On the Excess of Certitude

Thanks to David Currie at Texas Baptists Committed for calling my attention to an essay by George Will on "The Oddness of Everything." George Will does not rank high on my list of pundits, so I don't go out of my way to read what he says, but this essay is outstanding. Particularly what he has to say in the last two paragraphs:

This is so because the greatest threat to civility -- and ultimately to civilization -- is an excess of certitude. The world is much menaced just now by people who think that the world and their duties in it are clear and simple. They are certain that they know what -- who -- created the universe and what this creator wants them to do to make our little speck in the universe perfect, even if extreme measures -- even violence -- are required.

America is currently awash in an unpleasant surplus of clanging, clashing certitudes. That is why there is a rhetorical bitterness absurdly disproportionate to our real differences. It has been well said that the spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure that you are right. One way to immunize ourselves against misplaced certitude is to contemplate -- even to savor -- the unfathomable strangeness of everything, including ourselves.