I.
Occasionally, I have doubts. I ask myself “What if I’m Wrong?” typically every day. Am I correct in my assumptions and observations? Am I reading and watching the correct sources? Am I consuming information as broadly as possible, to hear from as many legitimate perspectives as possible?
This behavior has led to some strange news habits which are oftentimes difficult to communicate to those who prefer to stay in their bubble. Maybe I have a high tolerance for divergent views, maybe I am just weird. But my broad news diet has allowed me to understand some perspectives I would otherwise not have been able to understand.
Don’t get me wrong, this typically does not change my base assumptions radically from day to day. I believe I have learned how to sort things out, how to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones, and even how to read unreliable sources and still get out of them what I need.
So, what if I am wrong? I typically do what I can to draw the needed conclusions from such an insight. But this is not really the main point.
II.
More important than asking the question is to put oneself into a mindset where that question is implied, and utilize that mindset when talking with others. When you are too convinced you are right and the other person is wrong, communication becomes very difficult. Worse, when you are convinced you are right because you are standing on the right side of things, and the other person is seen as being on the other side, then you are not even perceiving the other person as a person but just as a representative of a group of people, whether that is true or not.
People don’t really belong to groups as much as we are made to think. Sure, some groups are stronger than others, but people still make choices. Rarely will you find a person that throughout their whole life and throughout changing circumstances will stick to one group identity, or a set of group identities. Beliefs and opinions are typically contingent on circumstances – they may change if circumstances and people around change, and as you change yourself.
III.
For instance, growing up in Socialist/Communist East Germany, my opinion of the state certainly was different from later living in a free Germany, and currently living in the United States. My outlook on live has changed depending how much money I earned. It changed from before being a parent and after, and before being a grandparent and after. It changed from before my PhD and after, from before being married and after, from living more in a big city environment to a smaller town, from pre-Covid pandemic and once Covid had hit, etc. Marx is partially right when saying that “life determines consciousness” — your daily situation influences how you see the world, but I would personally not be too deterministic about it.
Marx is also wrong in that you can hold on to a certain consciousness no matter what. You need to be resilient, you need to be consistent in ways that matter — and you can, by choice, change your attitude.
We talk a lot nowadays about happiness. You could believe that you are happy if everything is perfect, and only then. But this is a dangerous path to follow: Nothing in life stays constant. Even if you achieve complete perfection, it will only last for so long. You will need to compartmentalize. Maybe parts of your life are perfect, and others are not. Sometimes, these constellations change places. You cannot hold on to the idea of perfect happiness arising from circumstances — you need to create happiness for yourself. Basically, you are happy when you determine for yourself that you are happy. That does not mean that everything is going well, but your attitude towards circumstances can help you overcome depression. I believe I know what I am talking about.
Such an attitude towards happiness requires a certain sense of humility: the recognition that you are not in perfect control, that you do not have achieved perfection, that you probably never will and if so only briefly, that you are not in control of the world around you, that there is something greater than you, and thus that you are sometimes wrong and will have to learn how to deal with this — not by trying to re-litigate the past (that is gone) but by looking forward.
What if I am wrong? Then I will need to change things about myself and probably also the world around me if it has been impacted by me being wrong before.
What if I could be wrong? I probably am, and thus I will proceed cautiously. I will not judge too easily, and will reserve strongest judgement (if I have to) to these moments you may share with your closest people or with yourself when you really, really have to unload. But then, pick yourself up again, throw your ego to the side, and see everyone else as a person in their own right. Do not insult others, do not scream at them, do not dismiss them, but listen to them, and engage with them honestly in dialogue — with the realization that you yourself could be wrong (and they could be too, but that is first of all their problem, and you should not judge too harshly).
Now, what does that mean politically?
Because there are limits to this. Yes, I may be wrong, but not about everything. Some things I need to reject.
If I take the possibility of being wrong seriously, I must reject those systems that reject the possibility of being wrong, and that act in a way that does not leave an opening for doubt.
Democracy is always less wrong than dictatorship, because dictatorships are based on the idea that some people and some structures are always more right than others. Democracy is based on the idea of humility — maybe I think I am right, but so many others think I am wrong, and if I or my people should be voted out of office, then maybe the others were right, or my messaging was bad, but in any case, I need to respect the “other side” to have won the day. Maybe next time, things will be different. Democracy is the institutionalized version of the idea that we could be wrong.
IV.
The main area in which I am sometimes not sure how wrong or right I am pertains to the following question: Is the individual more important than society, or is it the other way around? I believe both are true, but both are in conflict also.
This is essentially the Star Trek II vs. Star Trek III problem:
- In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock sacrifices his life to save his friends. He justifies this by saying: “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” and Kirk adds, “or the one.”
- But in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Kirk and his crew endanger themselves to save Spock, “Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.”
What is oftentimes missed is that in both cases, there is individual choice. Spock chooses to sacrifice himself for others, he is not forced to, and later, Kirk does the same. Both quotes describe a conscious choice, a freedom to choose. Both Spock and Kirk have the chance to either prioritize the many or the one.
Thus, back to the problem of society vs. the individual: Should individuals bow down to society, or vice versa? Are taxes legitimate? Mask mandates? Any laws deciding in favor of the community versus the individual?
Again, this brings me back to democracy: If we, as citizens, get a say, then yes. If we, as subjects of a dictatorship, don’t get a say, then probably not. Even in a democracy, our perspective does not always get a say if the majority sees it differently — but we would have a chance for lobbying politically to change things, and most of all, part of democracy is also the protection of (political) minorities. If I am part of a system in which the system structurally (through elections, transparency, checks and balances, separation of powers etc.) admits that it could be wrong, then yes, we can trust that some limitations on individual choice can be legitimate.
In any other case, with regards to any non-democratic system, no, thank you. If a state — through its constitution, its practices, its government and representatives — is not willing to cede the possibility that it could genuinely be wrong, and that the people could overrule the government and change it, then it is not legitimate.
A state that does not follow the principle of “what if we are wrong” will eventually indiscriminately outlaw the opposition, jail or kill people, wage war, and behave in a way that diminishes the dignity not just of individuals but of the community as well.
V.
This is why, no matter how wrong I could be, it is right to insist that some philosophies and their resulting governments are always wrong: We cannot trust any political system that a priori states that the many always are more important than the few or the one. This pertains to the following:
- fascism (which sees people as an organic mass)
- national socialism (fascism plus eugenics and some socialist ideas)
- communism (also sometimes called socialism; which sees people as a mass that has to be shaped into the New Man — “socialism” being the term which communist systems used for what exists on earth, and “communism” as the utopia of a classless mass society of new men) — this is distinct from “social democracy” (which in the American context is sometimes misleadingly called socialism)
- pure religious communities (where everybody believes the same and is seen as a mass of believers)
- accelerationism (in which neither individuals nor communities count, just our cultural or scientific achievements as far as they are relevant to the coming rule of artificial intelligence)
- mob rule (in which the majority always dominates the minority)
- monarchies or oligarchies (in which established authorities always dominate the people)
- extreme libertarianism (which ignores community needs and only sees individual interests)
- any system that we may still imagine (or that I forgot to mention) which ignores and subjugates the individual always under the community or vice versa
I hope this illustrates how the question of “What if I am wrong?” can not just help us ourselves in our private lives, but also within a community of people who do not agree with us (aka reality), and as a guiding principle for social and political organization.
We are all individuals, and just as much as we appreciate being respected in our individuality, so we should respect others in theirs. This means taking our ego out of it, sometimes, and to navigate life together, with each other, not against. That’s all this is about.
Erratic Attempts 