Certainty

I don’t like the last few blogs I wrote and I’ve been trying to figure out why I wrote them. It’s not that I disagree with what I said, but that they bring up polarizing issues, and when that happens, they detract from the main point I’m trying to make. But what was that point?

I now realized what that point was, what other people have been saying and doing that bothers me. It’s the absolute (or nearly) certainty that people have in those situations I listed. It’s not that people don’t believe doctors; after all, they’re fallible humans too. It’s that fear, extreme negative perceptions, the hatred, and it’s that certainty that people have in their own perceptions that scares me. The unchangeable view that their negative impression of someone else must be correct, even when that negative view is extreme and there are less negative but reasonable possibilities, and that it’s OK to act on that negativity despite the consequences. That people around you really are as bad as you think they are.

Of course everyone must have some acceptable level of certainty to make a decision. But it doesn’t need to be absolute, and when people act like it is, it scares me. How can our perceptions ever be absolute? We’re not perfect, we all have flaws in our logic and understanding, we all lack some information, and it’s something we all have to learn to live with. Denial isn’t a healthy way to deal with anything, let alone our own flaws.

When that denial is applied to negative reactions to and impressions of others, we risk hurting those others. Are people really OK with that, with letting ourselves think so highly of our own interpretations that we allow ourselves to hurt others, even when there’s no benefit to ourselves? In situations of crime and justice, we have to make decisions that ultimately do hurt one person or another. But we incorporate the concept of “reasonable doubt” and “innocent until proven guilty” to protect hurting more people than necessary. I’ve heard many people say it’s unfortunate our justice system has these principles, and they confuse wanting justice with wanting revenge, wanting to take out their anger on anyone even suspected of wrong doing. That certainty that they know the truth and that they would risk harming innocents to get to it…the certainty that they know who is innocent and who is not, that there are global conspiracies waiting to harm them…is frightening.

Over a year ago I saw the movie Doubt. The subject and setting for this movie is not typically something I care for in movies, but this one left a big, positive impression on me. Whether or not the priest was a pedophile is not made clear, and that’s a significant point of the story. What happened is left up to the characters and the viewers to determine (and everyone who’s seen it seems to have a different interpretation of what went on), and it’s up to the other characters to decide what, if anything, to do. And yet, even at the end, when everyone’s made their decisions and reacted the way they saw best, there’s still the acknowledgement that they could be mistaken, and it’s clear their decisions were not made easily.

That’s what’s important to me. The recognition that when you accuse someone of wrongdoing or evil, you’re not infallible and you could be hurting an innocent person, the recognition that other interpretations are valid, not just your own. Making a decision may be necessary, but it’s not a decision people should make quickly or lightly, and certainty shouldn’t come purely from gut feeling.