Whence conviction? Whence that utter certainty in speech and action that wins people to your side? As college students, we are completing our formative years. We often look to examples of people who eloquently state their opinions as fact and wonder if we will ever achieve such a level of certainty and conviction in our opinions.
Such conviction is what ultimately wins people to your side in a debate: not, I am sad to say, the integrity of your argument. An honest and sound argument can go a long way toward convincing yourself and thus enhancing the certainty with which you hold your opinion, however.
Note how in the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush's campaign was able to successfully portray John Kerry as being uncertain and equivocal, while Bush conveyed conviction and certainty. Of course, the consequence of Bush being certainly wrong are quite evident today as I write this: at least 100 people are dead in a double car bombing in Baghdad Monday, and nearly twice that were injured.
So, certainty can lead to folly. But does certainty guarantee folly? Is certainty a measure of strength of character, as it seems? Hardly; it is simply a measure of how much a person believes in himself. If the person has good reason to believe in himself, then certainty is a virtue. If he has no reason to believe he is correct, then certainty is fatuous.
One must determine in evaluating certainty whether or not the person has good reason to believe he is correct. For example, Bush presents and speaks with conviction on his troop surge plan into Iraq, but does he present any reasons it will necessarily work? Conviction and certainty are worthless without arguments presented establishing why the opinion being stated with such confidence is true.
Consider a mathematician who suspects a particular fact is true. Once he has proven it, he may be absolutely certain that, within the framework of mathematics, his fact is perfectly correct. However, until he proves it, he would be disingenuous at best to speak of it as true.
Similarly, notice Bush's exhortations to stay the course in Iraq before his administration began backpeddling from that slogan last fall. He spoke with certainty that "we can be certain of the outcome, because America will not waver." Yet, for all his surety, did he present any reasons to believe his opinion was correct? No; he simply asserted it with all the conviction he could muster, and look where we are now in Iraq.
The moral of this excursion into certainty is that while confidence is something to strive for, it does not in and of itself guarantee correctness. Rather, assurance in an opinion ought to follow from the examination and testing through debate of one's position. Once an opinion has been tested for logical consistency and commensurability with the real world, then and only then it may be accurately stated with confidence. Otherwise, the only real guarantee one has is one's own pride.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu
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