I've gotten the impression that many people are proud of their ignorance because they feel that the folks who know a field better can't see the forest from the trees and only use their knowledge to construct elaborate rationalizations.
Well said -- that's about where I am with respect to mainstream macroeconomics, in that the models, metrics, etc. they use are hopelessly disconnected from the issue of "How would this policy allow people to get more of what they actually want?" But I'm not sure if I count as being proud of this ignorance: I'd certainly like to know more, so I can get the best understanding of where (I currently suspect) they go astray.
Sometimes I run into people that have rather strong opinions on some topic, and it turns out that they are basing them on quite shallow and biased information. They are aware that their knowledge is quite limited compared to mine, and they admit that they don't want to put in the effort needed to learn enough to level the field.
But that's not really a problem. What is bothering me is that, sometimes, that declaration of ignorance is expressed with some kind of pride.
This behaviour is noticeable on other levels too, in politics or in the sciences-humanities culture clash.
I came up with several hypotheses which might account for this:
Do you notice this behaviour too? What do you think causes it?
EDIT: formatting, style, grammar