'I could be wrong' is our deliverance

PUBLISHED: September 20, 2025  |  www.baltimoresun.com

Personal vitriol is epidemic. In Congress. In the White House. In churches. In universities. In once unbreakable relationships. In social media. Even tragic deaths do not diminish enmities. This cannot endure. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Civilization was born featuring pacem in terris when the first person reflected, “I could be wrong, truth may find expression more in chiaroscuro than prime colors, to err is human, to acknowledge error is divine.”

We have forgotten that sublime wisdom. Opponents or adversaries are vilified and demonized with a fusillade of ad hominem attacks. There is no middle ground. You are either for us or against us, an unconditional ally or an archenemy, with no room for the golden Aristotelian mean. We know where this path leads: to self-ruination through endless strife.

We have regressed since the birth of the nation on July 4, 1776. To be sure, rival political parties emerged after George Washington’s twin unanimous elections to the presidency: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. But the rivalry did not plunge to disrespect or enmity. President Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address was emblematic. It cooled rather than inflamed political passions:

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression … Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names, brothers of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there are any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Mr. Jefferson and his predecessor, President John Adams, put aside their sharp political differences to become fast friends after leaving office. The friendship was cemented by a mutual understanding that neither was infallible. The Jefferson-Adams reconciliation gave birth to an Era of Good Feelings during which partisan political differences dissolved during the presidency of James Monroe, 1817-1825.

The greatest wisdom is intellectual humility — knowing what you don’t know. Remember the Oracle of Delphi and Socrates. The former shared that the latter was the wisest among the Athenians because he knew what he didn’t know and tirelessly sought to overcome his ignorance by critical thinking and questioning.

As the saying goes, confidence is what you have until you know better. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed, “All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” Freedom of speech is enshrined in the United States Constitution in recognition of mankind’s propensity toward blind dogmatism. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes admonished dissenting in Abrams v. United States (1919), “But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.” For centuries, men feared witches and burned women. It is more important that we accommodate the speech that we hate than the speech that we love.

In all cases, we should not disrespect people even if we disagree with their ideas. The spirit of free speech and peace is the spirit of the famous avowal, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Our deliverance from enmity or strife is awakening each day, reflecting, “I could be wrong” and searching for truth without ulterior motives.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.