Pt. 4: Check Your Answers.

You ever have one of those moments where you give a really good comeback, only to have your moment of victory ruined because you forgot to proofread?

Interesting how a little flaw can ruin a statement. But sometimes the flaw isn't just some surface-level grammatical snafu. Sometimes it's something much deeper.

We love those profound one-liners. Short, sweet, and stimulating. Phrases like “It’s about the journey, not the destination” or “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” We find them all over the place: books, commercials, classroom posters, bumper stickers, profile pages, mini-blogs and status updates. When it comes to structuring our argument for truth, our beliefs about life, we often include these popular quotes and adages in our building. But in perusing these thoughtful sayings you should keep an eye out for “the suicide tactic.”

Commonly known as self-refuting views, these ideas defeat themselves -- or commit suicide. Take the following for example: “All English sentences are false.” The statement is about all English sentences, including itself. This is a suicide statement because in order for it to be true, it has to be false. Here’s a few more:

I never, never repeat a word. Never.
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Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.

Some say that all truth is relative. "Everybody is right in their own way." But if that’s true, then isn’t that statement itself relative? What if I don’t think that everyone is right, what if I think only a few people are right and everyone else is wrong…am I wrong for thinking that? If yes, then it’s not true that everyone is right in his own way. If no, then it’s not true that everyone is right in their own way. When statements fail to meet their own criteria of validity, they are self-refuting:

There is no truth. (Is that true?)
You can’t know anything for sure. (Are you sure?)
Nothing is at it seems. (Is that as it seems?)
No one can know the truth about religion. (Is that a truth about religion?)

You might wonder why anyone would believe self-refuting ideas. Very few people knowingly affirm contradictions, but when contradictions are implicit, embedded in the larger idea, they are harder to see. This is why people are taken in by them. Everyone is at risk for believing in false ideas, therefore everyone should take the same caution. The same way we review our writing for mistakes, we need to employ the same scrutiny in reviewing our thinking for mistakes.

As you continue to build your view of the world, be sure to check your answers.

This is part 4 of the "Do Your Homework" series

Pt. 3: Show Your Work.

I wonder what the two other pigs were thinking. I mean, they all had to have gone shopping together, right? It’s not every day you find three young, virile, independent male swine deciding to build their own houses, let alone on the same land at the same time. That said, there had to be dialogue amongst them discussing what material to use. How did they decide?

"My parents use sticks, so that means I use sticks" the first could have sternly reasoned. "It's how I was raised; It's part of who I am.” Perhaps the second assumed all materials are basically the same. “No material is better than the other…it’s all about what’s right for you.”

They heard the third pig’s warnings, but for some reason didn’t budge. Maybe one of them was comfortable with his materials, and saw no reason to change. Perhaps the other actually found reason in the third’s admonitions, but felt uncomfortable with change, saying “it's just really hard to use bricks when you haven’t grown up that way.” In any case, the time came when the quality of their building was put to the test. This all three pigs had in common.

An argument for truth is a specific kind of thing. Everyone has one. Think of an argument like a simple house, a roof supported by walls. The roof is the conclusion, and the walls are the supporting ideas. By testing the walls, we see if they are strong enough to keep the roof from tumbling down.

You may have recognized the utterances above. Many times these are the kinds of responses people give when asked about why they believe what they believe. They don't see the need to test the walls. Most often beneath their passive attitude is the conclusion that all truth is relative -- whatever works for you is right. These are the most unsafe houses to live in. Support for these conclusions is scarce at best (I'll elaborate more on this in the next post).

It seems silly to us that they didn't choose stronger material, doesn't it? They didn't take time to support their houses, and in the end met the consequences for that. It's important to question, doubt, and test the strength of your beliefs, because there are some things in life that don’t cater to your preferences and opinions. Rather than hoping reality will bend to your argument, it’s up to you to make an argument that holds up to reality. Otherwise, when reality hits hardest, it won’t hold up at all.

This is part 3 of the "Do Your Homework" series.