It's Okay To Say, "I Just Don't Have Enough Knowledge About That"

You don't have to be an expert in everything. Just Google it when people make claims you're not sure about. And, sometimes ask for evidence.

Me, when someone asks me a dumb question they could have easily Googled. Public domain image from Pikist

We humans live in abject fear that we might be publicly busted for looking stupid; that if we don’t know something we’ll be laughed at and shamed for our lack of omniscience. And sometimes we are, whether we deserve it or not. We fake it hoping they’ll take it. We make it up if we have to.

Intellectual bullies, meanwhile, roam the planet looking for exactly you—someone they can shame and diminish. They may not even be experts in the topic of discussion; they just have to know a little bit more. I’m here to tell you you don’t have to know everything about everything, and you don’t lose an argument just because you admit you don’t know much about it.

This spring, my Montreal filmmaker cousin stayed with me for Toronto’s annual HotDocs festival. We had a grand time hanging out, catching up, drinking ‘cuz-tinis’ and watching movies - including a few my filmmaker cousin had made.

We both lean left (like me, he doesn’t let his brains fall out either) although our realms of knowledge differed. My cuz knew a lot about space travel, about which he’d made a documentary, as well as foreign defense politics, which he keeps up on more than I. “Can you name the four biggest nuclear powers in the right order?” he challenged me. No, I couldn’t, although I figured Russia, the U.S., and China all had to be on the list. They were, in that order, with France as the distant fourth. (I would have guessed Germany.)

I felt a little intellectually diminished not knowing that, but then realized, hey, I’m not as knowledgeable as Alan about this. It’s okay.

Image from Pexels

Later, I told him about the alleged 6,000 burials of Indigenous Canadian children, which Indigenous bands claimed have died in our country’s residential schools, although they haven’t provided one single case of excavated remains. My cuz found it hard to believe. “It’s true,” I said. “Everyone’s always surprised. Look it up.”

The next morning when I emerged from my bedroom he said, “Hey, you were right! I Googled this morning on the Indigenous graves and holy cow, they haven’t unearthed a single kid!”

You have to Google it because it just sounds too crazy.

Later, we talked about trans issues. “I find that hard to believe,” he said several times as I told him about the lack of science behind sex transitions for kids, and the driver of the sexual fetish autogynephilia in the movement, and the trans-identified men who had used access to women’s private spaces to assault or intimidate them or just to satisfy their need to ogle women and girls undressing. “I’d need to know where that came from. I’d like to see those sources,” he said.

He wasn’t skeptic-bullying, it was an honest response. I really didn’t want to dig up links again like I have for so many others. “Google it,” I told him, knowing he’d find his answers in the first page of search results.

He said later, “I thought about a lot of the things you said about transgender issues and came to realize that it’s okay to say, ‘I just don’t know enough about that.’”

Ironically, he’d come to the same conclusion about his lack of knowledge on trans issues that I’d come to about nuclear politics.

It’s liberating once you realize it’s okay to admit you simply don’t have enough knowledge about an issue.

She never minded admitting she didn't know something. So what, she thought; I could always learn.― Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy

Not everyone has gotten into the weeds on culture war issues as I have, and many are genuinely mystified as to why I even find them important. I can be impatient with people who don’t seem to get it, but some don’t even know what’s going on; an apolitical news-avoiding friend was surprised to find we’re now giving sex-change treatments to children.

My knowledge of global politics will probably never approach my cousin’s level. It’s his bag, not mine. Nevertheless, Alan doesn’t pay much attention to the eternal Israeli-Gazan conflict and didn’t know that the Middle East took advantage of the then-new state of Israel by pushing their own Mizrahi Arab Jews out of their homelands because now they had a ‘dumping ground’ for them.

How many people don’t know that Israel was only first populated by European Jews, but that a second influx came shortly later from the antisemitic Arab world? Betcha 95% of the college campus Kiddie Keffiyeh Klan don’t know that, including the ones from the Arab world.

I don’t know if Alan felt momentarily stupid by my greater knowledge of trans issues or Arab Jews, but we both came to realize we’re not stupid if we don’t know as much about an issue as someone else. You learn important things talking to others, like that Indigenous bands here are making some highly spurious claims and excoriating Canadians who ask too many questions like, “Where are the bodies?”

Or, that France is more nuclear-badass than you thought.

Now, let’s examine when should you provide evidence, and when you should point folks to Google.

Demands to ‘Prove it!’

We often end arguments by demanding, “Prove it! Send me your source!” Such requests can be valid, or wielded to mire the statement-maker in endless Googling trying to find that article they read last month by that guy, in the article in the Conversation? Or was it Quillette? Or maybe Newsweek?

The challengers might not even look at it, either through lack of interest (the purpose might be to shut you up) or worse, for fear that you proved them wrong.

One intellectual bully in a pro-science skeptic chat group I once belonged to put down those he deemed his inferiors by challenging them over anything. If one failed to provide evidence, he declared them ‘debunked’. If you challenged him on some claim, he’d tell you he didn’t need to provide sources, it was ‘common knowledge’.

While ‘common knowledge’ is sometimes a fair response, a bully can use it to abrogate responsibility, holding others to a higher standard than himself.

Another type of bully simply seeks to destroy, roaming social media looking for targets. When I was working for a technology company a few years ago I made an online joke about “Which pronouns are we using this week?” and two users tried to start a cancel campaign to perhaps get me fired, since I was posting under our professional account. I didn’t think what I said was bad, even professionally, but I checked out the two accounts and one described himself as a ‘professional Millennial,’ which I took to mean professionally unemployed, especially since he was tweeting in the middle of the day. The other person also looked suspiciously jobless. I blocked them and no other Twitterati picked up their calls for action. I wiped my forehead in relief, since my boss was absolutely phobic about ‘controversy’.

Ideological bullies are near-religious about their political beliefs, whether it’s trans rights, antiracism, supporting the ICE raids or devotion to a political figure like Donald Trump. Women have finally achieved some unpleasant equity—in political and social media bullying. Some discussions are beginning to center around how feminized ‘cancel culture’ is, how much it resembles the feminine power games any female older than two years old has experienced, and that women may be behind the popularity of wokeness politics. Campus protests are dominated by women.

Educator and narcissism expert Dr. Nathalie Martinek, in her article Dark neurodivergence or Cluster B traits?, analyzes what she observes as “a social pattern I’ve observed in adults who frame antisocial behaviour as trauma-based neurodivergence. These individuals often display vulnerable narcissism, covert manipulation, and antisocial tendencies that never come with real accountability. They rarely apologise unless there is something to gain. They are skilled at DARVO [deny, attack, reverse victim and offender] and consistently position themselves as the victim, the empath, and the misunderstood one.” These people, she says, reframe as ‘neurodivergence’ what is actually “indicators of arrested emotional and moral development,” rather than subject their ‘fragile identity’ to self-awareness and confrontation.

Sound familiar, ladies?

Nathalie notes the ‘flood’ of social media warnings about ‘narcissistic’ and ‘toxic’ people. She doesn’t mention sexes here but I’ve noticed they appear to be predominantly women, and when they’re not, they’re often men claiming to be or pretending to be women. Back when I was on Medium, it was hands-down biological women diagnosing everyone they’d ever dated or had a disagreement with as a narcissist or a toxic personality.

Sound kinda like the Mean Girls you dreaded in school?

Back in my early-Internet skeptic group days, on the other hand, intellectual bullies were almost all men. My ex-partner was in an email free speech/anti-censorship discussion group, where many seemed more interested in argumentative victory than actually changing minds over various media stories and court cases they were debating. There were no women on this list. He asked me if I wanted to join and I said I had no interest in an intellectual dick-slinging contest. Go figger.

When do you need to provide evidence?

I’m circumspect when people ask me to ‘send me your sources. I have to see them.’ It’s not bullying, it’s a fair request, but if it’s fairly common information, I tell them to Google it if I think they’ll find it on the first page of results. (My ‘common knowledge’ defense).

On the other hand, if it’s not something they can easily find themselves, like a particular research paper they won’t find by general Googling—I dig it up and send it to them. That’s a valid request. I archive many articles on a thumb drive so I can find them easily.

People aren’t stupid for not knowing something someone else does. (I’m assuming you don’t hang out with sub-literate NEETs who spend their entire day downloading porn, gaming, and debating whether that guy with Karolyn Leavitt is her husband or her dad.)

What we shouldn’t do is allow anyone to make us feel stupid for not knowing something. We also shouldn’t bully ourselves for not knowing something.

Hector from #holysmoke, the aforementioned skeptics’ group, loved laughing at others but, predictably, had no sense of humor about himself. One evening I showed up with mischief on my mind. “How do I know you’re really Hector?” I challenged him. “How do I know you’re the real deal? Have you got a DNA test to prove yourself? A notarized testimonial? Any witnesses here to whether it’s really you or not?”

“Fuck you, Frenchy!” he replied.

“Yep, that’s the real Hector,” everyone else laughed.

He was the only one not amused.

Always remember: Bullies are ridiculously insecure.

Write that down!

When I’m not reading every book in the Universe so that one day I can actually be more insufferable than Hermione Grainger (I’m working on my posh British accent), I help women and others reclaim their power here at Grow Some Labia.