We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris.
Interpretation
Data can create a sense of authority, but this often leads to overconfidence and arrogance.
Bret Stephens suggests that in our current society, where data is often seen as the ultimate authority, there is a danger that this reliance on data can lead to an unwarranted certainty in our beliefs and decisions. This overconfidence, in turn, can breed hubris, where individuals or groups believe they are infallible due to their reliance on data, potentially leading to negative consequences.
In practice
In a business meeting discussing analytics, one could quote this to caution against overconfidence in the numbers.
I routinely interview college students, mostly from top schools, and I notice that their brains are like old maps, with lots of blank spaces for the uncharted terrain. It's not that they lack for motivation or IQ. It's that they can't connect the dots when they don't know where the dots are in the first place.
The most interesting conversation is not about why Donald Trump lies. Many public figures lie, and he's only a severe example of a common type. The interesting conversation concerns how we come to accept those lies.
The more afraid we are of the shadow of racism, the more conscious we might become of our own unsuspected biases.
The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.
Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.
Freedom is the power to create out of nothing, the power of the spirit to create out of itself.
It may be said that the basic characteristic of human behavior in general is that humans personally influence their relations with the environment and through that environment personally change their behavior, subjugating it to their control.
Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.
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