Actually, You're Wrong

Image Courtesy of Joe Mabel via Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

More often than not, I am wrong. I am constantly (if unintentionally) lying. After twenty minutes convincing my poor interlocutor that I, in fact, must be right, a simple Google search proves me to be unequivocally incorrect. 

Fortunately, this has never led to any real damage - only for the reason that the majority of arguments I entangle myself within are of very little consequence. I’m certain that “The Kinks wrote ‘Play With Fire’” and that “Scotland Yard is the headquarters of MI5.” “Red wine is made from white grapes,” I'll say, “it’s just that they leave the skin on. That’s all. That’s the only difference.” “Goooogle it.” Oh, what a fool. My puffed up chest and pushed back hair - attempting to convey a clear face - only accentuates my downfall.

Of course, on these occasions, I feel great pangs of nostalgia for a time of playground disputes. When there was no simple, veridical truth handed down to us by our great benefactor: Google AI overview. When the issue at hand was resolved (or rather, lost to) the murky waters of hearsay. When the speaker with the oldest brother would emerge victorious. This, however, is likely where I learnt to be so wrong in the first place. I learnt to make claims with no support but a foundation of brash confidence.  

It is not only in conversation that these little fuck ups litter my life. Spelling and grammar - the basic SPAG that I've been tested on and somehow passed with perpetual success (to the extent that I now have a full English Literature degree) - still have their way with me.

But here’s the thing - most people do expect me to be right. Due to my love of bickering and relatively left-leaning politics, they expect me to ‘know best’. This is a deeply privileged position to be in. Yes, some of my ideas, overlooked and ignored, when coming from a man’s mouth are treated as liturgy. But I feel generally less affected by the mansplaining-patronisation epidemic than many of the young women around me. Nor am I dismissed for my age. Commonly seen in the young in the form of arrogance, and sonically connected to the Greek hḗbē, meaning ‘vigour of youth’, my elders are yet to refute me with accusations of hubris.

A few months into our relationship, a mutual friend told my boyfriend: “She’s smart. Not too smart though; so don’t be intimidated. She’s still a little dopey.” Only with time do people learn that I am a deeply unreliable source. 

Nonetheless, a legacy of being in the know still appears to follow me. While ‘dopey’ should imply a noted stupidity - a tendency to be dumb - I remain, in their eyes, ‘intelligent’. I am both stupefied and yet possessive of a certain sagacity.

This is a very dangerous assumption. Crucially, my parents were lawyers. I have four older and very well educated brothers. I attended a boarding school with small classes in which we were treated as vessels of precious potential. We, hormonal, ego-driven and calculated teenage girls, hammered each other into place in the forge of a life with very little consequence. We lived under arbitrary rules. If I could get through the day without conforming to the ponytail dress-code, it meant I was a serious maverick. To get caught and point out the apparent irrelevance of hairstyle to my ability to participate in lessons made me a total renegade. Ironically, at times, it appears I learnt to think of little else.

I had the time, space, and the attention of others to engage in these great battles. Evidently, I was fortunate. Not just in the literal sense of being able to afford this kind of education, but in what this environment afforded me. People articulated their rebuttals in a way that I could mimic. I was treated as someone that is worth being listened to - naturally manifesting within me a sense of great importance. A self-worth that those who were not entertained in these formative years do not necessarily possess or, did not earn so easily. This was an education in the appearance of erudition. To listen and to reply with confidence, however, does not mean that I do in fact understand.

Upon leaving the confines of my secondary school education, I have been made aware of the apparent falsifiability of my words. As do I continue to be made aware by those around me of the many privileges I have enjoyed. The privilege of being heard. The privilege of the time and space for an argument.

At first this felt like a rude awakening. I felt the need to overcompensate for the apparent instability in the construction of my intelligence. Naturally, I became defensive. Yet, my MO: boldly annunciating words I don’t quite understand and sticking to the assertion that, because I read a couple articles in The Guardian, I know what logic, sense, and virtue are, only maintained a constant sense of confusion and unease. Moreover, it could not last. For, while some may consider this kind of arrogance a virtue, ‘the gift of the gab’, others may suggest, much more convincingly, that this only leads to a kind of bullying.

The inability to be wrong only perpetuates ignorance. 

Of course, I am not unique in making the observation that fact and truth appear to be more malleable than ever. This is because we, the arrogant, refuse to fall with grace.

Just because someone sounds like they know what they are yammering on about, that doesn’t mean you have to take their word for it. Of course, this should not be done without courtesy, but don’t be afraid to challenge people because you are probably right - joking. But you could end up helping them out. 

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Edited by Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson