I read up on Dunning and Kruger which really does describe many of the people I encounter. They don't think there is anything else to know, and if you point this out and shatter this belief they kind of lose it. As if they are trying to cast out this new information by claiming it doesn't matter or it's opinion rather than fact. It almost seems like a way to stay sheltered away from the world. In order to successfully do that they would have to believe there was nothing else to know otherwise it would be nagging at them. Which I suppose ties into fear as well as your last point there.

To add, I wonder if there is a similar theory for people who convince themselves they are smarter then they are not because they are unable to recognize they aren't but because they are afraid of what they will find if they really look at everything. This got me thinking about a few things one of those being racism and I realized that for many maybe this is comforting. Personally I believe everybody is capable of evil and I could see how that belief would be overwhelming if it wasn't balance by an understanding that that also means everybody is capable of good. What I see with people who grew up around me is that when they start paying attention to the world they notice how messed up it is. They want to know there is a solution to the evil in the world so they say it's x race of whatever other prejudice and the answer is simple. Just remove those people. Just remove these people and the world will go back to how it was when they were a child.

And then of course that got me thinking about people who say things like " The world used to be such a better place" When really the world was always kind of shitty and it's been getting better constantly. I wonder if what they really mean is there perception of the world used to be so much better when they were a naive child who didn't have to worry about world events. If that's true it's interesting how these people attempt to do things to get back to that place, as if instead of actually accepting the world and attempting to fix it they are trying to get back to this state of childhood ignorance. The adult equivalent of closing your eyes, blocking your ears and singing " I'm not listening lalala"