Sans Fig Leaf
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"Absolutely!"
6 March, 2008
I'd gone to see a movie
with a couple friends at a theatre about an hour's drive from the small
town where we lived. We were driving home after, having a spirited
discussion, when I noticed that the driver kept glancing down at the
dashboard with a very worrying expression on his face.
When asked what was wrong, he said, "Oh, I should have filled the tank
before we left town."
We pointed out that there was a gas station off the next exit. We could
fill up there.
"Oh, no! We can't buy gas there!" And he proceeded to explain why you
should always gas up at the same station. He had some notion about how
your car became accustomed to certain formulations of gasoline and
additives, and mixing them could cause some sort of vaguely defined
trouble. "Besides," he continued, as he actually sped up a little to
skip the exit in question, "There's still a couple gallons in there.
More than enough to get us home."
Not quite two minutes later the engine sputtered and died.
While walking the two miles back to the gas station, he explained how
this wasn't his fault. See, he had been told by many people not to
worry when the gas gauge hit "empty" because there were always two
gallons in reserve. We explained that gas gauges were often crude
estimators of a gas tank's contents, at best, and varied from car to
car. Until one runs a tank completely dry, you can't be sure how your
gauge actually works. The car I had most recently owned, for instance,
ran completely dry at about the point that the needle on the gas gauge
said there was an eighth of a tank left.
Looked at from one perspective, his running out of gas would seem
totally out of character. He was the ultimate detail-oriented person.
He didn't just make to-do lists, he made lists of his variously
categorized to-do lists. He made back-up to-do lists that he stored
separately. And he updated his master lists with little coded symbols
to denote the status of the tasks on the other lists. He was the sort
of person my grandfather would have described as a belt plus suspenders guy, you know?
Unfortunately, since he was making his plans based on "facts" which
were actually myths, it didn't matter how detail-oriented he was.
Or, if we think of his detail-orientation as a form of obsessive-
compulsive disorder, then it shouldn't surprise us one bit that he had
elaborate rationalizations for why it was wrong from him to buy gas
anywhere but his favorite station. Which would inevitably lead to him
being stranded on a roadside, out of gas, somewhere, someday.
That's why it's always dangerous to say, "So-and-so would never do
that! It's so out-of-character!" We never have the whole picture, so
any predictions we make about another person's actions always have a
chance of being wrong. Not just because the person might behave
irrationally.
For instance, I can't count the number of times someone has said,
"So-and-so can't possibly be gay! Look at how upset and flustered she
got when her friend came out!" Except, of course, that another closeted
person is one of the most likely people to overreact when someone close
to them comes out. When you're closeted, you live in constant fear of
being rejected by everyone you love if they even suspect that you might
possibly have those feelings. If someone announces that they are gay,
it's only natural for some people to wonder about any of that person's
really close friends.
Not necessarily logical, but natural.
The lesson I should have drawn from this experience is to avoid ever
using the phrase, "he/she would never do such a thing!" Yet I still
remain surprised from time to time. So I try not to be too judgemental
when we see neighbors or relatives of someone who has just committed a
horrific crime assuring reporters that no one saw this comming, they
just don't believe it, and so on.
No matter how ridiculous or unbelievable we may find their claims, from
some viewpoints it seems perfectly reasonable. Just as we were never
able to convince our friend that automobile engines don't magickally
adapt themselves to fuel from a particular station.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
--Bertrand Russell
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