive a child who's afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of

life is when men are afraid of the light. Right? We can easily

forgive a child who's afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of

life is when men are afraid of the light. That's a big one. So

that's what I got for you today, beautiful people. Thank you for

tuning in. Oh, may we all continue to just get better and

better and better on this human journey. On this, as Prince

says, on this thing called life. May we be kinder. May we be more

compassionate and patient and merciful and loving, and I'm

also gonna kind of. This is what I think about when I think about

how I feel about people who are belligerently ignorant. Oh, my

sweetie got me this. So Batsy Head's one of my favorite

artists, and I have a bunch of I have two now two originals,

which is a big deal, and a couple of prints and stuff like

that, a bunch of prints actually. But this is an

original, and my sweetie got this for me. This is how I feel

about I'm holding this up for you. It basically says, "Kindly

gather thy fuckery and skedaddle. Kindly gather thy

fuckery and skedaddle. That's how I feel. Just skedaddle with

your with your willful and your belligerent ignorance. You know

what I'm saying? Let's do better, people. The world needs

us to do better. The animals need us to do better. The

children need us to do better. We all. Just need to get our

heads out our asses and and not be as ignorant as apparently a

lot of us appear to be. So, let's do better, shall we? Okay,

wherever you go, may you leave yourself and the animals and the

people in the planet, the environment better than how you

first found it. Wherever you go, may you and your energy, and

your love, and your presence, and your your your your open

mindedness and your curiosity, may it be a blessing. And also

go check out KarenKenney.com. That's where you can find all

the stuff I'm up to.

If you want to get on my mailing list, if you want to learn about

Thai yoga, massage, yoga classes, whatever I got going

on. But I appreciate you being here, and thank you for

listening. And I'm sending you so much love. Bye. Hey, thanks

so much for listening to the show. I really love spending

some time together. Now, if you dig the show or know someone

that could benefit from this episode, please share it with

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my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch. Bye.