October 24, 2018
People are opinionated. We confidently form opinions on complex political issues. All around the world people are so confident in their religious views (including those opposed to religion) that they think everyone who disagrees with them is foolish and blind. We’re even willing to die for our beliefs. When someone does something that we don’t like we’re quick to judge their motives and character, assuming all sorts of negative things about them.
I could go on for pages listing the ways that people naturally presume to know things that they can only guess at. If you study all the opinions people have in these areas, you’ll realize that we humans are wrong probably 90% of the time when we’re in conflict with others. Most of the time both sides of the argument are wrong in the things they are assuming, but I don’t want to talk about how wrong we are—I want to focus on why we do this.
The short answer is, it’s in our nature. Human nature drives us to presumption in many ways.
People like to be right.
We like to think we’re knowledgeable—no one wants to admit their ignorance.
When we think we’re right, it boosts our confidence.
Confidence makes us feel good about ourselves.
Confidence motivates us to greater achievement.
Confidence unites us to work together as a team.
We admire confident, decisive leaders.
We dislike people who seem uncertain, change their minds, have doubts.
The people we admire are presumptuous and we look down on people with a more realistic perspective on their knowledge of truth.
You could argue that:
We evolved our presumptive nature because it gives us a survival advantage.
God made us this way because we’re more successful with confidence.
It’s a flaw because we haven’t evolved enough to handle the truth.
It’s a product of our sinful rebellion against our creator.
As you read this list, did you decide which one you favored? That’s your presumptive nature in action. It’s okay, I have my favorite too, but we need to be aware that we’re playing favorites all the time in every decision we make.
Presumption is necessary to a point. We can’t collect all the data available or explore all possibilities before making a decision. The data we have usually isn’t enough to prove what’s true or best, and considering possibilities is endless, so we have to pick something that seems most likely to be true and good after considering a reasonable amount of data and number of possibilities. What’s important is that we don’t get lazy and assume we know things when we haven’t even made much effort to collect data and explore possibilities.
To be productive but grounded in reality you can choose what you think is the most likely truth, while remaining aware that your presumptive, subjective nature may be misleading you. Awareness of this presumptive nature can help you be less judgmental too. When someone else confidently believes something that seems stupid to you, remind yourself that this presumptive confidence comes with being human.
In the end we can only do our best and realize that we may be just as misguided as all those other presumptive people who seem so foolish in our eyes.