The Hubris of Certainty

I have many flaws. Fortunately, closed-mindedness is not among them. I’m allergic to rigid, dogmatic thinking in all its flavors, but that wasn’t always the case.

Being open-minded has drawbacks. I have difficulty forming strong opinions because I can easily see valid arguments for the other side. Thank goodness I’m not teaching college. I would likely be fired for failing to tow the ideological line many faculty administrations impose these days.

Illiberalism is in vogue. We have lost tolerance for open exchanges of alternative viewpoints. If there is a God, illiberalism goes against her plan. The natural world features diverse connectivity.

It’s an election year. Rarely has a politician reflected my views, and this year is no exception. Both sides propagate illiberal ideology. Conservatives are proud of it. Liberals fake open-mindedness until someone disagrees with their enlightened philosophy.

I was raised in a Socratic manner; Dad probed disagreements with questions, which taught me the value and practice of logical discourse and debate. I was taught to be wary of certainties, especially my own. Here’s an example:

I hated college computer science classes, yet a computer language course was required for my major. I took an obsolete language called Fortran. Back in those days, we had to key-punch instruction cards and feed them into a reader connected to the campus main-frame computer, which had about one billionth the power of an iPhone.

During a visit home, I complained about my Fortran course and an impending final project that was a large portion of my grade. Dad said I should be more open-minded and suggested I write a program to financially hedge production costs for egg producers. ( Dad was an agricultural economist). I didn’t have a better idea for my final project, so I took Dad up on his suggestion. Doing so required learning about the commodity futures markets. Long story short, I became so interested in commodities that I switched college majors from Business to Ag-Econ and ultimately spent the rest of my life managing hedging operations for a large food company.

A hubris of certainty nearly kept me away from my chosen career. I guard against that now, but not always successfully.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I had strong views on appropriate precautions. I felt those holding opposing views were ignorant or insane. Subsequent reputable research indicates the other side wasn’t completely misguided.

It’s humbling to admit being wrong, which reminds me of a favorite AT&T TV commercial featuring NBA star Draymond Green. Green has a well-deserved reputation for losing his temper and acting out in regrettable ways.

In the commercial, Green approaches a cashier in a diner and admires her choice of the new iPhone 15 pro:

“Choices are amazing, aren’t they?” Green says, “One minute, you’re making all the right ones, and everyone loves you. Then you make a bad one….A regrettable choice. Then, another questionable choice. Soon, you’re left with just one choice. And that’s to grow.”

That was classy; most of us could learn from it.

Sometimes, the hubris of certainly leaves us with just one choice.

“And that’s to grow!”

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