On Handling Our Mistakes

My father did not believe in making mistakes.  He expected me to get things right the first time out.  This, of course, was a self-defeating policy.  It inhibited me from trying new endeavors lest I make a mess of them.

What my Dad failed to understand is that the real problem is not making mistakes, but failing to correct them.  Yes, we should do our best, but when matters turn out wrong, we must be prepared to fix what is broken.

In any event, I grew up terrified of faux pas.  I was certain that my blunders would be exposed and my personal inadequacies revealed for the whole world to see.  What was more, I would probably be punished for screwing up.

As a consequence, I hate making mistakes.  I hate them with a passion.  But there is something I hate even more.  It is holding on to a mistake, irrespective of reality.  If I am wrong, I want to admit it to myself.  I do not want to continue defending an error once I realize it is an error.

My reasoning is that if I am not honest about my missteps, I cannot rectify them.  I will be trapped in my duplicity and forced to repeat blunders ad nauseum.  While I seldom flaunt my errors, neither do I want to hide from them.

Years of experience have likewise taught me that few humans enjoy being wrong.  They too conceal their missteps rather than besmirch their reputations.  Some, like me, work privately to undo mistakes.  Others, however, spend years denying plain facts to themselves and all and sundry.

Many people seem to believe that if they conceal uncomfortable truths, they can convert failures into victories.  If only they are able to get others to agree that a fiasco was a triumph, it will be a triumph.

This may sound like an odd way to be successful, but it is extraordinarily prevalent.  We meet this strategy in our personal lives, but it has become even more customary in the political realm.

Liberalism has surely produced its share of lapses.  ObamaCare obviously did not work as advertised.  It did not cover everybody or generate the promised savings.  Nor did it improve the quality of healthcare, despite proclamations to the contrary.

As for Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience,” it has been an out-and-out disaster.  North Korea is on the verge of obtaining nuclear tripped rockets, with Iran not far beyond.  Meanwhile Syria descended into chaos, Europe was overwhelmed with hordes of potential terrorists, and Venezuela is near revolution.

Nonetheless millions of dedicated liberals prefer to gloat about the alleged missteps of the Trump administration.  Rather than acknowledge that their own policies did not achieve what was expected, they divert attention to what they consider worse mistakes.

Perhaps the apotheosis of this approach is Hillary Clinton.  She is still going around the country explaining that her loss in the presidential election was not her fault.  Jim Comey did it!  Or maybe it was the Russians.  The voters were misled, whereas she did everything humanly possible to win.

Conservatives, however, ought not be smug.  Liberals may be self-deluded, but so often are they.  Many of them, for instance, are convinced that if we have a religious revival, goodness will become the norm.  Still others place their bets on an unrestrained marketplace.  Somehow the past failures of these policies do not give them pause.

Meanwhile the public looks on with scorn and bemusement.  And yet how often do ordinary folks buy into the mistakes of the politicians?  Worse yet, how often do they collude in covering over the consequences of programs that cause harm?

The fact is that we can no more solve social problems when we obscure their reality, than we can our private dilemmas.  Issues like racism, poverty, and drug abuse will not yield to false interpretations, no matter how widely these narratives are shared.

Fooling ourselves about the nature of our problems, or about the efficacy of particular solutions, may furnish momentary hope, but in the long run offer only additional frustrations.   Mistakes, whatever their origin and scope, are not corrected by telling ourselves a tidal wave of soothing lies.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University