Being Wrong - Kathryn Schulz [86]
Why, then, does Hamlet’s doubt strike us as so problematic? Shouldn’t we encourage—in fact, demand—serious deliberation before the taking of anyone’s life? Furthermore, do we really believe that, had the prince slain his uncle in Act One, everyone would have lived happily ever after? And if so, what are we thinking? Very little in literature or life supports the notion that crimes of passion produce happy endings, or that hasty actions yield fruitful returns, or that hot-blooded world leaders excel at restoring and maintaining the peace.* So why do we persist in feeling that doubt is Hamlet’s problem, and that a greater degree of certainty would be the solution?
One answer to this question lies not in Hamlet’s character but in his station. No one cares whether, say, Reynaldo, the servant to Polonius, is a figure of towering certainty or trembling doubt—but Hamlet is a prince, and we do care, deeply, about the conviction of our leaders (even, apparently, our fictional ones). And not without reason. For starters, we recognize that the practical merits of certainty are particularly useful to politicians, who must make dozens of consequential decisions while the rest of us are just trying to figure out our Friday night plans. Hesitate over each of them for five acts, and your ship of state is going to list alarmingly.
But practicality alone can’t explain why we find certainty so desirable in our leaders, and doubt so intolerable. On the contrary: pure pragmatism would dictate that we embrace a measure of doubt in the political sphere, since even the most cursory acquaintance with history shows us that immovable certainty can be a disastrous quality in a leader. Obviously, though, pure pragmatism is not what we are dealing with. In politics as everywhere, it is joined by (and often trumped by) emotion. And emotionally, as we have already seen, our allegiances lie strongly with certainty.
When I mentioned this earlier, I was talking about our own certainty and doubt—about how it feels safe and pleasurable to be steadfast in our convictions. But we also find other people’s certainty deeply attractive. We have all experienced this pull, in ways both large and small. I have a pretty decent sense of direction, but I’ve been known to follow a friend along entirely the wrong road (and entirely without thinking about it), simply because she strode down it with such confidence. Likewise, we tend to follow the highly assured down figurative roads of all kinds, without necessarily questioning where they (or we) are going. As with our own certainty, so too with theirs: we mistake it for a sign that they are right.
Like most of the behaviors that can lead us into error, following a confident leader is not intrinsically irrational. Much of the time, in fact, it creates a perfectly sensible distribution of labor. The leaders in a group are spared the hassle of having too many cooks in the kitchen—a relief for them, since, even as they embody certainty, they also yearn for it right along with the rest of us. (A choice example: frustrated by the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand advice of his monetary advisors, Harry Truman once jokingly threatened to appoint a one-armed economist.) Meanwhile, we followers are relieved of the burden of decision making,