How Wrong You Are. Me Too, I Guess.
by Jason John Bartholomew
The thing I find singularly the most perplexing>frustrating>infuriating>maddening>and then, eventually, gobsmacked into stunned silence before throwing in the towel and just withdrawing, is this universal smug over-confidence all people seem to have in the sufficiency of their knowledge, the soundness of their acquired and self-reasoned philosophies, the incorrigibility of those values they profess, the quality and reliability of their trusted data streams, and finally, both the inerrant nature of their particular incidences of the scientifically and notoriously deceptive faculty of perception, as well as their own cognitive prowess to have assembled all these into something that not only seems relevant and meaningful, but also correct and good and, dare we say, righteous.
It true. I can not find the exceptions. From the most willfully ignorant as well as those with less average intelligence all the way through the most learned, knowledgeable, genius minds I know or interact with on some level, there is an over-confidence in one’s own worldview. But not just confidence, rather an imperial certainty of correctness so robust, so sure it has turned all necessary stones and pondered sufficient implications, contingencies, alternatives and other viewpoints, the master of this worlsview is now more than ready to declare this great edict as universal, superior, and not only above reproach by the “idiots” who don’t concur (for indeed, yes, such is the nature of holding opinions), but also to assert that measures might need be taken to force others to adopt it and even, perhaps, punish those who do not.
And I do not even exaggerate. Not a day passes I don’t hear, read, or participate in a conversation where all manner and kinds of people are just barreling ahead on confirmation biases, conventional idiocy and all manner or refutable or at least questionable assumptions.
People of Earth… there are 7 billion people on this planet today. It is estimated 107 billion people have passed this way. There have more religions, philosophies, cultures, constructs, paradigms, creeds, mythologies, and worldviews than one can quite fathom. There are whole fields of study you and I have never heard of or thought about and that have specializations and subcategories and a vernacular. There are philosophies or religions that have constructed the whole universe and the meaning and placement of objects and how such relate to each other and to the self in a way that is so fundamentally alien to the way that you see things, it might blow your mind, or at least a fuse. All the questions, those great and those mundane and those that, frankly, seem like a silly waste of time, have been well pondered already, and dare I say, by minds far superior to mine or yours.
So guess what? No. You’re not right and I’m not right. Nobody’s right, so stop thinking you’re right. There are no infallible truths and even if there might be somewhere on some level, you’re not there on that level and so you don’t have any of those.
We are all wrong. Now we can engage in the art of trying to be individually as well as collectively least wrong. And that means going to the uncomfortable place where we actually have to hear ideas that rattle our teeth.
