Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups
Chapter 9 of Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong "is about what happens during wrongness--about the moment when the feeling of being right seroconverts to the feeling of being wrong. Psycholoically as well as structurally, this moment forms the central experience of error" (183-184).
Schulz covers several aspects of that "during" phase. For you though, what's one idea or observation that she made in the chapter that caught your attention? For a couple of us who were talking, the following line from Schulz was striking: "We are quasi-rational actors, in whom reason is forever sharing the stage with ego and hope and stubbornness and loathing and loyalty” (195). Her eloquent assessment of why human s have a hard time making rational decisions was usefully explanatory.
What's one line, phrase, or idea that captured your interest? Provide the page number as well. Then, explain your reasoning.
11 comments:
The line, " So we can suffer inside the experience of error, or hurdle over it,or dilute it with time (Schulz 192)," stood out to me in this chapter.We as individuals have the choice to acknowledge our error or ignore it like it never happened. If we can accept error, we can learn from it but if we won't there is chance that we will make the same mistake again.
The part that stood out to me the most was the line stating "This tendency to skip straight from Right A to Right B illuminates an important fact about how we change our beliefs-and also how we don't change them." This sections goes on to give an example looking at theories in science and how a theory is only invalid if there is another, better theory to replace it, making me think this is how our minds work. Most of the time, we only believe we are wrong if something more believable takes its place. No one usually just believes they are wrong just by someone telling them, unless they weren't that sure about it in the first place. This to me shows that the human brain or self hold its beliefs to the highest virtue.
A quote I thought was very interesting was "...beliefs so important and far-reaching that we can neither easily replace them nor easily live without them" (187). Sometimes being wrong is not a big deal, but other times it can change your whole world.
For example, I was adopted when I was a toddler. Since I was old enough I have always known. I always wonder about the people adopted as infants who do not find out until years down the road. That would turn your world upside down in an instant.
The quote "It's like I skip from the part where I'm very strident about a particular point of view to the cocktail party ten years later where I'm wittingly mocking my former stridency. I guess there has to be a process in there, a gradual letting-go - first of stridency, then of the point of view view altogether" (184). It is sometimes easy to laugh about your past and wrongs you have committed after the fact. People change points of views but do nor always think about the process they went through to get to that new thought. I know personally I can strongly argue a point believing that I am right. As I get older my views chang and I sometimes find myself arguing the side I originally opposed. I don't always notice what changes my views but I accept it.
The line "In updating the past according with the present, we eliminate the necessity (and the possibility) of confronting our mistakes" (Schulz 186).
I thought this was an interesting theory because it reiterates the idea that even though being wrong is essential to learning and moving forward, it is still a state that many of us try to avoid. It is as if we never believed in false theories and therefore some of our previous actions never happened; therefore we were never really wrong in the first place.
Ashya F.
"Acknowledging our mistakes is an intellectual and (especially) an emotional skill, and as such it evolves in tandem with our cognitive and psychological development" this line really stood out to me because I never really thought about how being wrong is tied with our emotions and age as well. Depending on how we feel or what our mood is, it will determine on if we admit to being wrong or not. I also never really thought about how the older we are the more willing we are to admit we are wrong.
The quasi-rational actor (p.195) drew my attention because it reminds me of the "Dramaturgical " theory. Erving Goffman coined the idea that we inter act from a theatrical mind frame. For example; stage, actor and audience. We showcase the most important parts of ourselves to our audience changing vicariously to perform, negotiate and act out multiple scripts.
The idea that the place of pure wrongness is the place were we destroy and rebuild ourselves, where all the ground gives way, and all the ladders start page 192, stood out to me. When a person realizes that what they have believed to be true to have been wrong all along, especially in the case of religion, you have to re-frame your whole life around a new belief that it your own, and you have to make room for change or else you will be lost on the way of your own life, and how to live it.
The line that captured my interest is, "The more we spend on a belief, the harder it is to extricate ourselves from it" (196). It is interesting to me because this fact relates to many things in life, beside beliefs; things such as relationships. The more time and effort we spend on relationships, the more they mean to us and the more devastating when things do not work out. I have thought about it in this way, but had not taken the time to think about how it relates to our beliefs and how the longer you have believed in something, the harder it is to let it go.
A quote on page 194 that i found interesting was,
"The fact is, with the exception of our own minds, no power on eath has the consistent and absolute ability to convince us that we are wrong." and "... the choice to face up to error is ultimately ours alone."
I liked these quotes because it shows how powerful the human mind is but also how we do not fully access this power and it can lead us astray. Despite cues that are telling us that we are wrong, we still have the choice to ignore them.
The line that I found to interest me "our capacity to acknowledge error, then has something to do with where we are in life, both immediately and overall. But it has everything to do with who we are in life." (198)
Depending upon whether you are humble or arrogant can change how you view error. If you are in a good place in life and are openminded then acknowledging your error should not be an issue. But if you are close-minded and stuck in your ways then you will not believe that you are wrong.
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