Eat Your Words! Anthony Bourdain on Being Wrong
Anthony Bourdain's first nonfiction book, Kitchen Confidential, introduced the world to a kind of one-man alt-FDA: a six-foot-four-inch executive chef and former heroin addict who wrote like Kerouac by way of Blackbeard and would gladly fillet your sorry ass with his own kitchen knife if you showed up late to work. More books and the hugely successful Travel Channel show No Reservations soon followed. His latest book, Medium Raw, will be published by Ecco on June 8. (Yes, like mine.) Over at Slate, I, um, grill him about being wrong. You can read the interview here.
Okay, maybe you don’t have strong beliefs about the “right” way to load a dishwasher, or about your sweetheart’s propensity to do it “wrong.” In that case, either you are unusually saintly or (like me) you don’t own a dishwasher. But you almost certainly get involved in domestic disputes about who’s right and who’s wrong all the time; we all do. Although interpersonal arguments can have a number of causes – from serious and painful breaches in trust to the fact that we haven’t had our coffee yet – an impressive number of them amount to a tug-of-war over who possesses the truth. We fight over the right to be right.
Link is offline?
Thanks for sharing the link, but argg it seems to be offline... Does anybody have a mirror or another source? Please reply to my message if you do!
I would appreciate if someone here at beingwrongbook.com could repost it.
Thanks,
Daniel
Being wrong...about the book itself
When I listened to author Kathryn Schulz talking about her book at the Harvard Bookstore, I had the impression that this was a somewhat lightweight though intriguing treatment of being wrong. Indeed the author was I fear somewhat hampered by the presence of so many family members and friends. Frankly, I felt left out with regard to hugs which it turned out was what the lady next to me also felt. So it wasn't as scholarly an approach as might have been.
Now I have a growing respoect for the author as having written a thoughtful piece. Now I am waist deep into reading "Being Wrong" and finding it quite absorbing. From initial remarks about how we all do make mistakes and yet often stubbornly defend ourselves no matter what (Cuz It's True posture) she moves on to showing how we can often be wrong in misjudgments. Then she pushes further to the dangers of absolutism. Sometimes a nation or a people or officials can be so convinced thay are right that it is dangerous. Examples could be seen of modern terrorism in the shadows of Zealots revolting against the Romans such as the Taliban or drug dealers or Rwandan genocide recently in the news (Here I cite a recent book by Timothy Longman on "Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda").
But as seen we can't go around being indecisive. We do act on what we think is right though admitting that sometimes we make mistakes. Making decisions means having certainty but not in assuming that we only are right and therefore others must wrong and perhaps even dangerous. Therein lies the distinction between certainty and zealotry, she says.
Now I am puzzling over certain national policies. Will the nation allow any President to admit mistakes even if he was willing to? I am troubled by the continual wsars waged by an empire mentality that the U.S. has the answers for everyone.
Bill in Boston
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