The courage not to know

By "the courage not to know," I'm not referring to anything as obscure as Keats's "negative capability," just the willingness to admit that we have no basis for an opinion when we lack all information.  Take the nice, caring people in this video, who are trying to reach a responsible position on issues of public policy:



H/t House of Eratosthenes.  Or to take another example, Assistant Village Idiot posted a link to this description of Richard Feynman's experience on a California school board textbook committee.  The other committee members took such careful notes of what he said about most of the many books they were to have reviewed that he gradually understood they hadn't actually read most of them.  One set was supposed to contain three volumes, but he received only two.  Committee members kept asking him what his opinion was of the third book, and he kept answering that he hadn't read it and therefore had no opinion.  Many of the other members had rated it.  Then a representative of the publisher joined the meeting and explained that they hadn't been able to make the publishing deadline for the third book, so they'd included a set of blank pages between the usual covers, meaning to include the real book later.  The other reviewers were so determined to have an opinion that they came up with a rating on a book with blank pages.

Only one of the people interviewed in the video above was willing to come right out and say she had no idea what the absurd question meant.

7 comments:

Grim said...

Portugal has six sequesters? That's a sequester gap. We need another!

jabrwok said...

I really hope this was staged. Otherwise, the thought that these products of the public education system actually have the right to vote is too terrifying to contemplate.

Texan99 said...

What, you don't think they were home-schooled?

Anonymous said...

After all the BS , it was really refreshing to hear the woman admit ignorance- like finding a dry piece of tinder in a wet pile of wood- potential!
I second Jason's hope....

Texan99 said...

Exactly -- I don't agree with her decision to cast her vote on the basic of identity politics, but at least she knows why she's voting the way she does. It might be possible to talk to her and change her mind. She has enough self-respect to listen to a nonsensical question and say, "What? I didn't understand a word of that. Here's what I really think."

DL Sly said...

As regarding that particular woman, while it was *refreshing* to hear someone actually admit it, it still rankles that she isn't racist -- yet I am because I dare to disagree with Xerxes and his minions.
blech
*haaawwkkptoooie*
0>;~}

Assistant Village Idiot said...

These are likely not staged. Jay Leno has done these for years with similar results.

It's painful to watch, isn't it?