“Prove me wrong.”

This is a topical phrase, as I write, for tragic reasons, but this is not about that.

It’s about me trying to work out why I’m uncomfortable with it, really. Because I wouldn’t expect to be.

By instinct, I’m close to a free speech maximalist. Saying things and being able to say things feels extremely important to me. And countering bad ideas by talking about them is better than suppressing them. Yes, I know not everybody agrees, but this is my standpoint and I have reasons that convince me.

I strongly believe that the world is better, and safer, when we don’t shy away from difficult subjects and flashpoints of disagreement, but actively talk about them, including with those who most disagree with us.

So the “prove me wrong” approach should be something I celebrate, shouldn’t it? But it’s more nuanced than that.

People who don’t think much tend to assume the world is based on facts. Everything is fact or it isn’t.

People who do think know that there are facts and there are opinions. And those who are thoughtful (which isn’t the same thing) agree that people can have different valid opinions, but if their facts conflict then there’s something wrong.

I may be in the minority, but I have come to think that there are very few facts, in the sense that almost nothing is beyond questioning. However, the problem with that is that everything is not an opinion, exactly. Something is missing in that case.

I’m indebted to an online friend, one steeped in philosophy, who pointed out what the missing category is – judgement.

In other words, if a fact is something that can’t be argued with because it’s proven, and an opinion is something that can’t be argued with because what anybody thinks is as valid as what anybody else thinks, judgement applies to the vast gap between the two. The gap where, yes, you could argue, but rules apply and anybody reasonable will weigh accordingly, and there are probably only very few conclusions that should be supported.

Like whether we live on a flat Earth. All the evidence I know says we don’t, but I haven’t exhaustively proved it for myself from scratch, and even if I did, I couldn’t eliminate unprovable possibilities like being at the centre of a vast conspiracy that’s dedicated to feeding me, and only me, things which make me think the world is round. So there’s an outside possibility that I’m wrong in thinking the world is round – but I judge not.

This, it seems to me, covers a lot of life, and a lot of human interaction.

More narrow that it first seems

So there’s an insidious fallacy hiding within the “prove me wrong” approach. It’s the idea that if you can’t prove something wrong then it must be right.

That is rarely the case. Not even in the flat Earth scenario.

And the kinds of things that people want to argue about tend to be a lot more complex than that. Ethics. Politics. Religion. The state of the world, the future of humanity, the responsibilities we all have to each other and what we’re entitled to.

“Prove me wrong” doesn’t work for any of these things, if it works for anything, because proof is not what they’re about. They’re about judgements based on assumptions. So nobody is going to be able to prove a point of that kind wrong, however sensibly or provocatively posed.

Then what does an inability to prove something wrong prove?

Not nothing. It isn’t a waste of time. What it proves is that there should be space allowed for that thing in sensible discussion, because it can’t be eliminated. It’s due that minimal amount of respect. How much more respect than that is a matter of judgement.

But what it does NOT prove is that that thing is right because it hasn’t been proven wrong. “You can’t beat me in an argument so I win” is immature and invalid.

This is not a put-down

As I say, I believe in free speech and I believe in discussion.

I’m happy with anyone prepared to talk about what they believe, in good faith, especially those prepared to stand their ground and defend some proposition against those who hate it, because that’s how we get to the bottom of differences and find out how we deal with them. I don’t accept that ideas should be shunned in the hope they die out, because that isn’t what happens.

I don’t find it comfortable when anyone does that with ideas I find distasteful, obviously, but those are the kinds of ideas I should be first to defend being aired in this way.

What I do think, though, is that “Prove me wrong” is a bad approach because it’s a logical fallacy, being generous, and a bad faith way of tipping the scales if we’re cynical about it.

If we truly want to debate and change minds, we can do better than that.