The Tyranny of Imposed Ignorance

Sor Juana identified imposed ignorance as a weapon of control: those denied education are denied both knowledge and the power to claim their own rights and property. Her autobiography reveals how women were systematically excluded from formal learning as a mechanism of subjugation. In the libertarian framework, this denial constitutes theft—a taking of cognitive potential and the ability to exercise rational agency. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to learn across all disciplines models resistance to this injustice. Freedom of thought requires freedom of access to information and education; without it, other property rights become meaningless. Her tradition demands that libertarian justice include the right to pursue knowledge without institutional gatekeeping, recognizing that intellectual oppression enables all other forms of exploitation.