Two Kinds of “Wrong”

There are multiple ways to be in error when it comes to the interpretation of information.

One way is what we might call “prima facie error.” The thing is white, but you think it’s black because you saw it at midnight. It’s a simple misinterpretation. An honest mistake.

Another way is what we might call “a priori error.” The thing is white, but you think it’s black because your paradigm doesn’t recognize the existence of white things (but if it did they’d be racist). It’s a mental framework problem. An issue of misplaced intellectual commitments.

The former is easily corrected — just flip the lights on. See? White.

The latter is often difficult, because it requires digging into the root presuppositions of the erroneous party. Many a proud realist has been driven to the brink of madness by a priori error-ists who see white in broad daylight but persist in calling it black.

Unless you uncover the underlying intellectual commitment(s) — the unspoken category error(s) in play — you’ll never comprehend how a person could be so out-of-touch with reality.

And, even once found, those misplaced intellectual commitments rarely go down without a fight. Flawed ideologies tend to reject facts that contradict them — the term “invincibly ignorant” has application here.

Yesterday those of us in the USA were fed a story about a Native-American veteran being harassed by a group of (young) White Men.

Video evidence determined that was a lie.

And yet you’ll rarely see those who put out hot-take statements to virtue-signal to their audience responding to the lights coming on with, “Ah, clearly this is not black, but white.”

This is the aftermath of a prima facie error — easy correction, followed by retraction and mea culpa. Unfortunately, I think this is the minority.

The reason so many people judged this situation wrong was the result of one of our society’s favorite a priori errors. That is, an intellectual commitment to right-wing White Men being racist bigots. The hot-takes that came out initially condemning the boy were by-and-large the rapturous ejaculations of a cognitive bias being stimulated to climax.

Or, to tone it down:

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The book of Proverbs gives a needed corrective to the hot-take culture we’ve become:

Don’t be too quick to tell a judge about something you saw. You will be embarrassed if someone else proves you wrong.

Proverbs 25:7b-8 ERV

Little did the teacher know, as he compiled the book of Proverbs, that he was creating a “best use” guide for social media.

For reference, as to the particulars of the Smirk-Off: below is a compilation of the most valuable voices on this subject to speak their peace on Twitter.

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