AN APPROPRIATE FEAR
IT'S A FAMOUS QUOTE FROM A LEGENDARY NBA HEAD COACH. BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN, AND HOW CAN SUCH A MINDSET BE UTILIZED TO OFFSET TROLLS, BULLIES, AND BROWBEATERS?
“Never lose an appropriate fear. Having an appropriate fear allows you to respect your opponent and know nothing is going to be easy".
This is a quote from famed NBA Head Coach Gregg Popovich about the state of mind he prefers his players to hold. Matters little to a government meeting, unless a basketball contest breaks out mid-motion.
But is does matter when addressing the Council members and/or Committee chairs attempting to win you over using tactics neither relevant nor respectful.
How much do they really know about the business before the Board? Did they simply look up some facts and figures, spit them out with a verve of confidence, and hope those listening might find such an information dump acceptable? And why did they stop short of (figuratively) tearing your head off when you pressed them with a simple question.
Overconfidence Breeds Contempt
If an appropriate fear is not present within the Council member, then an overconfidence in their abilities may run rampant, an absolute certainty that their moves and motives shall not be checked. An overbalance exists in their favor, an overbalance they’ll fight to maintain.
Overconfidence comes in several forms. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll focus on Overprecision and Overestimation.
According to Psychology Today, Overprecision occurs when “someone is exaggeratedly certain that their answers are correct. These individuals may seem highly competent and persuasive due to their apparent confidence. They are often driven by a desire for status and power and the need to appear smarter than the people around them”.
From the same Psychology Today article, Overestimation “refers to the discrepancy between someone’s skills and their perception of those skills. People who overestimate themselves frequently engage in wishful thinking with harmful consequences. If someone overestimates their capabilities, they may take dangerous risks and overextend themselves beyond their limits”.
Dunning-(Freddy) Kreuger
Overestimation is also a key component in the Dunning-Kreuger Effect, a cognitive bias defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of such ability.
We’ve all been there: facing an individual who’s so completely certain of themselves we fail to question their line of reasoning, however flawed. Confidence is so highly prized that many people would rather pretend to be smart or skilled than risk looking inadequate and losing face, and when met with a test of their abilities, might unleash aggression or belittlement toward the inquisitor in an attempt to shame, or perhaps scare, the asker into silence.
Within many local Councils exist such a person, perhaps several, who fit this profile. They don’t talk to you. Rather, they talk AT you. The slightest pushback is met with fallacy after fallacy, from Appeal To Authority (“I’m more experienced than you are, so you ought to heed what I have to say”) to Ad Hominem (“You don’t know what you’re talking about because you’re an idiot”).
And yet, few counter their claims, asking for (or demanding) an expansion of their reasoning beyond “because”. But why?
The “Foundation” of the Problem
Issac Asimov said it best in a 1988 television interview:
“For one thing it’s easier. To be irrational gives you certain answers. Anyone would rather go to somebody who says ‘2+2=5’ and there’s no mistake about it then go to someone who says ‘well, modern scientific research says the 2 plus 2 is usually 4, but we can’t always be certain of course. They’ll go for the certainty, even if it’s wrong.”
In short, both rationality and wisdom are negated by certainty; as wisdom is the sum total of what one doesn’t know, having the capacity to reflect critically on assumptions; and rationality being the quality of making decisions based on clear thought and reason, people will tend to gravitate instead to the comfort of certainty. and with it the ease of another critically thinking for them.
In time, comfort is supplanted by apathy… which is precisely the position that individual prefers you to stand. Apathy is their ally.
So, does this mean one must ALWAYS question the words of our leaders, perpetually fearing such prose as treacherous lies? If you wish to travel such an extreme path, then so be it. Demanding exposition of the decision-making process by those who represent the People should be in no way unusual or outstanding, even though the sentiment these days is of inaction, rather than the mentality of preventive-maintenance.
The Appropriate Fear, therefore, is decidedly one-sided. These individuals forcibly project, but they do not possess, respect.
It’s YOUR Vote… Make Them Earn It
Maintaining a double-edged sword in terms of respect and what one shall and shall not allow is paramount in checking individuals who wish to trample over the rules, the facts, the procedure, or perhaps over those asking the most basic of questions — why?
If there’s a question to be asked, ask it. If the response results in a personal belittlement, or is subversive to the topic, ask the question again. Continue asking the same question until the response is germane. Be contentious. Remember — they’re asking for YOUR vote. Don’t just give it to them without reason, especially if you believe the one presenting the motion owns a flawed viewpoint.
Knowing the rules inside and out provides an additional amount of leverage in combating such an individual, especially if that individual continuously oversteps the floor by inserting comments without asking to be heard. As such a thought criminal attempts to overpower reason within-permitted interjections, multiple Point of Order counters should keep the individual (eventually) in line and in order.
They may belittle, berate, and browbeat until they’re blue in the face. Ultimately, YOU have agency as to where your vote falls, and parliamentary procedure (as well as the Council By Laws) should curtail attempts to act as a bully pulpit. The better the intimidator understands that such a mindset resides within the inquisitor, the less likely the overestimation that anything will come easy.
