A Pandemic of Ignorance: Manufactured Ignorance and the COVID-19 Pandemic

While the study of ignorance is nothing new to philosophy, this article explores the origin and production of ignorance in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors link the question of a pandemic of ignorance to state education laws and policies that arguably manufacture ignorance. Their purpose is not to create a sense of paranoia or lead to conspiracy theories regarding the intentions of any one person or institution, but to argue that ignorance was manufactured by the Donald J. Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of intent. The authors begin with a detailed explication of Proctor's three categories of ignorance, then provide evidence of convergence and divergence among and between the CDC/WHO and White House. The article ends with the argument that the biological pandemic was--and is--an agnotological pandemic, too, and that recent state education law and policy initiatives indicate the virality of manufacturing ignorance in schools.