Yeah, well, nostalgia, to my mind, is the most significant manifestation of our collective ignorance, as you said, and something that we're coping with, trying to cope with right now. Nostalgia is not, to my mind, simply the view that, oh, wouldn't it be nice if, I don't know, the Beatles were still together or something like that, right? There's one thing from the past that you wish had still been preserved. By nostalgia, what I mean is this view that's up until a certain point in the past, things went along swimmingly without much change. And then some catastrophic thing happened. And after that moment, it's been declined ever since. And there were all sorts of apocalyptic sects that believe this, have always believed this. Some are called Gnostic. There are other sorts of ones that believe there's like a big fall, right? Now, one way this can play out is, for example, the reactions to the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. After the French Revolution, other revolutions were inspired, but within 30, 40 years or so, in fact, much more conservative governments came in and the revolutions were put out. Nonetheless, the revolution left this idea of modern freedom in people's minds for those who were attracted to it, for those who weren't. Everything that happened after the revolution, they blamed on the revolution. This is a deep fallacy in philosophy, in logic, to say that if B comes after A, A must have caused B, right? And so this nostalgic view is that someone was to blame for a break in history, and that everything afterwards can be explained because of that. And therefore, in order to turn the world right side up, it's not just a question of behaving better or having better institutions. It means somehow reversing course. It means undoing all the damage and somehow undoing whatever this original thing was, this event that led to decline. And this can lead to very reactionary politics. And by reactionary, I don't necessarily mean just on the right. I mean, there are reactionary politics on the left, kind of, I don't know, radical ecologists who somehow want to put the world back in the state before Homo sapiens somehow develop. But this idea that there was a fall gives you immediately an enemies list. And rather than seeing the problems of the present as being just the problems of the present, and every present has its own problems, you start looking for those who are responsible for this. And historically, certainly since the French Revolution, but also on right-wing parties, fascism, the list is, there are people who always show up on this. And so they're professors, journalists, sometimes now you suppose entertainers, lawyers, Jews. And so all the conspiracy theories about in the 19th and 20th centuries that were about somehow this fall from perfection, involve some mix of these people. And certainly in our present day politics, we can see people blaming the same sorts of people. Psychologically, it's it, it makes sense that the people to think that, okay, the only thing I need to know about the world right now is that it was a product of people who took a wrong turn. And that's the only knowledge I need. And all I need is an enemies list. And those are the people that have to be fought politically. And I do not need to be taking in new information. And any information that doesn't confirm my belief in who the good guys and bad guys are is going to be ignored or pushed to the side. Mark

Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University. His new book is called Ignorance and Bliss on Wanting Not to Know. Mark, this has been really interesting. Thank you for making time for the conversation. I

really enjoyed it.

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