Arrogance

John said I'm arrogant, and he's right.

The only thing I will automatically defer to John on are areas which I know I don't know anything about (hard sciences) or any criticisms of me. All pretty much anyone has to do is criticize me on anything--if it rings true, I accept it as true. (Interestingly, a friend of a friend, whom I knew in college, recently dropped by my city and told my friend that I looked "So old. So very old! What happened to her!" And it really didn't bother me. I think I'm aging pretty darn well. But if I had wrinkles, I'm sure I would have been devastated.)

So, how do I deal with this?

The first part is that I am smarter than average. Assuming that IQs measure something, albeit imprecise and incomplete, mine is 154, which is quite outside the standard deviation of a typical the bell curve. (Oooh, I always knew I was a deviant!) Interestingly, I guard that number as careful as my weight, and I think that that number has more to do with being single than my weight. So it's not like I'm going to sit down with Sarah Palin and think that her opinions are just as well formed as mine are. Part of the reason I love Obama is I no longer think I'm smarter than the president, and I'm glad!

I definitely try not to let on when I'm dating. I spent a decade (literally) playing dumb on dates. (One of the things I loved doing with John was playing dumb, because he never, ever took me seriously, and it was both fun and also affirming.) I am very selective about whom I date. Most men, I sort of tune out and go into small talk that feels quite superficial. And then I don't want to seem them again. I really want someone who will match me, whom I don't have to be self-conscious about being weird. In fact, it is almost the same thing with body types. I really prefer to date a guy who is either taller than me or bigger. The only guy I dated who was my height (I'm 5'4", if it matters) was very buff, so I didn't feel like a freak around him.

Next: I have a pretty clearly demarcated comfort zone of ideas, and I don't take seriously people outside of those ideas. (For example, I recently refused to date someone who said that evolution is wrong and has no place being taught in the public schools. I also have never dated a 9-11 truther successfully--when I've asked to agree to disagree, both times I received diatribes about how stupid I was.) I think The Wall Street Journal is about as far as I'm comfortable going on the right, and The Nation is about as far as I'm comfortable going on the left. (Clearly, much, much more solidly on the left. I'm absolutely a liberal.)

The third issue is more interesting. I have a thing for authority figures. Duh. So I tend to very carefully screen my authority figures, and when I find them, I tend to trust them. Paul Krugman, for example, is someone I really trust when it comes to economic news. I used to read alternet until they said that Karl Rove was going to be indicted in the Valarie Plame thing (and I repeated it). When they were wrong, I totally cut them out of my reading. (Interestingly, the NY Times was awfully wrong about Iraq, but I seem to have gotten over that. I think I'm more comfortable with more established media--a major mistake in a blog will impact me quite differently than the Times, or The Economist or the New York Review of Books--my 3 favorite print sources.)

Take fivetwentyeight.com. With the 2008 election, a lot of my friends were talking about how much they loved 528, but I was skeptical. I started going there, but also went to a variety of other sources. Even though their methodology seemed quite sound and transparent, I was skeptical (mostly because it was telling me what I wanted to hear.) However, as soon as the election happened, and 528 came within .1 of 1% of predicting the final percentage, I was hooked. Now, I tend to defer to 528 and I no longer go to the other sources.

I tend to trust my expert authorities more than people in real life.

A couple of examples.

I was on a date tonight and last week the guy was telling me that the Nederlands was absolutely going to win the world cup and I (stupidly) said "I don't think so. I really think Brazil is going to win." And I (stupidly) cited stats. Now, it turns out now, he may right, but I still can't agree with the absolutely part. But why not? Why did I say "It really seems like a toss-up to me--I think German and Spain are really strong too." Why can't I just say "I'm sure you're right?" He's cares about soccer much more than I do. Why on earth am I so obsessed with what I see as facts?

But if I say "I'm sure you're right" I sound condescending. And I tend to only do that with people I don't respect. To me, pushing my point (even though I was wrong last week, and I did apologize and tell him I was wrong) is a sign that I respect someone.

Finally, there's the question of why on earth I want to have intellectual discussions if the people I'm discussing it with aren't going to change my mind. I LOVE discussions where people tend to agree on a lot but have different interpretations or areas of interest or assumed reactions. I love looking at an issue from a point of view I hadn't considered. I really love making connections between seemingly discrete ideas. I love hearing ideas I hadn't thought of before. And most of all, I love it when someone else and I have similar ideas and overlaps, without having the same points of view, and we each add something to build a connection that hasn't really been explored.

I really connect to people on an intellectual plane before I connect on a physical plane.

I'm going on a date tomorrow with a guy, and I know he thinks we should immediately cut spending to deal with the deficit. And I don't. I think we should restructure the longer-term issue, which keeping short-run deficits higher on infrastructure and other quick projects to stimulate spending. I sort of feel like if the U.S. were a family that found out one of its members was really ill and they had lost a source of income, you don't skimp on the short-term medical care bills, but you do restructure the long term balance of spending to income. (Oooh, isn't this sexy? I'm wet already.)

So, he is making an argument I've heard, and disagree with. It is an argument that I don't take seriously because I pretty much by Keynes when you're in a recession, even if I do think we need to take cost cutting and greater regulation MUCH more seriously at the next expansion. But I think the short-term economy needs stimulating. (OK, at least there's a little talk of stimulation. You know, I think I most fell for the guy I dated this year and last during some phone sex about climate change: Oh, I'm so hot. The air. It's dirty. And it's getting hotter. And hotter. And hotter. It's making me wet! Isn't it hard to change? How hard is it? We laughed so hard after that. It was really, really fun!!)

So, my plans for tomorrow are to look for connections, to try and find places we agree and then build from there. I'm never going to just think: poof--you're idea is better than mine. Or frankly your idea is equally valid to mine if it is something one of my beloved authorities has spent significant time on refuting and that argument seems to hold water for me. But maybe I can find a way to be less arrogant.