Peter Wehling University of Augsburg Germany What can

Peter Wehling (University of Augsburg, Germany) What can or should we know? … maybe not everything. The virtues of ignorance and forgetting SPION Workshop, Leuven, 16. 4. 2013

Overview 1. Introduction: Towards revaluing ignorance? 2. The virtues of ignorance, forgetting, secrecy and anonymity 3. Conclusions: Towards a politics of not knowing in a culture of disclosure

Towards revaluing ignorance? A collection of recently published books and papers: • Ursula Schneider, Das Management der Ignoranz. Nichtwissen als Erfolgsfaktor (Ignorance as a Precondition of Success), 2006 • Linsey Mc. Goey, On the will to ignorance in bureaucracy. Economy and Society 36 (2007), p. 212 -235 • William Vitek & Les Jackson (eds), The Virtues of Ignorance (2008) • Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Delete. The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, 2009 • Cynthia Townley, A Defense of Ignorance. Its Value for Knowers and Roles in Feminist and Social Epistemologies, 2011 • Shaheed Nick Mohammed, The (Dis)information Age. The Persistence of Ignorance, 2012

Towards revaluing ignorance? Paradoxes of the “(dis)information age”: • „(. . . ) more information may be less informing and more conducive to the persistence of ignorance or its promotion. “ • „Information personalization (…), particularly as an involuntary phenomenon, may present the user with information that is consonant with only their set of views or concerns, promoting ignorance by exclusion of other ideas. “ (S. N. Mohammed, The (Dis)information Age. The Persistence of Ignorance, 2012, p. 5 -6; p. 66)

Towards revaluing ignorance? The virtues of forgetting in the digital age? • „For the first time in human history, [digitization] has enabled us to make remembering cheaper and easier than forgetting (. . . ). We must respond to the challenges posed by digital remembering – and I believe we can, by reviving our capacity to forget. “ • „One possible way we can mimic human forgetting in the digital realm is by associating information we store in digital memory with expiration dates that users set. ” (V. Mayer-Schönberger, Delete. The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, 2009, p. 196/198; p. 171)

Towards revaluing ignorance? While in modern “knowledge societies”, ignorance, forgetting and similar phenomena have mainly been viewed as a vice, as a sign of inactivity, irrationality and irresponsibility, in a steadily increasing number of areas (knowledge management, Internet use, genetic testing, labor market etc. ) its virtues recently have come to the fore. Correspondingly, it becomes clear that knowledge (or memory) is not always beneficial and valuable, but under certain conditions does itself pose challenges both to society and the individual.

The virtues of ignorance I Protection from too much knowledge (“information overload”) “ The term is usually taken to represent a state of affairs where an individual’s efficiency in using information in their work is hampered by the amount of relevant, and potentially useful, information avail-able to them. The information must be of some potential value, or it could simply be ignored, and it must be accessible, or the overload will only be potential, not actual. ” (David Bawden and Lyn Robinson: The dark side of information: overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies. Journal of Information Science, 35 (2) 2009, pp. 180– 191) Actively ignoring might be a solution (or even is the only solution? ) – but how can we know in advance or rationally decide what we don't need to know?

The virtues of ignorance II Protection from unwanted, troubling or painful knowledge: „What I don't know, can't hurt me. “ The probably most important example ist the „right not to know“ in medicine, which protects people • first, from being forced to know their genetic risks for future diseases (such as breast cancer, Alzheimer's or Huntington's) for which often no means of prevention or effectivetherapies are available; • second, from being discriminated in the insurance or labour market in case that interested parties would know about their genetic risks.

The virtues of ignorance III Protection from problematic, disruptive effects of knowledge (in particular, discrimination based on others' knowledge about a person): Well-known examples are: election secrecy, randomized doubleblinded clinical tests, anonymous peer-review, anonymous self-help groups, anonymized job applications. „(G)egenüber dem kindischen Zustand, in dem jede Vorstellung sofort ausgesprochen wird, jedes Unternehmen allen Blicken zugänglich ist, wird durch das Geheimnis eine ungeheure Erweiterung des Lebens erreicht, weil vielerlei Inhalte desselben bei völliger Publizität überhaupt nicht auftauchen können. “ (Georg Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (1908) p. 406).

The virtues of ignorance IV Protection from (legal or moral) liabilities resulting from knowledge The „will to ignorance“ or „strategic ignorance“: wilfully refraining from acquiring precise and complete knowledge allows people or organizations to stick to their plans (which they might have to change otherwise). A less cynical, but nevertheless highly contested example: anonymous sperm donation which protects men from the risk of paying alimony for „their“ children.

Politics of not-knowing How we deal with knowledge and ignorance (on the Internet and elsewhere) is neither simply a technical problem nor only a question of individual awareness and responsibility, but equally a political and cultural question, in particular when it comes to discrimination based on the use (or misuse) of informations about a person. While technical solutions („PFA tools“ or expiration dates) may of course be helpful, we should nevertheless ask whether the „real“ problem is the „imprudent“ behaviour of online social network users or rather the fact that employers apparently increasingly (mis)use social media profiles when deciding on the allocation of jobs – thus tacitly introducing norms of professional behaviour into the private sphere of applicants and employees.

Politics of not-knowing Anonymized job applications as a political solution? In Germany, recently undertaken practical testing of anonymized job applications has demonstrated that anonymization can significantly reduce discrimination (regarding invitations to interviews) based on ethnic origin and gender. This could also be a solution to some of the discriminatory effects resulting from disclosing privat informations and personal data on the Internet. In my view, this is a good example for an institutionally regulated „politics of not-knowing“ which could and should complement technical solutions as well as raise our „collective“ awareness of the value of ignorance, secrecy and anonymity.

Thank you!