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TheOtherDave comments on Why some people seem to be proud of their ignorance? - Less Wrong
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Comments (34)
I don't think it requires a separate explanation.
Suppose I have a belief that I arrived at via some process other than evaluating evidence. Suppose further that I find that belief satisfying in some way... I prefer believing it to not-believing it.
If I suspect that evaluating available evidence will weaken my belief, that gives me a reason to avoid evaluating that evidence.
Having decided to avoid evaluating that evidence, I have incentive to believe that the evidence is worthless.
Yes, people are not motivated to look for knowledge that doesn't promise to support their existing point of view. But does that explain the pride in not knowing?
No, but it turns pride in not knowing into a special case of the more general pride in doing whatever it is I've decided to do anyway. And since the latter is observable in people in all kinds of areas, not just not-knowing, it makes it less likely that pride in not-knowing has a special explanation.
Your double "supposes" are a bit redundant; if someone arrives at a belief other than through evaluating the evidence, they chose it because it is "satisfying in some way".
... or because they got confused (took it as a supposition and forgot that was its role), or have never really considered the issue carefully and gone with the first thing their intuition suggests, or...
It's not redundant. Stretching the first to encompass the second is too much stretching.