often we're in search of agreement it's
really nice when someone wholeheartedly
concurs with something we've said but
there's also a special satisfaction when
someone is not just slightly out in what
they say they're not just one or two
steps away from our position over dinner
listening to the radio in the car or
watching YouTube we're finally in the
company of someone who is deeply wildly
plainly in the wrong it could happen
around some conflicted bit of political
history or some key problem of modern
life maybe they said that Margaret
Thatcher was the best British leader of
the 20th century or that she was plainly
the worst maybe they're saying that
global warming is a conspiracy of
left-wing scientists or that before long
cruise ships will be docking in Central
Park
they could be insisting that everything
built since 1945 is desperately ugly or
that we're living in a golden age of
architecture that capitalism has brought
the world to its knees or that it's the
most successful economic system ever
devised just now the final truth of the
issue doesn't really matter we're
getting excited because in our eyes what
they're saying is just monstrously in
error we feel we're totally in the right
and they're totally in the wrong it's
tempting to say we simply can't believe
that they're actually saying this but
behind the scenes and without quite
realizing it we've been waiting for
someone to come along and assert just
this particular form of stupidity we've
entertained it in our own heads as a
strikingly absurd option we've even
maybe made some rapid mental portraits
of the sort of person who could say this
one aspect of the pleasure is linked to
the clear appreciation we get by
contrast of our own wisdom and
intelligence there's a thrilling coiling
of intellectual energy as one listens to
their folly pretty often we're unsure
quite what we think across a wide range
of topics we're conscious of our own
ignorance we struggle everyday with
issues that we don't fully understand
but now the antithetic stance brings our
own happy knowledge and insight to the
fore they make us feel slightly
brilliant the world starts to divide
there are those like you who are right
and there are others like this stupid
individual who has sunk in
so often we're dealing in nuance and
ambiguity so frequently we have to
accommodate the notion that there's
something to be said on the other side
of the argument but now there's an end
to all that we experience the
satisfaction of inhabiting a simpler
clearer world this pleasure may be
linked to personal history years ago
there was perhaps a person who loomed
large in your life and who took this
kind of view a parent and unsympathetic
teacher and overbearing individual
you're at university with there used to
spout things along these lines and at
that time you couldn't hold your own but
now you can then you felt they were
somehow totally mistaken but you
couldn't match their confident
assertions yet now you're not angry
there's no longer any fear or rage or
hatred but there is a pleasant feeling
of meeting again a representative of a
deeply wrong style of thought when
you're strong and skilled enough to
stand up to it perfectly the terrors of
the past are behind you
now you can cope and more than that you
can come back with the answer you always
wished you could have given one
particularly charming special instance
of the pleasure occurs when this person
is advocating an idea we actually used
to believe in ourselves you once thought
as they do but life experience better
information or clearer thinking have you
feel sure shown you the large error of
your former convictions and this person
has clearly failed to take the crucial
steps you have at such a moment we get a
compelling sense of our own cognitive
progress the way a child who's currently
struggling with multiplication can look
pityingly on a younger sibling who still
has to ask what number comes after 7 but
it's not all one way if we clear-eyed
about this this pleasure the pleasure of
feeling that someone is totally wrong is
one that we will inevitably from time to
time gift to others to people to whom
our own cherished beliefs or occasional
stray assertions will offer the perfect
foil for their own convictions and for
whom we will therefore act as that
highly satisfying character the perfect
idiot
you