Are We the Baddies?

In 2006, the British comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look asked an interesting question: Are we the baddies?

The sketch features a Nazi soldier who starts to wonder if he and his German comrades are not actually the good guys. The thought forces him to confront a disturbing dilemma: Has he been supporting the baddies this whole time?

It's a comically extreme example that highlights a predicament we can all easily find ourselves facing. What do we do when our core values and beliefs get challenged and turned upside down? How do we react when we discover that the "tribe" we so love is not so great after all?

If you're like me, the first reaction is denial. It shouldn't be, but if I'm being honest, it is. Who enjoys being proven wrong, on small or big issues? Who has the humility to readily admit that the opinions they hold, the "facts" they espouse or the "truths" they've always accepted are simply wrong?

Bueller...Bueller...anyone?

Not me.

It's a character flaw. And not an easy one to fix.

The only way I know of to even begin to address it is this: try not to get so married to "facts" and "truths" that are, in fact, personal opinions based on unverified and unproven assumptions.

"Water is wet." "Fire burns." Those are facts. But many of the narratives that the media presents as fact or "settled science" are not.

That is, of course, obvious. Yet, as they say, a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on. And while the truth is lacing up, the lie or honest mistake is often accepted as indisputable truth — by one tribe, anyway. And supporters of the opposing side adhere just as strongly to their own set of different facts.

It's human nature, and there is no ready solution for any of us. But we can at least try to mitigate our instinct to so quickly embrace with certainty things that are uncertain.

I always like the story of Alfred Wegener, who conceived the foundational theory of plate tectonics in 1912, then known as "continental drift." He was ridiculed for decades before plate tectonics became "settled science" about 50 years later.

If something so fundamental was so derided for so long by so many before it became so certainly true, isn't that wake up call to all of us on a whole range of other topics, from the major to the mundane?

Again, I'm as guilty as anyone about jumping to conclusions and embracing questionable certainties.

But it's not a bad idea for all of us to show enough humility to self-reflect and ask the question: Are we the baddies?

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”

― George Carlin