From the life adventures of one social observer, with a background in business consultations, the assertion is made that “ignorance is not bliss”. Note, from a business real-world viewpoint, as opposed to purely academic conjecture, the voice is one of experience outside the façade of academia. And, echoing the poetic resonance of folly falling on the wise, post-modern mainstream appears to embrace a conspiratorial affinity for idiocy. One philosophical perspective observed the foolhardiness of carnal fixation on the minor probabilities of subjective delusions. Absurdity projects from collectivist simplicity in purposeful madness of folly. For that, collectivism, disguised as either allegedly “democratic” or brazenly totalitarian, is the perpetration of anti-intellectual and physically abusing crowd cohesion.  Herded bad sense of silliness relishes the foolish and forsake the factual, while praising the impotent of group thinking. The threat to individuality is real and urgent, and it's essential to recognize and address it.

     As the aforementioned writer embellishes, a skewed world view shirks the necessity of evolutionary ascension. Fear grips the flaccid perspective of castrated entrenchment, one size fits all, and templates reduce creativity to child-like selfishness. Sameness blares intolerance for profound intellectual adventures in self-evolving differentiation. An incessant salaciousness intends to label, judge, and demean and otherwise instill divisiveness. Anarcho-syndicalist perpetrations stem from juvenile ideations taken to illogical generalizations of horrendous fallacies of inference. Where in-depth understanding dives to the lowest common denominator, so that the pillage of authentic reality overrides logical necessity, devolution sets in. Increasingly, as the aforementioned author points out, illicit judgmental opinions are quick to castigate opposing perspective due to the former’s failure of knowledge and understanding.

     By psychodynamic stealth of keen observation, the smoking gun can be found in numerous societal institutions. From infotainment to political processes, and academia to corporate intrigue, a network of intense interactivity abounds with sinister potentiality. Of special interest, academia's surreal world is fascinatingly an allure. It is not the city-like environs of living day-to-day interactions reflecting the larger community; instead, it is the classroom, the lecture hall, and the theaters of commentary and debate. In addition, the spheres of alleged intellectual pontifications, in the pursuit of so-called higher learning, pose opportunities for closer observation.  These societal institutions play a significant role in perpetuating regressive conformity.

     In academia, for instance, a wondrous environment for observational fascination, the dominion of the “social studies arena” (criminology, psychology, sociology, and theology) fosters unique spheres of pseudoscience. From that spectrum of speculative opined regurgitation, status quo consensus from one subset to another ensures the longevity of dogmatic viewpoints. Social “mass psychosis” is easily manufactured to influence and otherwise control public perceptions. Anti-science, along with its cousin anti-intellectualism, offers diverse opportunities to assert the “divine right” of the tyranny of one group over another. Whereby pseudoscience, or unknown, unexplained, and unproved, plus given the time frame and techno capacity, is waiting to find revelation in evidentiary artifacts. In the meantime, sleight of hand and legerdemain perform myriad magic tricks, sometimes called research, to display an awe-inspiring array of trickery.

     By contrast in the real world, a practitioner criminologist with a badge is an experienced philosopher of one ideology or another. She or he may be a rookie, a veteran, or a master craftsman.  Outside the textbook, in, say, for example, a criminal justice class, often written by an author of questionable expertise, regurgitated redundancy is mostly based on someone else’s viewpoint. An exception is where real science shows up at the crime. Typically, the detective relies on forensic science in the crime lab from scientists to examine the evidence toward a culmination of proof or disproof. Scientific validation and naturalistic authenticity of confirmation derived from organic existences. Given experience levels, maturity, education, training, and many interrelated factors, the investigator brings observational bias to the issues of people, places, and properties in question. A reflection of mirrored perspectives colludes to project bias of personal philosophy at every opportunity. Ideological diversification colludes with a universe of “cause-effect” delineations.

     As people, in general, are devolving or evolving at their insistence, along with the degrading effects of immaturity, any speculation begs submission to fallacies of inference. In the universal instigation of illusive mastery, con artists of one sort or another, one domain after another, find a stage upon which they conjure their self-serving divinities. From a deterministic standpoint, one pontificator of a psychological viewpoint of the 1800’s asserted the regressive servility of the masses. In this, neither based on science nor universality of consistency, the speculation claims groups desire the mastery of the few. While a broad generalization might appear applicable in today’s trendy influencer technogasmic world, exceptionality for individuality finds the uniqueness of rebellious personalities. Nonetheless, the efforts of some to control the many are precariously present in a variety of social institutions.

     From not-so-hallowed halls of ministerial manipulations to schools of governmental mandates and big tech and pharmaceutical complicities, diverse contrivances persist in fomenting one consensus that fits all. This de-emphasizes the things that require in-depth knowledge and deeper understanding, defacing the individuality of human creativity. While conspiratorial beliefs thrive, those not based on evidentiary sufficiency and rigorous educational, experiential, and training processes suffer. High-level skills and critical thinking, along with strenuous analytical assessment, are usually met with negativity. Arrogance proudly waves hand gestures in the face of intellectual competency. Emotional reactivity often prevails in opposition to insightful interpretation of scientific analysis. At the same time, public officials who ought to know better say stupid things in the aftermath of a catastrophic event, disaster, or horrific criminality. For practitioners in criminology, the struggle for facts persistently nags.

     At a crime scene, for example, the challenge to ensure objectivity and insist upon serious rationality in logical deduction sometimes stifles investigative processes. Focusing on the facts, the data, transactional events, forensic analysis, and scientific validity might get distracted by “political correctness” and “social studies” misinformation. Belief systems unfold from personal philosophical adventures to promulgate emotional acceptance of metaphysical conjecture. As one researcher points out, learning and self-evolving become tainted by stagnation in the rut of a commonality of ignorance. Developing a uniquely profound sense of investigative technique, being inquisitive beyond the normal range, and being skeptical about the superficiality of alleged proof requires an exceptionality of imaginative boldness. However, templates abound, and standard issue profiles and cutouts guide the bias to ensure subjective validation. One format that meets the status quo for contriving consensus makes almost everyone feel good.

     More dangerous to the communal collective is the daring soul who thinks outside the box. Many pretend to do so. However, their deception is often cunningly well-marketed. For many, salesmanship, or more accurately, con artistry, speaks louder volumes than the quiet resolve to safeguard the necessity of evidentiary necessity. And frequently, the tricksters go unquestioned or challenged by the noble dissenter. By private perseverance to elevate the senses by desiring to uncover and reveal more, competence strives toward higher levels of wiser enlightenment. To open one’s mind to the complexity of human behavior and the extraordinary reaches of malevolence and benevolence petitions the psyche to pursue the wonderment of it all. To be thwarted by a two-dimensional framework, an electronic device with all the answers, is foolhardy.

     An echo reverberates from a more artistically creative past. Post calamity, a war following a war to end all wars, boasts the unanimity of collective grief, thwarting a fascistic threat. Nonetheless, opportunistic indulgences envisioned the contrived consensus of status quo commonality. One standard for all. With that comes the well-worn paths of normalcy. Exceptionality courts individuality but confronts collusions, fomenting one scare-mongering tactic after another. So much so that the sheepish commonplace cooperatives envision a unanimity of mainstream cohesion. Opposite, of course, in contrary notions from that of “we the people” in a union of “e pluribis unum”, out of many – one. From twisted self-serving conjectures, suggested ominously by reference to a “brave new world”, dehumanization, and with it the stupefaction of ideations to reality, unfolds contrived conspiracies from numerous organizational entities. Whether jointly complicitous, covertly or overtly, or separately submissive, in the warped atmosphere of political correctness, the game is afoot to subordinate one into many.

     Where valiant vigilance keeps watch for the terrors of social compliance subversion, individuality in creativity is threatened to extinction. Censorship in post-modern times rises to quash the bravery of unabashed personal liberation. Such expresses the many-faceted aspects of a conspiracy of ignorance. From a myriad range of psycho-social hatcheries, including primarily so-called higher education, the templated claims of the “social studies arena” assert their mysticism. Myth, magic, and metaphor find clever and cunning disguises. Seeking the truth and who is to be trusted becomes the “great game” to challenge the heroism of individuation. Materialistic incentives foment standardization because of the influence manipulated by more powerful interests in the shadowy enclaves of academia, such as “big tech” and the new robber barons. Incubation starts early in what is euphemistically called “public schools”. With this smokescreen, the manufacturing of compliant, obedient, and submissive consumers continues.

     From a classical notion, assuring the viability of free will liberation, to inquire, to explore, to illuminate the senses, for self-evolution to higher states of maturation falls upon the courageous few.  For many, the intention is subservient compliance to satiate superficiality in the mainstream. In the provocations of illicit ideations from “operational conditioning”, social “dogging” doggedly pontificated communal engineering. Doctrinaire schemes of oligarchic elitists prefer a more compliant wussified culture within darker domains of socio-economic potency and control two-thirds of the resources. Pacification comes in many forms. Seemingly, as the illusions contend, resistance appears futile. But some resist and bravely persist.

     Contrived consensus, status quo normalcy, and commonality of compliance conspire to weaken the visionary attempts at creativity and innovative inquiry. Accepting indoctrination, conformity, and limited questioning of dogma to doctrine emanates from the bastions of the “social studies arena”. A mantra unfolds that says to accept a role, assume an assigned ranking, use the special language of sensitivity, and censor behaviors for the greater collective. In various meeting arrangements with contrived agendas, terminology invites collaboration for standard operating agreements. A particular word stands out. It is the utterance of the “collective”. Cooperative, alleged communal transparency, which is not translucent, summons notions of commonality where debate is controlled or otherwise censored. An example ekes its way to the surface and is not untypical in a standard issue faculty assembly. That is the example of a directive to evaluate this or that, and is admonished to be “kind, unoffensive but honest”.

      Fascinating imaginings emerge. While uninhibited, straightforward, candid authenticity ought to permeate the academic environment, censorship finds many kinships. As wiser persons are filled with doubt, questions, and complexity of curiosity, others pursue the simplistic superficiality reinforced by their ignorance and stupidity. As one college professor points out, navigating the wandering mindlessness of collegiate self-discovery, it is troubling to witness the depressive denigration of mature, authentic free speech. Inspiring and developing openness with maturely grown-up competency and delving into the mysterious realms of human behavior become stifled by sinister self-serving interests. Plastic politics, for instance, of the debasing nature, relegate factuality to the dustbins of serious reality. In place of the vitality of somber exploration and relevant investigative analysis, selfish proclivities exploit intellectual ascendancy. Consequently, the arrogance of stupidity hastens the regression of enlightened ascendency.

     In the 21^st, one writer asserts, in reflection upon a historical, philosophical point, that fools and fanatics devolve into their self-righteous worldview of profound idiocy. The more they are left unchallenged by factual substantiation, the more stupidity expands across the social spectrum. Much of the idiocy is witnessed by the abundance of podcasts, blogs, and tubes that pretend to claim the moderator knows what he or she is talking about. More often than not, the youngling seeks validation for his or her woefully boring and dysfunctional life. Celebrity status overrides the dynamic efficacy of evidentiary viability. Opinion, particularly emotionally driven whining viewpoints, stumbles foolishly to supplant scientific validation of the facts. The savvy investigator notes that opinion, rumor, and gossip are not of evidentiary value.

     Furthermore, over-estimating personal outlook dismisses the undervaluation of personal ignorance. Most frequently, the average person is not as clever as he or she thinks. Yet, many pretend, fool, or otherwise deceive themselves by believing they are well-informed, astute, and possess special insight. While one long-standing think tank delves into the mystical notions of evidentiary degradation, the preliminary results of that study offer the disturbing view that “truth is decomposing”. From the last century, some researchers argued an era of anti-intellectualism stumbles painfully into the 21^st century. From the analysis of viability regarding the decay of truth, opined emotionalism subverts the essentiality of facts, data, and relevance of proofs. From academia to politics, the insults of superficial and meaningless claims derail credible discourse's vital and critical necessity. Fact-based analytic complexity, resulting from time and energy to reveal substantive refutation or confirmation, worsens in favor of the irrelevance of confirmation bias. For the satiation of subjective validation, deception finds many alliances.

     An article in a student newspaper from a major northeastern U.S. university suggests concern about the relevance of facts versus fiction. Among a few astute researchers, all too commonplace is the echo of mirrored reflections concerning the degradation of real-world factuality. Lamenting the downward trends in intellectual capacity, one researcher augments the concern over how far people will go to feel special. That includes replacing truth with magical thinking by way of fiction over realities. As such, in an era of fake news, falsehood spreads rapidly like wildfire throughout social media. Given a gluttonously bloated consumer culture, for example, where is the warning to consume less? Additionally, when has mainstream media advocated downsizing, conserving resources, or replacing essential materials with recycled goods? Or, for that matter, getting buy with essentials. On the contrary, the mantra is to consume more, get the latest gadget or gizmo, upgrade to the “trending technogasm”, or get the newest app for an electronic extension of “masturbatory self-adulation”.

     Such notions are just one aspect of the intentional motivations toward hastening the demise of the human species. This, of course, is fascinating. For all the smug righteousness of self-righteous arrogance and ignorance, the diversity of stupidity runs rife throughout society. One less informed generation replaces a previously not well-advanced generation. And the decline escalates. Despite all the technology, the plethora of information available, and the abundance of alleged “experts, " human nature remains the same. It is as though there is some “X-Files” hidden agenda to give rise to a conspiracy of ignorance. Stupidity abounds.

     Assessments, trends, analyses, and so forth are useful in attempting to develop and implement action plans. However, at a certain point, such efforts may be futile. The irony or perhaps the paradox inclines toward an appreciation of societal, intellectual regression about information availability as a contrast between enormous varieties of information by way of technological advances versus the willingness to pursue wiser understandings. From one observation, an article appearing in an online journal of a major university, the 21^st century is an era of unprecedented availability of informational resources. Access is increasingly convenient and readily available. And yet, as pointed out by the author, the prevalence of seeking out a more profound experience of knowledge development seems woefully lacking. In other words, some researchers claim most people would rather remain “blissfully ignorant”. Nearly a decade earlier, another discoverer sought to comprehend the growing partiality of ignorance.

      Citing a proclivity to know little about the world many people claim to know a lot about, the article blames “modern education” in part. At every level, the investigator mentioned the inadequacies of contemporary educational systems. In another arena, researchers express anguish over fake science and a growing knowledge crisis. From their perspective, ignorance imposes the dangerous possibilities of fatality. Reliable knowledge is essential to overall optimum health and intellectual competence. However, fakery and deception grow by leaps and bounds throughout the world. Dissemination of false information is used to influence socio-economic and political processes. Devasting results are achieved by selfishly immature people, disguised as adults and often politicians, who invest deadly potentiality in fomenting adverse public policies. From climate change to presidential elections, divisive consequences hasten social collapse.

     Meanwhile, aiding enlightenment as little as possible, “junk science” from the social studies arena of academia offers little to advance the human species. Despite a revolution in knowledge production and access, ignorance surrounds daily human interactivity as though a criminal conspiracy exists. A few seek the means to exert power, control, and domination over the many, thereby degrading the psychodynamic potentiality of enlightened possibilities. Of the small numbers of those with the power of wealth and resource control, where are the extensive collaborations to ensure greater advancement of the general welfare? And by deliberate acts of prosocial liberation, where are the “superheroes” who can unleash the potency of interpersonal freedom beyond stupidity and incompetence? One scientist proclaimed that current times are like a “golden age of ignorance”. Or a conspiracy of ignorance.