If I know nothing can I be responsible for anything?

Hogan's Heroes was an American television situation comedy that ran from 1965, to 1971. The show’s stage, a fictional account of Stalag 13, is situated in a German POW camp during the Second World War. The program featured Colonel Klink as the commandant of the camp and Hogan as the leader of the prisoners; Sergeant Schultz was the somewhat loveable and ever bumbling individual who was in charge of the prisoners. The prisoners were a crew of American and Allied prisoners who assisted Hogan in running a Special Operations group from the camp.

The prisoners were continually concocting a brew of shenanigans designed to fool Klink. Schultz seemed to constantly stumble upon these prisoner designs as they were being prepared and to immediately turn his back, cover his eyes, and say “I know nothing”; so as to position him self as ignorant and thus blameless for anything that might happen.

Sergeant Schultz constantly sought to have the excuse of ignorance of everything going on so that Colonel Klink would not send him to the Russian front should some of the prisoners escape.

I think that many American citizens follow the logic of Sergeant Schultz; they cultivate and embrace a veil of ignorance to protect them selves from having to accept responsibility for anything that might happen.

If I know nothing can I be blamed for anything?

This is totally not science, but Hogan's Heroes was the first American TV show to feature a black actor in a continuing lead role. Who can forget the inimitable Sergeant Kinchloe, with his wizardry for electronics and his deadpan delivery? I loved that show. Some of its humor was adult, but I got a lot out of it as a kid, and watching it on DVD I get some more of the subtleties as an adult. You can get all six seasons from Amazon.

Why not, if you do at least something?

Coberst, you ask, "If I know nothing can I be responsible for anything?"
Know nothing? That is a big if.

Responsible? For what, and to whom? Let your conscience be your guide. What does it tell you?

Everyone knows something-- whether this implies responsibility is another question. As Rev says- responsibility for what? Dropping the Bomb? Or behaving with grace and responding with respect? (Think about it-- if we all did the latter it may be a good idea.)

We humans remain ignorant because we want to be ignorant. To be ignorant is to consider one's self to be blameless for whatever happens. We are fearful of freedom. We think that freedom is a state of irresponsibility and ignorance shields us from responsibility.

I do not think that this is in our genes but it is a result of the society that we have created.

I think that we can create a better society and we must start by becoming self-actualizing self-learners and Critical Thinking independent fair-minded citizens.

This is a deep truth, indeed. I'm facing it all the time when I explainin an Aether concept. For most people is completelly sufficient to know, light spreads in constant speed. They're not interested why it is so.

This would infer that there is awareness of desire, and so generally speaking, it would follow that the ignorant are knowledgeable of this desire and can take responsibility for this choice.
Maybe you should change the topic to humans in denial....

"A deep truth"? Coberst and Zephir, please, do not generalize! I--and I am sure this includes Ellis and others--do not choose to be ignorant.

coberst wrote:
"We humans remain ignorant because we want to be ignorant. To be ignorant is to consider one's self to be blameless for whatever happens. We are fearful of freedom. We think that freedom is a state of irresponsibility and ignorance shields us from responsibility."

I would like to challenge two things.

1) There are many reasons for 'ignorance' which incidentally means lack of knowledge- so we all have areas of 'ignorance'. The origin of this word is 'ignore', so 'ignorance', has its origin in the word 'ignore', therefore some may indeed remain ignorant, ie 'unknowing', from choice, however the causes are much more than that alone.

2) You then go on to give your own interpretation of 'ignorance'- ie 'blameless'. The fact is that ignorance has never been an excuse for anything- innocence - yes, ignorance-no. Your argument that ignorance has a congruence with lack of freedom is debatable, but I feel that the acquisition of knowledge does not of itself ensure freedom, but it enables us to make to make informed choices. Those choices are more likely to be informed if we know what we are talking about, but I feel that you will agree that often even the most learned amongst us sometimes make choices that are massively unfortunate- but not these were not taken through ignorance.

I also think that the frustration you feel with the people you label as 'ignorant' is in fact frustration at their apathy/indifference, not their ignorance.

You cannot get general conclusions without certain generalization.

This insight explains so-called "conspiracy theory" by emergence principle: AWT and collective guilt

One cannot learn without using specifics to create generalizations.