India, Dec. 12 -- If ignorance is indeed bliss, as Thomas Gray said in Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), a will to ignorance is as strong as any interest in knowledge. Our own experience confirms Aristotle pronouncement that all human beings want to know. However, we seem to be passing through a historical period when the denial of knowledge is acceptable even desired. Centuries after the quest for enlightenment, we now seem to have turned toward the search for ignorance. It's no wonder then that mesmerised crowds follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumours trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds our common sense. In Ignorance and Bliss, historian Mark Lilla offers an intellectual travelogue of the human w...