There are false meme's dictating that pursuing knowledge leads individuals to become estranged from their fellow man. An unspeakable air of pending ostracism is met when an individual begins to go "too in depth" within a given subject; as if to say that "we were willing to discuss said subject, but only to the degree that it doesn't make anyone uncomfortable". I think that most people mistake happiness and truth with comfort. The flaw in that type of thought process is that although large amounts of chocolate make you happy, you're more than likely going to have some long term adverse effects from eating large amounts of said chocolate. It is quite possible anyone who follows the preceding logic of "comfort = happiness" can easily fall into an ongoing mentality of the old adage Ignorance Is Bliss. We'd rather not know and walk around smiling, shopping, and having babies. There are many readily available phrases and cliches that are used to escape reality, such as "it doesn't directly effect me" or "that's useless knowledge". I'm sure the laws of gravity were considered useless knowledge to the mainstream at some point...until we decided we wanted to be airborne and fly planes.
Dave Chappelle said it best, "America needs to have a serious discourse with itself."
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