You're WRONG!

Have you changed your mind yet?

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There was a fascinating debate on BlueSky last week about whether or not to tell voters when they are ‘wrong’. It was under a post about a piece by Marie LeConte about the outsourcing of decision making to quangos (I haven’t written about that here, but Charlotte Henry and I had a really interesting discussion about the history of the politics of quangos and the left’s attitude to them so have a listen to that for my thoughts.)

Crudely, the debate fell between two camps - those who felt that telling the voters they were wrong was the morally correct thing to do and those who felt that telling voters they were wrong would be a strategic blunder.

It is worth unpacking what we mean by ‘wrong’. Being ‘wrong’ in another’s eyes isn’t always a matter of being factually correct or incorrect, but of applied belief.

Disregarding the people who will either lie or actively seek out lies to support their beliefs, most of us exist in a world where facts do matter, but their interpretation matters far more. So, it might be perfectly possible for two people to look at the same set of facts, but because they come at those facts with different experiences that inform them, they will take away very different understandings of what those facts mean. Or very different places for those facts in their prioritisation and world ordering.

For most things where we think others are ‘wrong’, this is not about the facts, but about our interpretation of such and - therefore - the remedies agreed upon. Right and wrong are not always as black and white concepts as our hearts like to think they are.

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My new play, Four Weigh-Ins and a Funeral is happening on 6-10 May. I’m so excited about this piece. It’s absolutely NOT a play about losing weight, but a play about finding community. I’d love you to come and see it. Click the poster for a link to buy tickets!