know-nothingness

English

Alternative forms

knownothingness

Etymology

know-nothing +‎ -ness

Noun

know-nothingness (uncountable)

1. The state of knowing nothing; ignorance.
   • 2003, Courtney X, Lasting Visions of X--The Haunted Artist, →ISBN, page 172:

     Anxious, as if I knew even then in my infant know-nothingness that my life would be torn apart by people who I'm sure meant nothing by it but were instead pursuing their own lives and their own hearts and dreams and beliefs and aspirations and horizons, much like I would and am, yet somehow I am tossed from this family of mine because I chose to do what my heart suggested and yearned for, for which a reason there is no better.

   • 2008, Mathew Chandrankunnel, Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, →ISBN, page 822:

     More particularly agnosticism is an attitude of “know-nothingness”.

   • 2012, Peter R. Breggin, Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal:

     Anxiety is a state of emotional know-nothingness in which the individual succumbs to helplessness.

2. A perverse admiration or embrace of ignorance.
   • 1989, Missouri Folklore Society Journal - Volumes 11-12, page 66:

     There was a growing spirit of "Know-nothingness" and avoidance of foreign things in the town and the German community was, at the same time, growing stronger in its determination to protect its own rights.

   • 1991, Josef Albers, Josef Albers: La Fundación Chinati/The Chinati Foundation:

     Know-nothingness is this time's prime feature: a new know-nothingness, a greater know-nothingness, even a new order, even neo-fascism.

   • 2002, Robert C. Solomon, Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life, →ISBN, page 66:

     The new know-nothingness presents itself as a perverse reversal of Bacon's notorious declaration, “knowledge is power.”

   • 2011, Travis D. Stimeling Ph.D., Cosmic Cowboys and New Hicks, →ISBN:

     Furthermore, sociologists Paul DiMaggio, Richard A. Peterson, and Jack Esco Jr. contended that, while such an interpretation of country music required a dismissal of more socially progressive songs by some of the same artists, songs such as “Okie from Muskogee” wreaked untold havoc on country music by leading “popular commentators to see all country music as rightwing know-nothingness."