What if we were to decide that people choose to be ignorant? Then what? What can be done about it? Does it make us feel superior, build our resentment and anger? Is this a simple ego-building exercise deigned to boost the image of the “self” and “others”?
I’d rather ask something like, “What results in the state of ignorance?” From here we have some place to go. If we are discussing politics, foreign policy, etc the answer will likely lead us to the mass media. From here, a quick analysis of the few large corporations that own most of what people consume would lead us to a propaganda model (not unlike Chomsky & Herman’s). And then, we’re not left with the idea that there are people choosing to be ignorant. They may, in fact, be choosing to be informed, yet the information that they are consuming is simply resulting in complete ignorance.
So, leaving the whole free will discussion out of it, it appears to me that ignorance (lack of knowledge) may not be a result of choice at all. I suspect that in most cases, people feel that they are informed enough to make decisions. When the yard stick that measures ignorance is provided by the very tool that injects the ignorance, there is very little need to dig further.