The renewal of classical and imperial Chinese cultures in late socialist China has been conspicuous. Given the richness of the phenomenon, critical assessments of such comebacks are still underway. In this new book, Belgian Chinese studies scholar Mieke Matthyssen claims that invoking discourses from an earlier era has more than nostalgic or ideological significance. Instead, conventional wisdom developed in imperial China can continue to function as a survival strategy for our East Asian coevals in navigating their current public and interpersonal relationships. The argument is built on recognizing a “close link between ‘applied’ philosophy and Chinese indigenous and folk psychology” (p. 7). Matthyssen's emphasis on a culturally mediated sense of psychological agency or well-being, along with her focus on the indigenous attitude to knowledge, helps fine-tune the parameters of discussion on the politics of knowledge and traditions in China.

At the center of the treatise is a native idiom, hutu (not knowing), and its derivative folk philosophy, hutuism—the art of not knowing. It was not until the late imperial scholar-official Zheng Banqiao (1693–1766) distilled the proverb nande hutu (ignorance is rare) that the value of ignorance (hutu) also became the emblem of a folk philosophy of success for living in the “autocratic state that Chinese society was and still—even increasingly—is” (p. 283). This philosophy of success is not a prosperity gospel. Instead, the lesson is geared toward competent relationship management while preserving self-interest; eventually, the wisdom culminates in the consummate moral value of harmony. In his capacity as a celebrated artist, Zheng also created calligraphic artifacts of his mottos for living a good life. Once embellished, the dictum became legendary, having won elite interpreters and appealing to a mass audience who purchased the idea in the popular marketplace. The book's organization is driven by the contextualization of this late imperial folk philosophy by tracing its classical origins and by documenting its contemporary social reception.

The book has two main sections, “Hutu in Traditional Society” and “Hutu in Contemporary Society.” Part one consists of two chapters, where Matthyssen discusses two classical sources that ultimately justified the value of ignorance in practice (chapter 2). On the one hand, there is the Daoist paradigm of living as a sage fool. On the other hand, there is the Confucian penchant for instrumentalizing knowledge in the service of moral (self-)adjustments. Zheng Banqiao—the aforementioned late imperial scholar—was a pivotal persona in developing hutuism as a strategic social philosophy. Thus, the next chapter examines how Zheng inherited these classical positions and articulates how the idea was capable of organizing interpersonal relationships and efficaciously sustaining health and well-being. Specifically, the principle was practical in a court society, where power was arbitrary and lacked transparency (chapter 3).

The following section has four chapters, in which Matthyssen discusses the diffusion of the hutu motto in a massive popular self-improvement market. Materials in this section come from interviews in three megacities in East China from 2008 to 2012, visits to local bookstores (i.e., marketplaces for discursive commodities), questionnaires in Belgium (given to Chinese students and their parents), data mining in Chinese cyberspace, and scholarship and literary sources published in the Chinese language. Overall, part two shows how the politics of knowledge in China is not so much about power competitions as about psychological self-preservation. Alternatively, within the framework of hutu narratives, it is better described as a politics of ignorance—driven by mechanisms of social control as much as by a sense of the freedom of retreating from knowledge overload (chapters 4–7).

Written in the genre of cultural interpretation, Ignorance Is Bliss reveals the meaning and significance of a slippery but persistent idea in the Chinese discursive universe. As an anthropologist, I especially appreciate that Matthyssen has taken ordinary contemporary understandings seriously and set out to review an abundance of popular narratives circulating throughout the explosive publishing and self-publishing industry in reformed China. My only misgiving is that the “contemporary society” frame appears too broad. Considering the many layers of postreform temporalities, I would love to see more nuances—and, possibly, changes—discussed regarding the current condition of Chinese society. Moreover, most contemporary narratives employed seem to be publications from the 2000s culled from a mixed bag of assorted magazines. These texts are excellent empirical materials, displaying a spectrum of opinions and applications of hutu thought, and the book clearly explains what they purport to say. However, better source criticism of these popular text materials would help readers critically grasp the social locations of the sample attitudes discussed. This step would point toward a sociology of text production that Matthyssen partly performs in her discussion of the late imperial scholar's text. Missing this in the current analysis also leaves room for future investigation.

Overall, the book is an insightful study of indigenous psychology and will be vital in advancing the study of Chinese political psychology. Political behaviors in authoritarian states are not necessarily expressions of opinions. Hence, their motivations require much more contextualization. By identifying a persistent cultural idiom and showing its philosophical roots and contemporary psychological efficacies, Matthyssen's book is a fresh study reframing the dialectics of control and freedom, politics and self, and knowledge (information) and affect. When self-preservation appears to be an everyday challenge, the perspective of psychological well-being adds a crucial layer to our understanding of China's past and present, its cultural continuities, and its conditions of discontinuity. For anyone interested in obtaining a key phrase to interpret public behaviors in China intelligibly, Ignorance Is Bliss would be a delightful guide. The language is accessible, making it a valuable and welcome addition to the book list for introductory classes in Chinese culture, society, and politics in various departments and schools (including professional schools such as policy and business schools).