WARNING

A few years ago at a dinner table, an older relative of mine declared that a certain industry would be "dead within three years". Four years on, the industry is still there, and he long ago forgot he had said it.

A small thing, but I think of it often. He does not lack judgement. What he lacks is a ledger.

Words with nothing held back cost suspiciously little. Adding “I think”, “probably”, “as far as I can see” takes a bit more effort, and you have to be ready for someone to ask what it is based on. Swap in “absolutely”, “inevitably”, “a hundred per cent” and it is easier, and it carries weight. Language here is not describing the world; it is holding up the speaker’s dignity. Everyone needs that now and then, and I do not think it is shameful — only that it is a different business from knowing the world, and mixing the two is where the trouble starts.

What is worse is our memory. People remember the times they were right; the times they were wrong look as if water has run over them, barely a mark left. “I am usually right about these things” — nearly everyone says it, and nearly no one can be trusted on it, unless they actually kept a record. Judgement is not measured by how you feel about it; it is measured by the ledger. A man with no ledger grows more confident with age, because he has pardoned himself every error.

Still, speaking in absolutes is not all fault, and here you have to sort two kinds. One person’s conclusion is firm and so is the evidence: when they say “this cannot work”, they have actually read the numbers three times and asked five people who know the field. That is a skill, and worth learning. Another person’s conclusion is firm and the evidence is soft; volume and setting are doing the work. That is a pose, and worth guarding against. Tone was never the dividing line. The real line is whether you dare attach a condition that could prove you wrong. Anyone willing to write down “if this happens inside three months, then I was wrong” may speak in absolutes as much as they like — they have put themselves up for testing.

There is another consequence few people mention: the person speaking in absolutes usually ties everyone else up along with it. Once someone says “this is definitely fine”, it becomes awkward for anyone beside them to raise a doubt — raising it looks like a personal slight. At dinner tables and in meeting rooms, that is how most disastrous decisions get approved: not because nobody saw the risk, but because nobody wanted to be the one who spoiled the mood. The man speaking in absolutes may not mean any harm, but he has advanced confidence to everyone on credit, and someone has to settle the bill in the end.

By contrast, the slickest people are the ones who never commit and keep an exit at every turn. Their words are made of rubber; squeeze them any way you like and they are still right, pleasant to listen to, and worth nothing afterwards. “It depends.” “There is something in both.” “Hard to say.” Ten sentences of that and you still do not know where he stands. That is not caution; it is a refusal to place a bet. And judgement grows out of betting: you stake, you miss, you own it, and only then do you begin to feel which way your own bias leans.

So I have given myself a clumsy rule: state facts, and say plainly where I am unsure; when I make a judgement, write down the condition that would overturn it. Better to leave a sentence saying “I may be wrong” than a vague “it depends”. The first can be checked. The second has no bottom.

That relative and I have stayed on good terms, and I never brought it up. I only added a column to my notebook: what I said, in which month of which year, and what happened afterwards. The notebook is an ugly thing, half of it crossed out. But it is the only reader I have who will not flatter me, and it is worth more than every nod at the dinner table.

Written by Bu Shi