In response to another piece called “Joe” below, I gave Joe hell for constantly saying, “I could be wrong.”
I then addressed his point in the next piece. But I apologized for giving him hell for using “I could be wrong” so much.
Joe wondered what I was apologizing for.
But Joe is a tough old warrior. He forgets that Mark just blew his gasket about a humorous article about my big sister I wrote and dcelared he would never have anything to do with me again. Joe doesn’t do that, but I remind him that some people do.
His comment, like all good ones, made me think. Here is waht Joe had to say and my reply:
JOE SAYS:
Well, I’ve read all the pieces and you’ve so far failed to give me hell. You’ll have to work harder at it.
But much more importantly in this therapy session will be your ability to understand what is and what is not an apology. When a man says, “I could be wrong” or “I may be mistaken” with respect to a personal observation, please attempt to understand that this is not an apology. When a man says, “I could be wrong,” what he is doing is allowing the possibility for error to exist. This is the opposite of arrogance. An arrogant man makes a statement that excludes the possibility of his being mistaken. He has arrogated unto himself qualities that he does not possess.
Here’s a tip to know for sure that someone is apologizing to you. He or she says, “I’m sorry for…etc.,” or “please forgive me for…..etc.,” You have never heard anything like this from this writer.
Maybe it’s different where you come from. Where I come from you don’t have to read anything into anything that has been said. As I said to you in an email, Bob, you don’t owe me an apology for anything. I don’t owe you any apology either. I’m straightforward, you’re straightforward, what else is there? As you said in one of your earlier pieces, we tell others about ourselves as we communicate.
I’m also not a diplomat. I know that. I don’t try to be diplomatic. It’s too much like beating around the bush. I don’t even apologize to my wife and she’s my whole world. OK, maybe two or three times in our long marriage. But, you’ll have to agree, that’s not much.
MY REPLY:
I read comments over and over, and here was one I really enjoyed, but it was interspersed
with what I see as apologies.
To put it even more basically, you are telling ME “I could be wrong.”
Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Joe!
My basic doctrine is that our opinion is important, and we are responsible for it. Saying you are wrong is like saying you are not perfect.
And, getting off Joe a minute, that is something I am REALLY sick of!
Many, many times someone at a press conference will go off into the Zoom Zone. Instead of answering the question he has been asked, he will act like the rest of us don’t exist.
He asks himself questions and answers them. The most routine question he asks himself is:
“Is my proposal perfect? No.”
I don’t know about anybody else, but I got over “perfect” about the time I stopped believing in Santa Claus.
If a person took up my time asking himself, “Do I believe in Santa Claus? No.” I would think he had lost what little mind he had.
Nobody else is bothered by this. Nobody else objects to this.
But we are in BOB’S Blog. I am dedicated to making you see your own opinion as THE opinion.
Screw the social scientists. Screw the priests. There is nothing inocent about being like the WEakest Generation and seeing some opinions as requiring your blind obedience.
So when someone gives me their opinion and then says they are being too long-winded or they may be wrong, it is offensive to me.
I am here to get what you think, not your recitation of your possible errors.
#1 by joe rorke on 01/21/2006 - 9:26 pm
It’s important to remember that an opinion is not a fact. It is not necessarily a statement of the truth. Prevailing opinion in the world (if I am not mistaken) at one time was that the earth was flat. That’s what I’m told. I wasn’t there. But it wasn’t a statement of fact. It didn’t state the truth. Unless the earth really is flat. I never checked it out. I just never go near the edge.
“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Joe!” I’m not sure what that means, Bob. I’ve heard the expression somewhere but I don’t know what it means. ‘Sides my Grandma died at the age of 47 from sugar diabetes in 1932.
Here’s one for ya. Jesus said, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Whatdyaspose Jesus meant by that? Any idea? Think the Zoroastrians had anything to do with that? You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how the preachers get after me when I quote that Scripture to them. They can’t stand it. They don’t like the idea at all. I ain’t been to church since I was 19. That was before you were 19. That gives you an idea how long ago that was. But I can still read the Bible if’n I want to. I can listen at the preachers if’n I want to. It ain’t easy to do but I can try. Most of ’em ain’t worth a whole heap but the worst are those who go after filthy lucre. You know what filthy lucre is, right Bob? Sure, you do. They probably do some of that on Capitol Hill. Who’s the filthiest, the preacher or the politician?
#2 by joe rorke on 01/21/2006 - 9:51 pm
You said, in a talk you gave called “wordism,” that wordism is the belief that the truth is in a book or in an opinion. I had never heard of the word “wordism.” I wanted to know what it meant. You told me what it meant. In the same talk you agreed with the idea that “opinion rules the world.” It’s a certainty that my opinion doesn’t rule the world. But I’m certainly willing to accept what you say on the matter. Nevertheless, opinion is not necessarily the truth. As Bob would say, “everybody knows that.” So opinion, for a certainty, is not directly related to truth. “It is the opinion of the court…..” Oh, is it? What does that have to do with the truth or truth as an objective fact? Nothing.
How much of opinion is ruling our world? Who wants my opinion and for what? They’ll get it whether they want it or not but who cares? Who cares what Joe thinks? For that matter, who cares what Bob thinks? Is the world still moving in the same direction or has Bob or Joe or anyone else changed its direction? This seems to bring up the question of power. How much POWER does Bob have? How much POWER does Joe have? Together they probably do not have the power of a fart in a windstorm. These are philosophical questions posed by Joe the Philosopher. If opinion rules the world, the question for the moment is “whose opinion is ruling the world?” It’s not Joe’s. I’m even willing to go so far as to suggest that it’s not Bob’s.
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