A Good Rule to Ignore

A dear old friend sent a very funny list of “rules of life” to me last week.  The one that stood out was number 15 – The Law of Logical Argument – “Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about”.  This law nails it directly.  It’s just so on target that I had to write about it, given my topic last week.

If we didn’t obey this law, most of us wouldn’t have anything to say.  But sad to say, we just seem honor bound to use it over and over again.  Me too!  I can’t count the times that I’ve pontificated on something that I truly didn’t know that much about.  Here’s a hint:  One of my heroes was a man I knew many years ago who carried a business card that said, “Public Speaker – I speak on any topic”.  Sometimes I think we all carry a mental version of that card in our heads without even knowing it.

Let’s take this issue a step further.  Like the public domain.  How many times have you heard someone holding forth on a topic that you just know he knows nothing about?  Here’s the problem; very often the person who should be smart enough to know better isn’t smart enough to know that he’s not smart enough.

When we don’t know, we think we know.  That’s not double-talk.  Here’s an example;  I was a sailor for many years.  When I first learned to sail, I thought all of those ropes where just ropes.  I was taught that there are no ropes on a sailboat.  There are lines and each has its own name; jib sheets, main sheets, halyards, and mooring lines.  I realized that I didn’t know what I needed to know to sail that boat.  I learned and sailed for forty years without an incident.  But I could only do that after I learned what I thought I knew and didn’t.  But until then, I would have argued that those lines were ropes.

So we all walk around thinking we know something because we don’t know that we don’t know.  Then when we find out that we don’t know and we want to learn more, we are still novices.  But that doesn’t stop most of us.  We just keep talking like experts.

The good news is that this is the first step of true wisdom.  I mean, admitting that we don’t know it all.  We’re even wiser if we admit that we really don’t know anything for sure, that is, beyond question.  But who among us is brave enough to admit that?  We could do it when we were younger.  It was expected of us.

Now that we’re all grown up we should know it all.  And if we don’t, we don’t let that stop us from voicing our opinions as though we know.  Our ego must have something to do with this.  So the next time you voice an opinion on, let’s say, economics, are you sure you’re about to add something of value to the listener?  Or are you obeying rule number 15?

Here’s how you tell:  Look directly at your listener and watch if his eyes are turning glassy.  If they are, you’re probably obeying that law.  But if by chance your listener seems interested and engaged, you might have found someone who knows less than you about the topic.  If that’s the case, you’re home free.  Keep talking.

What it boils down to is being the “one-eyed giant in the land of the blind”.  When no one knows what you are talking about, how can they prove you wrong.  Or for that matter, how can they even suspect that you might be fabricating the whole thing?

Some of my readers have accused me of obeying rule 15.  That’s why I sometimes write about obscure topics in the hope that you know less than I do.  Sometimes it works. 

Robert DeFilippis