As a futurist I can get behind that quote. Cornell professor David Dunning, who’s been studying confidence, ignorance, and self-knowledge for quite a while, has a nice article in Pacific Standard (which is really turning into an interesting magazine) explaining why “We Are All Confident Idiots.” For me, the scariest part of his work involves understanding why (to paraphrase Orwell) ignorance can feel like a kind of strength:

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot.