Trauma The Source of Ignorance?

I was thinking about why people can be so ignorant sometimes, willfully or otherwise. Its really easy to say that the ignorant and hurtful people are just idiots or assholes, but the truth is we're all ignorant and hurtful at times.

So why do we remain ignorant? It obviously goes against common sense and rational thought. The only exlanation I could come up with was fear. We fear strange thoughts or ideas, the unfamiliar or unexplained.

But its more than just simple reactive fear, I've found that many people (myself included) are unable to admit the fear, unable to admit that they're clinging to small minded ideals because the truth might be so much bigger. In other words, clinical denial.

Pychologists tell us that many instances of fear and denial are direct results of trauma. Post traumatic stress can cause memory loss and denial even in animals. PTS victims also commonly have strong psychological and physical reactions to things that remind them of the traumatic event, which would explain why people can get so upset when confronted with their ignorance.

Anywho, I wanted to hear what you all thought about this. Are we all avoiding facing our ignorance, or are we just idiotic assholes?

id say from my own experiences (personally and vicariously) this idea is very accurate. when pointing out faults to others (faults they do not even see because of so much denial) the result is almost always either very negative and dismissive or complete abnegation.

also, the more trauma a person goes through, the more ground they have to gain and by overcoming the trauma they can achieve greater than ordinary achievements. yet, most who go through such trauma never overcome it. those with less trauma have less to overcome and feel less satisfied with their accomplishments.

just a thought.