Varlam Shalamov (author of Kolyma Tales and GULag survivor) wrote that There is a much that a man should not see, should not know, and if he should see it, it is better for him to die. Was he right? Wrong? Or it entirely depend on person and circumstances of said person life?
Thomas Gray wrote something similar in the 1700s:
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The tender for another's pain;
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
And T. S Eliot, in the first half of the 1900s, thus:
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities.
I am undecided, I waver.