My Dad passed away when I was 29. I really miss him all the time. He was a wonderfully funny man who once had me doubling over with laughter when he said “ya know, I’ve never been wrong…well, wait a minute. I have been wrong. Once. What happened is that I thought I was wrong but it later turned out I was actually right.” This is not an original quote, but when applied to my Dad, it takes on hilarious meaning. He was wrong all the time and he reveled in it.
He frequently called his children by the wrong names, usually beginning with the eldest and working his way down. I am the 6th of 7, so it took awhile for him to be right with me. His workshop was full of formerly broken things, imperfectly “fixed.” He was an early, intrepid adopter of computers, which he could never quite get to work properly.
Maybe it was Dad’s background as a scientist that made him such a wonderful teacher about the joy of error. I learned recently (hint hint) that all science and art are born of error. People get things wrong. They learn. They think they get it right. Eventually, that thing that was right is proven wrong. And so on.
So, Dad encouraged all of us to be wrong and learn. He would have loved Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz.
Schulz is a journalist. She takes on error in a wonderfully multidisciplinary analysis. There’s history, psychology, philosophy, sociology, law and sniffs of anthropology and political science, to name a few.
Schulz takes on the not-too-surprising hypothesis that error is mind-numbingly common and that our natural reaction to being wrong is shame, fear and even despair. She then gently brings us around to embracing error, celebrating it and of course learning from it.
Her cause is illustrated by fabulous examples from across history and across disciplines. From Yeats to Socrates to Penn Jillette to Beyonce.
Some of the most entertaining and insightful support comes from Schulz’s foray into etymology, the study of the origins of words and phrases. To that end, the book’s title is perhaps the best indicator of the positive theory of error constructed therein. You see, Schulz teaches that it is incorrect, impossible actually, to say “I AM wrong,” for once we know we are wrong, we instantly change our beliefs to become “right.” Therefore the only correct thing to say is “I WAS wrong.”
What to make, then, of the two words “Being Wrong,” which at first indicates a continuous existence in that unfavorable condition? Well, I chose to read it not as a verb but as the latter half of human being. For, it is enlightened with the knowledge gained by reading this book that I now understand wrong is as wonderful a human attribute as right ever could be.
Link to review of Pride & Prejudice on this site
Posted by Drevil, 11/5/2012
I was like why is there a link to a review of Pride and Prejudice on this post? Then I clicked it and read the review and now I understand. Nice job.