“Aristocrats don’t notice philosophical conundra. They just ignore them. Philosophy includes contemplating the possibility that you might be wrong, sir, and a real aristocrat knows that he is always right.
~ Terry Pratchett, Snuff
It’s not vanity, you understand, it’s built-in absolute certainty. They may sometimes be as mad as a hatful of spoons, but they are always definitely and certainly mad.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Just asking the question is enough to raise the hackles on any human. No one likes to be wrong; no one wants to learn that their faith has been misplaced. Even the thought we might be wrong is enough to poke our egos, even though we’re all wrong about many things on a regular basis — whether we’re operating on an assumption or just lack accurate information.
Imagine waking up tomorrow and finding out you’ve been wrong. Not just lower-case wrong — finding out you’ve been misusing a common phrase for years or discovering a life hack for some chore that could have saved you hundreds of hours. I’m talking capital-W wrong, like realizing some core belief is completely upside down, or learning that the trust you placed in a person or an institution has been squandered on a web of lies.
As we age, opportunities to be wrong increase. Sure, you have more experience, so you probably aren’t wrong in the same way you were when you were three or seven or 30, but with age comes greater decisions, a larger sphere of influence, and an ever-changing world around us. You would think we’d become more accepting, more humble, more willing to change course and adapt when we have to confront the notion we might be wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Instead, most of us default to doubling down on our “rightness,” insulating our position with layers of confirmation bias, and surrounding ourselves with others who agree with us to form a little tribe. Anyone who disagrees is tossed out or deemed irrelevant.
We all do it, if we’re honest with ourselves. We do it with political views, generational differences, religious opinions, and science, among other things. It’s troublesome. It’s worse than being wrong to begin with…two wrongs, after all, don’t make a right.
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
