The Problem with Being Right All the Time
I think God created teenage rebellion to keep humanity from ever being too certain about anything. Most humans believe they have a balanced or appropriate view of existence. In other words, we think we’re mostly right. Perpetually thinking you’re mostly wrong is a difficult way to exist.
Consequently, we develop a certitude about our social, political, cultural, and spiritual convictions. Individuals who think differently from us are viewed as having the wrong perspective. They are either naive, misinformed, delusional, ignorant, or evil.
From our vantage point, their radically different view of existence cannot be based on a better understanding of truth. If they’re right, then we’re wrong. As previously mentioned, it’s difficult for any person to embrace an existence where they are mostly wrong. It’s just not logical!
So we blog, email, editorialize, start churches, run political parties, and champion our right causes. Some of us are motivated by a strong passion that if we were just given a platform to communicate our truth, we could change the path of the ignorant. We could lead the wayward multitudes into the truth.
We even lament the conspiracies that keep us from communicating the truth. We decry the controlling biases of our leaders, educators, and institutions. We blame the media, or the government, or the church, or anyone else we believe to be censoring the truth. If only we had a voice to speak. If only we had a platform to proclaim our truth.
Of course, every parent has a platform to communicate truth. It’s called parenting. Ironically, our truth frequently does not even translate to our children. Although children see, hear, and experience the best of their parents’ truth, they frequently reject that truth for a different way.
So many parents don’t just raise children, they raise political and spiritual adversaries. Even so, we still shout at the other side for their bull headed arrogance. We heckle those in the wrong. We name call and deride our ignorant and delusional opponents.
“Why can’t they see the truth!” And our children watch us while they plan their secret rebellions. Ready to topple every tower we build. Don’t worry, it won’t be our fault, we’ll blame society for kidnapping the hearts and minds of our children. We certainly won’t blame ourselves.
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5 Responses to “The Problem with Being Right All the Time”
Naaaw.
“Perpetually thinking you’re mostly wrong is a difficult way to exist.”
Perpetually thinking we're right is no better; people generally don't examine their own beliefs with the same relish they take in deconstructing opposing views. That mote in the other guy's eye is just so easy to detect, judge, and castigate. The irony of our unexamined certitude makes the truth seem like a static goal that only must be reached one time, and once achieved, no further investigation is required. In short, certitude is a form of conceit and a basis for intellectual security. The truth thus becomes a method of pre-judging all future experience, and we make all subsequent information fit a pre-defined framework. Psychologists call this pre-defining 'gestalt.' Without regular self examination, certitude discounts new facts and data with the admonition, “You going to believe me or your lying eyes?
The fallacy of certitude is easy to uncover in this link to the classic image below:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://w…
If you're familiar with this image, you already know the “truth” that the picture is both a vase and two faces, and you've learned that the eye can play “tricks.” If you're complacent in that certainty, I will submit one more point to ponder, the image is neither a vase nor two faces, it is merely lines on paper. We construct first one “truth,” then another; but the fact of the matter is that our certainty constructs both images from familiar “truths.”
Our other intellectual constructs, the philosophic “truths” we cherish, defend, and use to pre-judge other people's ideas are also merely images our certitude creates. As parents, we dedicate ourselves to passing on these pre-judgments as static certainties that children need to live “correctly.” You tell your children one should never lie, that deceit is immoral. Sounds right, sounds noble, sounds certain, right?
Have you had to explain about Santa Claus yet? When my wife told my kids, I was angry because she just said, “There is no Santa. I called my kids in to explain the “truth.” When you were little, we told you about a fat man in a red suit that gave children gifts. Santa is really a spirit that travels across the world giving freely just for the joy of the act. When you're little, it's easy to see that spirit when you receive wonderful presents. Now that your older, it's time for you to see that giving presents is just as much fun as receiving them. That was the Christmas we started a Secret Santa tradition where we'd pick a family in the neighborhood, and each night for 12 days we had the kids sneak to their door and leave little gifts for individuas in that family. Also each night, we had to come up with little poems that explained who the gift was for and also gave a hint as to its origin. It was some of the worste poetry I've ever heard, but we all spent our days trying to construct the next night's verse.
My kids are in their 20s now, and Secret Santa is no longer the truth we celebrate. This last Christmas, my kids gave two goats to a village in Africa in my name. I'd like to think that they have learned the truth of Santa Claus even if I had to lie to them to make that happen.
File this under sappy mid-west philosophy or under too much information. Both categories would no doubt be true.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
Socrates
No Santa! Hey let's keep these comments civil. Open mindedness is a wonderful philosophical paradox. Reminds me of my sociology teacher who started the class with these words, “There is no such thing as absolute truth!” In one sentence he both argued for and against his proposition.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Rumi
Rumi understood what you are saying in the deep places and expanding outward. . .
Thanks enjoyed reading your posts. . .
Oh yeah, I gave twenty goats and a cow. They gave me two goats back to breed some more.