But What If We're Wrong?
How present certainties will look to the future; outside view applied
Summary
Klosterman asks how the present will be remembered once the frameworks that organise it have been replaced, and works through the question across music, literature, television, sport, science, politics and constitutional law. His method is to take a currently settled view and examine what would have to be true for it to be wrong.
His argument about cultural memory is the most developed. He observes that the figures who represent an era to later generations are frequently not the ones the era considered most significant, that a single name usually comes to stand for an entire form, and that the selection is made by processes that have little to do with quality. Melville was obscure in his lifetime and now represents nineteenth-century American literature. Klosterman argues that the person who will represent rock music in three hundred years may not be anyone currently considered central.
The science chapters ask what currently accepted physical theories might be replaced, using the history of physics to argue that the confidence of any period is a poor guide. He interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Linklater, Junot Diaz, Kathryn Schulz and others.
The book is speculation and Klosterman says so. It reaches no conclusions and it cannot, since the question is unanswerable by construction. Some readers find the extended discussions of television and sport self-indulgent. Its value is the method rather than any finding: taking a currently settled belief and asking what its replacement would look like is a discipline, and Klosterman demonstrates it across enough domains to make it habitual.
Key takeaways 8
- The figures who come to represent an era to later generations are frequently not the ones the era considered most important.
- A single name usually comes to stand for an entire cultural form, and the selection is made by processes unrelated to quality.
- Every period holds beliefs it considers settled that later periods will consider obviously wrong, and there is no way to identify which from inside.
- The history of physics shows that confident consensus has been overturned repeatedly, which should discount the confidence of the current consensus.
- Cultural work that appears marginal now may become central later, since the criteria of selection change rather than the work.
- Being wrong is the normal condition of any period's collective knowledge rather than an occasional failure.
- The question of how the present will be remembered cannot be answered, which the author states rather than concealing.
- The method of taking a settled belief and asking what its replacement would look like is the book's transferable contribution.
Who should read it
Readers who want a demonstration of how to hold current consensus loosely, applied across enough domains to become a habit.
Who recommended it 4 · 1 direct
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