Then Know the Best Good

“People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we don’t.” ~ Bjarne Stroustup

I’d like to include myself in that “we”. I don’t know. I know that I don’t really know. I also happen to be right. Sometimes.

Now stay with me here. The thing is- I don’t want to be right. I research, and I want truths, but the more truths I unearth, the grosser and more disgusting they are. When I assert a proposition, a truth to someone, I usually am at odds with those who seek to be “right”. Argumentation is for the louder, cruder, ‘winner’ winner chicken dinner mentality in our culture. 

Truths piss people off. Challenge em with facts and they’ll get louder, cruder… etc. Believe you me, I wish I was wrong when introducing distressing and unpopular information- especially AS incidents were unfolding. Like, in real time.

Three events come to mind: The Election of 2000; The invasion of Iraq; and Citizens United. As a history teacher, I believed it was important to demonstrate current- cause and effect juxtapositions with monumental milestones occurring simultaneously. (Does that make sense?) I wanted to show history in the making. 

The snag I ran into was vitriol. Every time. Emotional acidity analogous to assuming ones accuracy. People Wanted to be right. I did not. The narrative arc of historical foreshadowing was NOT looking good to me. However, more upsetting to me then, and even more so to me now, is the lack of reasonable repartees. In school discussions flamed and factioned off in a flash. 

Potentially lengthy Great debates become, well, Good-enough disagreements. And quickly extinguished. Ding ding ding. Round 2. From 2000 through 2018 conversations- even with colleagues could not be established. We didn’t have time- all those tests, ya know.. Plus, I cared more about genuine knowledge, than disingenuous data. I wanted to be the best at a slow deliberate systematic search for truth.

Truth pisses people off. “No, I don’t know! Stop pretending you do,” is what I would want to say. So we can get to the good stuff!

Being “the Best” at research is eudamonious, a reward in and of itself. Albeit, lonely. Good enough wins (faux) ’arguments’, but keeps us from painfully powerful truths. We can do it! Karate Kid style- “Try to be best ‘cute you’re only a man, and a man’s gotta learn to take it.” Truth. 

Next nest- my 5 “Gets.”