Ignorance is Bliss

 

 

When facing situations or events of great despair or hardship, populations tend to rather be in the dark about the information and causes of these events than to be fully aware of what is going on. In the Plague, by Albert Camus, the population . At first, with the rat deaths the newspapers would write descriptions, and "...the rats were the great topic of conversation in that part of the town."( When actual human lives were being taken by the plague, everyone went silent, the newspapers stopped counting the deaths, the people stopped making an effort to figure out what was happening. "I saw some cases in Paris twenty years ago. Only no one dared to call them by their name on that occasion." (18) Ignorance is bliss. Yes, the government did put posters up, but they were unobtrusive and did not really work to inform the inhabitants of Oran. It was feared, by the government, that the people would exaggerate the truth and go crazy upon hearing the news of what was happening. Although this is true, and people do tend to make everything worse than what it is, in this case, leaving them in the dark about something that could potentially take their lives, was not the best decision.    They acted as if not talking about the problem, would make it go away.