Wyatt Earp & Willful Ignorance Meet in a Tunnel
Nestled between Tombstone Canyon and the San Pedro Valley is the Mule Pass Tunnel. History, lore, and confusion are all part of the story of the tunnel—this is the way to the Queen of the copper mines in the same territory where Wyatt Earp pursued vendettas, and a nearby marker erroneously claims this as the continental divide). But none of that mattered when my younger siblings and I would make the trek to Bisbee, Arizona with my mom or dad. The Tunnel was the most harrowing part of the journey for my sister, who, in her own way, insisted people digging through mountains for the sake of a road was an act of hubris sure to bring disaster at exactly the moment our little family hatchback was cruising through the pass. She also became convinced (through no help from our brother or me, I’m sure) that lifting her feet up off the floor and holding her breath while the car went through Arizona’s longest highway tunnel[1] was the one guaranteed way to make sure we made it safely to the other side.
In some ways, I feel like this doctoral journey is like that tunnel. It is a liminal space, valid on its own, but a transition that must be completed—in this case, between ways of interacting with the world[2]. Our work seems to be a kind of meta-threshold that (hopefully!) will unlock new ways of thinking, learning, and engagement far into the future. No doubt, there will be moments when the whole endeavor feels like hubris or as though the world might cave in, moments when I’m holding my breath in hopes it helps to make it through. I’m not aware yet of all of the preconceptions or paradigms I have right now that will need to be broken or reshaped in order to experience the kind of transformation I believe will be part of this process, but I’m sure none of that will be particularly comfortable.
Our readings on threshold concepts already have substantial applications for me in both the doctoral journey as a journey and as it relates to inviting others to interact with my NPO. First, I’m reminded that engaging in these thresholds is a very human thing: we all encounter them many times throughout our lives, and we have the agency to either embrace the opportunity or resist and reject what is there. Knowing the struggle of the “in-between” is shared not just generally but in real-time by others in the cohort and my peer group gives me hope that we will be able to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” even when we feel too stretched or disoriented[3].
Second, because this is a human, shared thing, it’s also something to engage with holistically[4]. We are each whole people, learning and engaging our minds, bodies, emotions, and communities in a process that involves not just academic learning but spiritual transformation. As I interact with others in my NPO process, I’m not just trying to interact with one of these elements but inviting them to be full-value participants, knowing there will be components that require working through thresholds of understanding and application that might elicit strong emotional, mental, and spiritual reactions.
One of the challenges around my NPO (which currently focuses on cultivating belonging across differences and substantial dividing lines) is the question of willful ignorance. I was challenged with these questions by an interview participant: How is it “possible that people can live in this nation and NOT [sic] know there are serious racial problems and inequalities? To what extent would they have to isolate themselves to be unaware of what is ever-present? Do they never watch TV, or engage in social media, or read? Do they never encounter others?”[5] In this case, it seems “racial problems and inequalities” are likely a threshold concept where an avenue of resistance may be intentional blindness that allows the learner to remain in an existing mental and structural paradigm. I’m not yet sure if or how this will play out, but I think recognizing the whole person and community components mentioned earlier will be an essential part of providing the most effective kind of support required to help participants journey through this threshold.
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[1] Peter Corbet. “Mule Pass Tunnel Has Eased Trip To-from Bisbee for 60 Years.” Mule Pass Tunnel has eased trip to-from Bisbee for 60 years | Department of Transportation, April 11, 2018. https://azdot.gov/blog-article/mule-pass-tunnel-has-eased-trip-bisbee-60-years.
[2] Gina Wisker, “Beyond Blockages to Ownership, Agency, and Articulation: Liminal Spaces and Conceptual Threshold Crossin in Doctoral Learning,” in in Threshold Concepts in Practice, ed. R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, and M. T. Flanagan (Amsterdam: Sense Publishers, 2016), 171.
[3] Michelle Salmona, Dan Kaczynski, and Leigh N. Wood, “The Importance of Liminal Space for Doctoral Success,” in Threshold Concepts in Practice, ed. R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer, and M. T. Flanagan (Amsterdam: Sense Publishers, 2016), 162.
[4] Anastasia Efklides, “Metacognition, affect, and conceptual difficulty,” in Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, ed. J. H. F. Meyer and R. Land, (New York: Routledge, 2006), 48.
[5] Written comment from an interview participant, an expert in church and race dynamics.
About the Author
Jeremiah Gómez
I get to be Sarah's husband and Jubilee's and Zechariah's dad. I also get to serve as lead pastor at Trinity Church, a dynamic church in the Midwest where we're diligently seeking to Love God, love others, live sent, and be transformed together in community. I love the privilege of working across differences, championing healing and reconciliation in many forms.10 responses to “Wyatt Earp & Willful Ignorance Meet in a Tunnel”
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Jeremiah,
Thanks for the tunnel story. I remember thinking that bridges were the same kind of thing—just waiting to collapse as our family drove over them. I would always lock the doors before the bridge. That way, at least the water could not get in as we plunged into the river!
I look forward to hearing more about the approach of your NPO in the coming months/years. With such an emotionally charged topic, how can people get to the place where they are willing to acknowledge that there is a threshold and they are liminality? Do you see a path forward at this point in your doctoral program that allows individuals to come out of there entrenchment?
I’m not sure yet how things will progress, but being aware that deeper entrenchment for any of us may very well be a way of coping with a threshold concept we view as a threat invites us to choose humility. I heard of a study recently where participants were observed interacting around topics known for their divisive nature in a room with the heat turned up to increase the potential for aggressive responses [1]. In that study, humility was the thing that allowed movement toward productive conversation. No doubt this will play a part in inviting self and others to interact in more productive ways. How to do that in a world where it seems “humility is for other people” will be an added layer of challenge.
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1. Esau McCaulley and Jamie Allen, hosts, “LA Fires, Climate Change, and Christian Responsibility,” The Esau McCaulley Podcast (podcast), January 23, 2025, accessed January 23, 2025, https://sites.libsyn.com/548712/la-fires-climate-change-and-christian-responsibility
I had not considered entrenchment as a method of coping. Very insightful.
Great writing here, Jeremiah! The story telling and flow of thought were crisp and clear. Well done.
As a white guy from the South with a progressive bent, I have experienced racial problems and inequality as threshold concepts. It took me a long time to even become disoriented.
I remember the first time my perspective was slightly nudged was not until higher education upon reading ‘Privilege, Power, and Difference’ by Allan Johnson, PhD. I immediately messaged one of my childhood, African-American friends who had become an educator in our hometown. He had been posting things for years saying things like “your silence is deafening” and I just couldn’t get it.
I sent him a long message that ended with I am ready to listen. I never received a response from him. My assumption is that he had spent so long yelling into the white abyss that he was over it and no longer cared to talk.
I don’t know that I would call my ignorance willful. I was just deeply on the other side of the threshold. Most of my family and hometown still are.
I took my wife to the African American museum you and I visited in DC for our 15th anniversary this past December. We spent 8 hours in there from open to close. My ignorance is deep. I need so much knowledge that I don’t have. In my wife’s words “everyone needs to see this”. She spent a lot of the time in tears. The whole place feels like a big act of confession. We want to organize a trip from a church there next year.
I’m grateful for your work. It’s a hard one. One piece of the difficulty is what they talk about in threshold concepts of not being able to go back and understand things from how you used to see them once your eyes are opened. I think you are going to need to get really good at finding a way to do that.
Other than “willful” ignorance (and I am not saying that does not exist) what other nuanced lenses could you see the ignorance through?
Thank you, Christian!
I’m so glad you and your wife had a chance to interact with the museum. It is certainly an experience that stirs a lot of emotions and invites a ton of processing, isn’t it?
One of the hardest things for me is coming to grips with the fact that I have no idea what I don’t know–a double ignorance, so to speak. Adding to that, the Dunning-Krueger effect of thinking we’re experts when we perceive ourselves as experts though we only know very little about a given subject makes me hesitant to say that I know of any sure paths forward. Part of why I’m invested in this learning journey with the DLGP is because I want to become more aware of what I don’t know and learn how to learn at a new level.
Regarding the work, I think modeling and expecting genuine curiosity from others can help–it’s how we are exposed to our own ignorance. I hope that new awareness will seem less threatening with such a posture. I think a posture of genuine curiosity helps to interact across the threshold, so to speak, even when you can’t ‘unsee’ or ‘unlearn’ what you now know.
There is also a kind of ignorance that stems from the echo chambers that we build or fall into–it’s hard to be exposed to different perspectives when we spend all of our time in environments with the same voices or worldviews. We wouldn’t say that’s ‘willful’ ignorance, per se, but it can bring about a militant ignorance where what we see as threatening to our echo chamber tribe is quickly dismissed. I’ve been incorporating a practice of being fully present in environments that are foreign to me in terms of perspective and practice; I’ve found people are willing to interact if I own my ignorance and ask them to help me see what they do.
In response to both Christian and Jeremiah’s response, I do feel we can be willfully ignorant even if we are not conscious of it. Staying in a place of one voice and view, without curiosity for others, is willful ignorance in my perspective. I grew up in a very racially mixed community and school. My friends were all different colors and cultures. I thought this meant that racism was over. Because we were all friends together must mean we are all on equal societal footing. I cringe now when I think of how I would say that there was no racism. Even though I was seeing it right before my eyes I did not have the grid to understand it through. My black friend was walking home with a pizza for his family. Police pulled up on him and roughed him up assuming he had just held someone up for the pizza and his new sneakers. Fellow students held their noses and said demeaning things about the scent, while I sat next to my Indian friend, blinded to what that was making her feel. I am embarrassed by this and it is true that I cannot know what I do not know, but for God’s sake I wish someone had told me to open my eyes and ears. I wish our society would not stay complicate and quiet, but how do we do that in a way that brings peace and hope?
Jeremiah, I see your gift for peacemaking. You approach this very hard topic with gentleness and grace (something I need to learn more of).
Christian, I see your heart to seek and listen to people different than you. You are accepting and open and have truly pursued understanding.
Thank you both for your willingness to write about it.
OK, you guys are challenging my semantics here on willful ignorance. This is good. A quick gemini search result from google says this:
“Willful ignorance is the act of intentionally avoiding information that could lead to negative consequences or undesirable decisions. It can also refer to the state of being unaware of facts because of a conscious choice to ignore them.”
OK, this is tough. If we are willing to accept this definition for the time being, then willful ignorance would at least need to mean that we are avoiding negative consequences and undesirable outcomes. I could see how this could be done subconsciously. For example, at a high school lunch table you go along with a joke because your nervous system trauma fears abandonment.
I was under the assumption that willful ignorance is “willful” therefore conscious. To not be willfully ignorant is going to require courage and death. And that is going to require safety and support.
This is a tough road.
I love how you compare this doctoral journey to your tunnel experience. At first, when you mentioned “holding her breath,” I thought you were referring to a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest, like my friends and I would always do. (lol) But yes, it sounds like the journey through the longest tunnel in Arizona is no short one. Life is full of surprises, and I personally don’t always enjoy it. There are sudden things that can be more pleasant, while others can be overwhelming or even life-changing moments.
I am blessed to be on this journey with you as we work on our NPOs. Even though we have a lot to work through, it is very comforting that we get to encourage one another – through ups and downs. We will make this tunnel experience one to remember (Good memory).
Thank you, Ivan!
That tunnel sure felt long as children, but, like many things as we mature, we discovered it’s not as significant as it once seemed. (“Arizona’s longest highway tunnel” means something in Arizona, but not necessarily in the context of longer or deeper treks–a good reminder that today’s “tunnel” experiences may be preparing us to navigate something even more substantial.) Your comment is a good reminder that while there are many stretching and challenging elements of a threshold, it can also be enjoyable and something to pleasantly recall.
Thanks again!
Jeremiah,
I share your desire to be all in and holistic in our doctoral Journey together. I do not think we were meant to do much by ourselves. It seems that being in community is how we are designed. Who wants to go through that dark and unclear tunnel alone?
My research is around the social side of healing. How do we heal as a community and by our community. This is not an attempt to take out the individual self, but to see ourselves as connected to one another.
I lived in the in the Middle East with the people for over a decade. They thought me about belonging and my connection to each other. Choices could not be made by the individual and transformation came when the group invested in each other. Separation seemed impossible, unlike the USA culture that pushes us to achieve by our own effort and possibly running over many along the way. We have so much freedom but have severed off our lifelines to holistic transformation.
Thanks for our insights on community and belonging. You are another voice for taking off the blinders and really seeing the other. Thank you.