History Main / IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance

*** In a specific early case, a tau officer who fought a Slaaneshi warband concluded that this "Slaanesh" they talked about was their commander and that with his death "Slaanesh" had been defeated.
** This even extends to their ''material'' thinking, believing that most alien races they encounter will decide that the Greater Good is the right way to go, though they've come around to some like orks and tyranids being eternal enemies. A large part of the population has no comprehension about the ''true'' size of the Imperium, and during the Damocles Crusade thought that they had killed the "King" of the Space Marines when they managed to kill the Raven Guard's Chapter Master and expected the rest to surrender. Commander Farsight is one of the few who realizes the Tau's worldview is too limited. His main reason to oppose the Ethereal Caste is that they are keeping the Tau ignorant.

** The Tau are in many ways the early Imperium's modern-day successors when it comes to this. Due to their lack of warp connection, they have no understanding of supernatural activity, meaning that for any weird phenomena the Tau will have an explanation that is scientific, logical, and wrong. Luckily for them, the lack of warp connection helps with this; it makes them resistant to the more subtle corrupting effects, so to them, Daemons are just yet another hostile alien race. This even extends to their ''material'' thinking, believing that every alien race they encounter (including the perpetually violent Orks and the Necrons, who want to either kill everyone or reclaim their Empire's place in the galaxy) will decide that the Greater Good is the right way to go. They also have no real idea about the ''true'' size of the Imperium, and thinking during the Damocles Crusade that they had killed the "King" of the Space Marines when they managed to kill the Raven Guard's Chapter Master and expected the rest to surrender. Commander Farsight is one of the few who realizes the Tau's worldview is too limited. His main reason to oppose the Ethereal Caste is that they are keeping the Tau ignorant.

* The ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5355766/1/Kissed-by-a-Rose Kissed by a Rose]]'' opens with Belle being raped by Gaston before she went to the castle. When she returns to help her father, Gaston sees that Belle is pregnant, but fortunately doesn't realise that the child is his (by contrast, Maurice uses his experience with Belle's mother to determine that she's so far along that she must have been pregnant before going to the castle).

*** The holographic counterpart of Creator/LeonardoDaVinci believes himself to be a great scientist and inventor when the reality is that he's merely an ignorant victim of cruel computer programming.

* Socrates irritated so many Athenians trying to convince them to give up their ignorance of their own ignorance that they made him drink hemlock. Well, that was the official reason anyway; the politics around his trial are extremely complicated, but boils down to "one of his students led a reign of terror before losing the civil war."

* Wrestling/ShawnMichaels told [[Characters/WWERuthlessAggression Chris Masters]] he was this on the August 22, 2005 ''Wrestling/{{WWERAW}}'', making himself sound like a GrumpyOldMan in the process,

* Shakespeare stated something along these lines in ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt'', giving the line to [[TheFool Touchstone]].

* A painful version in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition''. Your companion Solas's friend, a Wisdom Spirit, has had something bad happen to it. It turns out that a group of mages bound the spirit. They had been ''trying'' to summon something to protect them, but instead got a Wisdom Spirit, which the bindings and their emotions corrupted into a Pride Demon. Solas knows all of this and tries to explain, but the other mages treat him as if he knows nothing about what he's talking about when they're the ones who screwed up. Worse, [[spoiler:there's nothing you can do to save the spirit, it has to die]]. By the end of it, Solas is so enraged at their ignorance and pride that he wants to kill them.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fandom, Cirno tends to get this treatment. While she was portrayed as somewhat stupid in her first appearance, it has been wholly embraced in subsequent appearances, declaring herself "The strongest!" after bumbling through a few fights in one and trying to take on what appeared to be a GiantMecha in another.
** To be fair to Cirno she says she's the strongest after winning a match and as a playable character she IS actually capable of defeating EX-level bosses. According to WordOfGod however, she is still an idiot.
** Cirno only claims to be the strongest fairy in Gensokyo. While this is [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative technically true]], most fairies are CannonFodder that the player character defeats by the truckload, so this isn't saying much. Likewise, she's ''very'' intelligent by fairy standards...but all that really means is she's literate and somewhat numerate.

* Ash, from ''Webcomic/BlasterNation'' is this, at times - she buys cheap replica swords from Hai's father, apparently believing they are authentic.

* In ''Literature/BabeRuthManTankGladiator'' Throckle No'Goor doesn't realize how little he actually knows about the 21st century.

* As explained by [[Blog/LessWrong Eliezer Yudkowsky]], this is true of all sapient beings, and one cannot escape it. Even those who acknowledge that they are not the font of all knowledge are still by definition unable to understand certain things which those smarter than themselves can see to be obvious, for if they did then they would be equal in intelligence. (An example he gives is how modern computers can only perceive the location of individual pixels, but even a developmentally disabled human can understand the totality of an image without thinking about it.) He then extends this to explain that, just as a googolplex is as far below infinity as the number 1, even transhuman beings would have such gaps in their knowledge that they could only overcome by going even further transhuman, even if the solutions to all human problems would to them be as obvious as the answer to 2 + 2 is to us.

* Want the (perhaps) biggest example of this trope (at least in western animation)? Look no further than [[WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow Stimpy]]...

* Preaching against this was Creator/{{Socrates}}' modus operandi, according to the writings of his pupil Creator/{{Plato}}, insisting that the only true wisdom is in acknowledging how ignorant one really is.

* Enforced by the government in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. Books and other recordings about the outside world have been banned so long that people have completely forgotten about it. Armin and Eren get a hold of a book and they're [[TheWorldIsJustAwesome amazed at the idea of deserts, mountains, and the like existing.]]

* In ''Manga/DragonBall'' and ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', Mr. Satan is a prime example upon his introduction. A former champion of sport combat, he achieved the title of World Martial Arts Champion in a tournament that none of the main characters participated in, and is thus completely ignorant of the level of power they or the villains they face fight on. He makes a foolish habit of challenging fighters who far, outclass him on the assumption that he is the strongest in the world by his title as champion, usually to comedic effect (he is a legit BadassNormal, but at this point in the series, everyone and their time-traveling kid can use ki). He eventually wises up, but [[FakeUltimateHero keeps claiming that he can do so]] because the main characters don't want fame and are happy to let him take the credit for their heroics.
* [[RoyalBrat Prince]] [[SerialKiller Tserriednich]] [[NightmareFetishist Hui]] [[MadArtist Guo]] [[EvilGenius Rou]] in ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' considers not recognizing his ignorance not only comparable to the seven deadly sins (claiming that they are incomplete) but that not knowing that you don't know is the most serious sin of all.
* The general rule of ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' is that Sousuke's likelihood to successfully handle a non-combat task is inversely proportional to his confidence in accomplishing it. If he says it's not a problem (which is often), it definitely will be.

* Neji Hyuuga of ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' shows signs of this. He has a very strong belief [[YouCantFightFate in the inevitability of fate, the futility of fighting against it]], and [[ArrogantKungFuGuy his own position as the most powerful genin in, well, the world it seems]]. The fact that he's preaching to ''[[SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan Naruto]]'' of all people about bearing a burden he never asked for or deserved just proves how little he really understands about life outside of his clan's wealthy compound. Fortunately, Naruto [[DefeatMeansFriendship kicks the stupid out of him]] shortly thereafter.

[[folder:Comics]]
* A recurring plotline going back to the 1940s will be a villain coming up with an otherwise perfect disguise, able to fool anyone except the hero...because the disguise just happens to be the hero's SecretIdentity. So of course Batman is going to notice someone as Bruce Wayne, Superman someone posing as Clark Kent or Spider-Man seeing through the Chameleon disguised as Peter Parker.
* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin constantly overestimates himself. (While this is quite natural for any 6-year-old, it looks very weird on Calvin since he uses language and glimpses abstract thinking on levels far above his real-life peers.)
* ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'': Larfleeze of the Orange Lantern Corps might be this. For eons he was locked away in a secluded system with his treasures, content to consume anyone who crossed him until the Controllers woke him. And while he is a formidable being, having the power of an entire corps and an entire legion of orange constructs at his command, his view of things is partially shattered when he encounters the rest of the universe after so long, circumstances force him to make deals and alliances with beings just as powerful as himself. Afterward, he also realizes that some beings in the universe, like humans, are better at being greedy than he ever was.

* Played with in Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984''. The Beyonder was a CosmicBeing who believed it was the ''only'' thing that existed until it discovered the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. Subverted in that it ''really'' was omnipotent, although this was later RetConned to be a delusion (it was powerful, just not ''the'' most powerful cosmic being.)
* Played a key role in Franchise/{{Superman}}'s victory over two otherwise serious threats;

** When the hero-killing alien 'Anti-Hero' began his plan to kill Superman, he captured Superman and held a press conference announcing Superman's "retirement" so that he could keep Superman prisoner and draw on his powers to attack Earth's other heroes. However, because he was unaware of Superman's secret identity, the 'Superman' who retired paid no special attention to Lois during the press conference announcing his decision. This prompted Lois to pass on a message to Steel, Superboy, and Supergirl that Superman's "retirement" was false, allowing them to hunt down their captured friend and defeat the Anti-Hero.

* In ''Fanfic/TheAmazingSpiderManTruePurpose'', Emma Frost is only informed while she's being taken to prison that Spider-Man has been brought back to life following Magik killing him during the war against the Phoenix Five.

* ''Fanfic/BloodSisters'';

** Likewise, Trick was unaware of the finer details of the {{Imprinting}} process, as he assumed it would make Dyson fanatically loyal to Bo regardless of her wider agenda and he was still concerned she might be allied with Aife. Dyson clarifies that others are generally only aware of the most extreme cases of imprint-related problems, and if he truly objected to Bo's actions he would have been capable of acting against her.

* A slightly humourous example of this occurs in ''Fanfic/InfinityCrisis'', when [[spoiler:Hela has Thanos recreate Mjolnir for her, only to realise after she summons it that she can't actually ''use'' the hammer due to the new worthiness enchantment, allowing Hela's hostage, Jane Foster, to pick it up and wield it against Hela instead]].

** Ripley is unaware of the history of Sevastopol II, whose predecessor was destroyed by her own daughter to stop another xenomorph outbreak (VideoGame/AlienIsolation).

* The male lead of ''Film/BlastFromThePast'' has quite a bit of this, having grown up in a SmallSecludedWorld and not getting any real experience of the outside world. For example, his very heteronormative upbringing doesn't make him a HeteronormativeCrusader — instead, he doesn't consider his gay friend to be strange at all, not having any division between heterosexuality and homosexuality included in his worldview. It's possibly because that he doesn't realize he's homosexual, or even know what homosexuality ''is''.

* Emperor Tod in ''Film/MomAndDadSaveTheWorld'', although he's still one of the smartest people on his planet. Everyone else cheerfully acknowledges that they're idiots, even the one or two smarter than him.
* Subverted and partially played straight in ''Film/TheTrumanShow''. Played straight in the way that Truman grossly overestimates his popularity in his circle of friends. They actually hate him or at least don't care about him very much, and merely suck up to him because they want to be in the spotlight. Subverted in the way that Truman actually underestimates his importance in the world. He thinks he's a normal guy at a normal job in a normal town. But the town is actually a SmallSecludedWorld, and Truman himself is "on the air, unaware", having millions of fans without knowing it. Also subverted in that he is ProperlyParanoid and has always had a sneaking suspicion that all was not quite right, something only more evident to him as the movie progresses. He's not totally ignorant of what his friends and family think of him either- he asks his wife, at one point, why she married him, when "you can't stand me". Plus, one of the hints he gets that he's being spied on is that random strangers know who he is.

[[folder:Philosophy]]
* In moral philosophy, one classic thought-experiment is the one about Happy Bert. This guy is just SarcasmBlind, incorrectly believing that the people laughing ''at'' him are actually laughing ''with'' him.
* Socrates, of course, was the total aversion of this trope. He irritated so many Athenians trying to convince them to give up their ignorance of their own ignorance that they made him drink hemlock. Well, that was the official reason anyway; the politics around his trial are extremely complicated, but boils down to "one of his students led a reign of terror before losing the civil war." (Basically, imagine if Marx had survived to Stalin's time.)
[[/folder]]

* ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}''. The megalomaniacal Angel computers have used a meteorite strike to kill off the human crew of ''Challenger'' and take over the ship, raising the children of that crew under their control. Unfortunately the strike does more damage than they anticipated; in particular it destroys all their knowledge of TimeDilation, so when they return to Earth intending to conquer it they find that a million years have passed.

* Several of the most famous deniers of Evolution, such as Ray Comfort, fall into this trope. Most notably, Australian businessman-turned-fundamentalist preacher Ken Ham, who owns and runs the Creation Museum, which teaches how early humans cavorted around in friendship with the dinosaurs. His lectures are filled to the brim with misinterpretation of basic biology, up to and including misinterpreting Evolutionary Theory, plus misunderstandings of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, cosmology, and psychology. But please don't bother telling him he's getting it wrong, because he'll only start lecturing you on why he's right and you, in fact, are wrong.
** The general belief among the opponents of the creationist movement is that both men are faking it, and actually pulling an "IRejectYourReality" (to be generous) or an outright con of their genuinely ignorant followers (to be less so). They use far too many [[QuoteMine out of context references]] from actual scientific sources to be as ignorant of the topic as they act.
* St. Augustine warned against this type of activity when he was debating creationists in the 5th century (making the trope OlderThanFeudalism). Specifically, he warned: "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn."

* ''[[TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} GURPS Aliens]]'' include a hivemind race called Mmm. When first encountered, this creature slaughtered humans just to see what they looked like on the inside. However, Mmm just didn't know any better: Never before having encountered a race of individuals, Mmm assumed that humanity was a hivemind and that it wouldn't mind losing a few drones to Mmm's curiosity. (When it found out the truth, it was appropriately horrified.) Presumably a ShoutOut to the aforementioned Formics of ''Literature/EndersGame.''
* This tied into the {{Pride}} that was the FatalFlaw of the Thousand Sons in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. They thought they were the most intelligent and well-informed about the Warp. Meanwhile, they were employing daemons as {{Familiar}}s and had never even heard of the Chaos Gods. The entire Imperium circa the Literature/HorusHeresy had similar traits, but the Thousand Sons were by far the most reckless and smug about it.
** The Tau are in many ways the early Imperium's modern-day successors when it comes to this. Due to their lack of warp connection, they have no understanding of how much of a ScienceFantasy setting ''Warhammer 40,000'' actually is, meaning that for any weird phenomena the Tau will have an explanation that is scientific, logical, and wrong. Luckily for them, the lack of warp connection helps with this; it makes them resistant to the more subtle corrupting effects, so to them, Daemons are just yet another hostile alien race.
*** This even extends to their ''material'' thinking, believing that every alien race they encounter (including the perpetually violent Orks and the Necrons, who want to either kill everyone or reclaim their Empire's place in the galaxy) will decide that the Greater Good is the right way to go. They also have no real idea about the ''true'' size of the Imperium, and thinking during the Damocles Crusade that they had killed the "King" of the Space Marines when they managed to kill the Raven Guard's Chapter Master and expected the rest to surrender.
*** Commander Farsight is one of the few who realizes the Tau's worldview is too limited. His main reason to oppose the Ethereal Caste is that they are keeping the Tau ignorant.

* In the ''ComicBook/XMen''/''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'' crossover trilogy "Gamma Quest", Storm in particular need to be told who the Leader is when the Hulk states that the villain in question is the most likely person to be using gamma-powered teleportation technology, despite Beast being immediately aware who the villain is when the Hulk mentions him (although it may be that Beast knew of the Leader through his time with the Avengers rather than his experience as a member of the X-Men).

* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2531627/1/Reflections Reflections]]'', when the ruthless Merchants fail to trick Deep Space 9 into allying with them, Sisko swiftly confirms that they know nothing about the Dominion when they don’t react to his threat to inform the Dominion that the Merchants are holding one of their gods hostage (Odo being one of the crew who was on the shuttle when it went missing).

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13645273/1/The-Amazing-Spider-Man-True-Purpose The Amazing Spider-Man: True Purpose]]'', after ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', Emma Frost is only informed while she's being taken to prison that Spider-Man has been brought back to life following Magik killing him during the war against the Phoenix Five.

* Played with in Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984''. The Beyonder was a CosmicBeing who believed it was the ''only'' thing that existed until it discovered the MarvelUniverse. Subverted in that it ''really'' was omnipotent, although this was later RetConned to be a delusion (it was powerful, just not ''the'' most powerful cosmic being.)

** The Tau are in many ways the early Imperium's modern-day successors when it comes to this. Due to their lack of warp connection, they have no understanding of how much of a ScienceFantasy setting ''Warhammer 40,000'' actually is, meaning that for any weird phenomena the Tau will have an explanation that is scientific, logical, and wrong. Luckily for them, the lack of warp connection helps with this; it makes them resistant to the more subtle corrupting effects, so to them, Daemons are just yet another hostile alien race.'

* The general rule of ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' is that Sousuke's likelihood to successfully handle a non-combat task is inversely proportional to his confidence in accomplishing it. If he says it's not a problem ([[{{Catchphrase}} which is often]]), it definitely will be.

* In ''Fanfic/BonneFoi'', Edward spent literally decades never considering the idea that he could drink from animals, until he finds himself starving and unable to feed from humans without thinking of Bella and instinctively chases down a deer.

* In ''Literature/{{Flatland}}'', the zero-dimensional creature known as Spot is the King of Pointland. He is the former trope namer and maybe ur-example. In fact, pretty much everyone but the main character applies. The one-dimensional world doesn't realize the existence of a two-dimensional world. The two-dimensional world denies the existence of a three-dimensional world, etc. The book is actually supposed to be written by the square to the three-dimensional world to tell them that there are still further dimensions; in effect, an [[TakeThatAudience accusation]] of this trope aimed at the readers themselves.

* In ''The Glass Inferno'', (one of the books that inspired ''Film/TheToweringInferno''), when the fire at the Glass House breaks out, architect Craig Barton helps the firemen put together his original plans for the building which he designed with scores of safety features that should be able to handle this blaze. The first sign something is off is the fire chief complaining about having no fire-proofed doors and Craig snapping he had them in his plans. At which point, up comes Will Shevelson, who'd supervised the building's construction, who tells Craig that he might as well throw his plans away. He produces the actual on-site construction plans and Craig realizes that every safety feature he'd designed was either built poorly, built with substandard equipment or simply not built at all. Shevelson adds that because he was fired midway through construction (for protesting these changes), even these plans may not be accurate. Craig and the fire chief realize that rather than the safe building they assumed they were dealing with, the House is a deathtrap.