I don't understand

I have never really understood a great many people. What causes people to want to be willfully ignorant? How can people go through their lives dodging knowledge or worse clinging to misinformation and lie in the face of truth?

To be fair, I know things I wish I never knew and I have seen things I wish I had never seen. But hiding from truth doesn't make it go away and mearly makes you a coward for avoiding the truth. If there are painful truths then they must be faces and then dealt with. If there is pain, you should stand up and make it go away. If you are pained by the hunger in Africa, then give so that others may eat. If the state of the union is such that you don't like it, get involved and change the world. Or at least have the dignity and strength to stand up and acknowledge the world for what it is and not what you want it to be.