As I acknowledge every now and again here, I am a Quaker, although I also admit that I am not a regular attender right now. For me, the need to attend is something that has always come and gone over time. It does not change my broadly sympathetic convictions for much of what Quakers stand for.
One of the suggestions within Quaker thinking is that when you hear something you really disagree with you should 'think it possible that you may be mistaken'.
I have reminded myself of this because I heard comments last week that I very much disagreed with, and said so. Sometimes, though, the need to consider why such things happen is necessary. In particular, I realise that just because I have held views on the issue in question for some time, it is still necessary that I 'think it possible that I may be mistaken'.
I am taking time to do that this weekend. Reflection is sometimes a necessary course of action, and reading, a good walk, and quiet consideration of alternatives is necessary. The mind has to be opened, in other words.
My hope is that I might reconsider an issue, seeking new insights. I may find I was wrong. It is also possible I will not. But the process of asking the question seems appropriate in its own right.
I add this at the suggestion of Geoff Cox:
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[…] then, is not the issue I intend to spend my weekend musing on. When it comes to Trump, the world is not mistaken. He set out to be bad, and he is succeeding in […]
As a housing development manager, I live with this every day.
We all need to do so
But I am making a specific research task of it this weekend
I don’t know if this will help your thesis……………
It seems to me that in order for the super rich to live with certainty, the rest of us must all live with uncertainty.
That is what Neo-liberalism has taught me.
I like that
Sorry to post again but living with uncertainty – that is accepting it as a fact – makes one more diligent and cautious and aware of effects. It also induces a huge dose of humility and humbleness.
It is what a professional should live with, all the time.
I suppose we all fill our moments with one thing or another, often forgetting to reflect on the most important question confronting us, what best to do with our precious time here? I’m sure a lot of problems in the world come about by always thinking we are right! A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion. Proverbs 18:2
I wonder if you remember the harrowing television scene at Auschwitz, when Jacob Bronowski (quoting Oliver Cromwell) said “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.” – https://youtu.be/ltjI3BXKBgY
Very powerful. I will add it.
I think we all sometimes think that we are right and have got it wrong and sometimes someone disagrees with you and you have to agree to disagree. Its life
Growing up in a poor household we couldn’t afford many books but my grandfather had left a small library to which I often resorted. One was a book of Kipling’s poems. And some lines remained with me i later life.
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;”
It is something I have done. I have been to the Taunton Meeting House a number of times.
It is how we get nearer to the truth.
Thank you for presenting an excellent, practical example of managing the Dunning-Kruger effect, to which all of us seem vulnerable, perhaps increasingly so when/as we may be and/or are promoted.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect?msockid=38490f6d434d687401871a77426a69bc
Thinking you (and indeed anyone else) may be wrong – in a word, scepticism – is part of the scientific method. Is a proposition falsifiable by observation or experiment? If the evidence is incompatible with a beautiful hypothesis, that conjecture is wrong. Start again.
Take no one’s word for it. Trust, but verify.
Agreed
I would add ‘Don’t banish the view that you strongly disagree with’
Sometimes you can arrive at a finished position by a great deal back and forth, and free expression has to be allowed for this exchange to happen, an exchange where both parties can be confident that their view won’t abruptly be terminated part way through.
We see many times a disagreeable view on here, a short riposte possibly with an impugning of motive e.g. “who’s paying you”, and then the exchange is terminated.
Oh come on
There are honest disagreements and there are time wasting trolls whose purpose is purely destructive
Let’s not pretend otherwise
If my current older self were to meet with my former younger self, I think that we would have quite a few differences of opinion. My older self would try to avoid disagreement, my younger self would dive straight in.
🙂
I had two covid vaccines because I believed the government, and that vaccines were always safe. I was mistaken.
I voted Labour because I believed they were better than the Tories. I was mistaken.
I cut down on salt and saturated fats because I believed it was the healthy option. I was mistaken.
I believed that tax paid for government spending. I was mistaken.
I believed that the NHS wanted me to be healthy, rather than make a profit out of prescribing drugs.I was mistaken.
Just on your first point, vaccines are generally safe. Some people have adverse reactions and that is unfortunate but the very large majority of people don’t. Many people who catch COVID and many other infectious diseases recover without serious adverse results. Some don’t and that is also unfortunate.
So in the real world, it is not a matter of “safe” versus “unsafe” but rather of balancing the different risks and rewards of taking action versus taking no action. And oftentimes having to make those decisions with imperfect information.
If you think vaccines are unsafe, I have to tell you that a world without vaccines would be much more unsafe.
I was out when moderating that comment – and hate typing on my phone. 99% spelling error rate. I agree with you on vaccines. They are the safest option.
in the words of the late Queen Elizabeth 11 “recollections may vary”
Roger Waters recounted a piece of advice given to him by his mother:
“Read everything then come to the right decision”.
The “read everything” is the important bit. I always read more opinions that I absolutely disagree with, from people whom I think are wrong, but every time I ask myself “what evidence do you have that this is wrong?” and I search for it. If I can’t find it, I change my understanding and opinion. I also use many sources, especially “discredited” ones. Often takes a great deal of time, but it is worth it.
Everything that you have written on this blog, I have checked against others, including those who disagree with you, in order to test your opinions. It is the only way I can understand things.
I subscribe to a out of mails and papers I expect not to agree with
I always find it bemusing when the right say I live in an echo chamber. They are heard in it, often, in that case.
1. Absolute credit to you for taking this step.
2. There are 2 foreign policy issues which I have to admit, I am very reluctant to express views on.
The first is Russia/Ukraine. I am not in any doubt about Vladimir Putin, or that invading across an internationally recognised border, or waging war against civilians, or kidnapping children, is wrong, as is the abuse of your own military personnel and the murder of your political opponents – but the arguments around the validity of the Yanukovich government, the Maidan revolution (and many colour revolutions), neo-Nazis in the Asov battallion, the history of the Crimea, NATO’s increasing encirclement of Russia, are beyond me, because I don’t know who to believe. so I tend to stay silent.
I have mentioned a number of things in the previous paragraph that may provoke factional comment – but please don’t bother – because I haven’t expressed a view on them – merely that I am permanently, distressingly confused about them. the same applies to Syria.
I have a similar problem with Syria. The Assads a family of repressive dictators? Certainly. Terrible things done by them to their opponents in Aleppo and Homs? Undoubtedly. But beyond that, once people start arguing from their perspectives within the various intersecting, sometimes conflicting “proxy wars” in the Middle East, lining up behind various factions, Iran, Israel, USA, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Kurds, Turkey, etc etc it begins to get VERY confusing. Watching the battles going on between different groups on the left of UK politics about both Russia/Ukraine and Syria’s internal battles is confusing and depressing. The more I try and get informed, the MORE confused I get. I hate the way ordinary citizens get their lives, their homes and their countries destroyed because of complicated international power games and proxy wars. I mean – who do you choose for good guy of the month? Iran’s supreme leader or Trump or Netanyahu or Erdogan or Ahmed al-Sharaa? No thanks.
Even more so when you meet (as I did last month) an Syrian Alawite refugee who insists on showing me videos of people being shot in the streets and is clearly deeply distressed and anxious about his family in Syria. I do not understand Syria. How can I possibly know the rights and wrongs of what has been happening there? I have no sources that I can trust.
Sometimes I listen to a radical commentator whom I believe and trust on one issue, talking about something else, and I realise that I don’t agree with them on the second issue. That’s unsettling. That tends to happen on Russia/Ukraine/Syria. (I’m not referring to Richard Murphy here btw)
I’ve realised that there are some situations in the world that are beyond my understanding – and that, provided I remain healthily curious about developments, I do not NEED to understand them. After all – what difference can I make? Except to identify with the innocent who suffer and do what I can to help them, if it proves possible.
We live in a world where confusion and incomprehension are justified.
‘think it possible that I may be mistaken’.
As an engineer, all “solutions” tend to be sub-optimal – one does ones best and hopes for the best. In wood working – measure twice, cut once. As Innes showed in “Late Soviet Britain” both neoliberalism and communism a la the USSR are/were uptopian projects & thus could not be wrong (when viewed by their adherents). Question the former in the Uk & one is ignored, question the latter and it was a one way ticket to re-education (or worse).
Human controlled systems & the humans in them are usually unwilling to recognise erros/mistakes/wrong-trajectories. Russia is one good example: the short military operation was based on wishful thinking – demonstrated within the 1st week. The end result is more than one million dead & wounded. A less lethal example is Reeves and her adherence to financial rules that any fool could see were irrelevant – which in turn will increasingly raise the relevance of Reeves vis-a-vis the Starme project.
I’ve not seen it expressed quite so succinctly, but Mike nails it. Neoliberalism is as utopian as communism. Both contain a grain of reality, but both rely on simplifying assumptions that just are not true in practice. As anyone with eyes can plainly see.
Agreed
Thank you Andrew – I take no credit – Abby Innes did the heavy lifting & “Late Soviet Britain” is required reading for those wondering “what the hell happened”? – it is also a useful counterweight to those that come out with “I have the solution to XYZ” – sighs.
(Don’t get me wrong – I can think of loads of solutiuons to XYZ – but all will have some draw backs – but – hopefully – most will deliver a something that is better than XYZ.
In order to cope with these contradictions I tend to fall back on the baseline of ‘no good actors’ in any conflict, then look for pure good action by any. Bad actors can do good, and vice versa. I am a fairly intransigent socialist, but one of the best people I knew in Nottingham in the 70s and early 80s was a Tory councillor. However once you’ve analysed your interpretation, revision should need very powerful evidence.
‘think it possible that you may be mistaken’. That requires humility, strength of character and a word very seldom used these days, honour. I’ve never really understood why anyone, let alone politicians, are so afraid of saying, I’ve thought about it some more and I was wrong, I made a mistake.
I do here
As one of your Quaker followers it’s good to know that you will be with us in the spirit today while we sit in stillness in the knowledge that we all look for the truth together.
Thanks David.
Looking for the truth is key.
[…] so happens that this was the issue that I have spent a lot of time considering in the last week – precisely because I witnessed an NGO spectacularly failing for this reason last week and probably […]