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    But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
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    But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
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    But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
    Audiobook10 hours

    But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    Narrated by Fiona Hardingham

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or-weirder still-widely known, but entirely disrespected)? Is it possible that we "overrate" democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we've reached the end of knowledge?

    Klosterman visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past. Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, But What If We're Wrong? is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers-George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others-interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It's a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It's about how we live now, once "now" has become "then."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 7, 2016
    ISBN9780451484888
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for But What If We're Wrong?

    3.5/5

    224 ratings21 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Finished in the not-quite-wee-hours of the morning. I picked this up from the library the weekend before the election and it ended up being a bit too relevant, at least re: the mountains of thinkpieces and criticism re: why so many people seemed to be wrong in the aftermath. What happened? Is there an unseen piece to how we got to this result? Will it ever be knowable?

      This is my first Klosterman book, so I don't know if philosophical essays are his thing (guessing they are), but I was fascinated by how any subject- music, television, the nature of our reality - could be placed in this hypothetical archaeological site by the civilizations of the future. Much of this seems like a bar argument gone on too long (and I'm guessing some of these passages probably stemmed from such).

      I do disagree with his criteria for how future generations will view television- as far as I know, while people enjoy the mundane texts of the ancient world (I've seen the tumblr post recently musing on things people take for granted but we don't write down, with some user citing Punt, Egypt's trading partner that they wrote extensively about- except for where it's located), people also enjoy the epics of ancient mythology. It's pretty improbable that a deity came down in the form of a bird or a bull to have sex with a human, but it makes for a luridly entertaining story. I'm also not sure how he thinks TV is its own distinct medium, birthed from radio but categorized differently- similar genres can transcend medium like epic fantasy, historical pieces, comedies, etc.

      The musings on the permanence of history or science was more interesting to me- the idea that a paradigm shift *will* happen, but we can't see/predict what it will be because we're in the current paradigm. I do think the presence of the internet changes the idea of history with the presence of web archives, though future archaeologists will have to be vigilant on what's real and what's a Poe's law facsimile.

      Overall, a recommended read, especially if you want to be slightly comforted by the idea that nothing happening now matters (or maybe it does, but we don't know how yet).
    • 5/5
      It is extremely difficult -- indeed, pretty much fundamentally impossible -- to say how people in the future will look back on our own era, because any society's opinions about past generations reflect that society's own culture and concerns more than they do the actual details of history. We can't know what the future will think of us, because we don't know anything about it. This is, essentially, the premise of this book. But Chuck Klosterman then goes on to speculate freely, anyway. Bearing in mind that our most logical guesses are almost certainly wrong -- as the most logical guesses of people in the past usually were -- what can we say or imagine about what literary works of the present will still be read in a hundred years, or whether future scientists will regard us as having been utterly wrong about how the world works, or even if civilizations of the future will have rejected things we regard as beyond question, such as the value of democracy? Probably nothing, but recognizing this fact doesn't stop Klosterman from having lots of rambling thoughts about it all, or from running those thoughts by other people to see what they think.And for an exercise that seems to be premised on the idea of its own futility, it's surprisingly fascinating. I found myself disagreeing with Klosterman a fair amount -- at least as much as it's actually possible to disagree with someone who is, the entire time, asserting that he's probably wrong -- and often found myself looking up from the book and staring off into space as I had lively internal debates with Klosterman or with myself about whatever he'd just said. There is a bit of a feeling of self-indulgence about much of it -- a sense that Klosterman is just trying to get a grip on his own slippery thoughts on the subject, and that he's paying particular attention to certain topics, such as rock music, simply because they're the things he personally happens to be the most interested in. But, you know, I was absolutely fine with that, and more than happy to just go along for the ride through his brain. And there's quite a lot in here that I found insightful or thought-provoking or just plain fun to contemplate. Indeed, I think this is possibly the most pure intellectual fun I've had reading a work of non-fiction in quite some time.
    • 3/5
      Chances are good that when people look back at the early 21st century 150 years from now their perceptions and characterizations of the present time will be quite different from our own. But it is exceedingly difficult to predict in what way those perceptions will differ. As an example of changing opinions, Klosterman cites the critical evaluation of Moby Dick, a book that was virtually ignored for several decades after its publication, but is much revered today, particularly by people who haven’t read it. A basic thesis of this book is that since perceptions change all the time, it might be helpful to think about our current perceptions in different ways, turning them on their heads, so to speak. Hence, the upside-down book cover.Klosterman asks us to reexamine a number of concepts that seem universally accepted. He even questions gravity, which we now deem indisputable enough to be referred to as a “law” of physics. Some ideas are so accepted and internalized, he writes, that “we’re not even in a position to question their fallibility.” But what if you do question them? Will they stay that way? Didn’t we used to think that stars hung in the heavens like lamps and the sun revolved around the earth? In each chapter, Klosterman applies to different topics “Klosterman’s Razor”; i.e., “the philosophical belief that the best hypothesis is the one that reflexively accepts its potential wrongness to begin with.” This is certainly an area of thought worth pondering, but Klosterman’s interest quickly turns from the important, like gravity, and the "sacrosanct," like the Constitution, to the “who cares” realm: best writers, best architects, tv shows, how rock music has superseded marching music in popular culture, the centrality of football as a sport. . . . Nevertheless, in spite of lapses in gravitas, Klosterman has a breezy, conversational style that is appealing. Similar points could be made with a lot of academic evidence backing them up, but then not as many people would read the book.Mostly, he just wants you to think about your preferences, instead of accepting them blindly, and think about how those preferences may have been shaped. This point has even greater importance lately, with influential "bots" actually driving the political discourse. Klosterman observes: “History is a creative process (or as Napoleon Bonaparte once said, ‘A set of lies agreed upon’). The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us.”Evaluation: The ultimate lesson of the book is not to despair over the fact that our current perceptions about many important issues eventually may be seen as wrong. Rather, it is that we can improve our current views by looking at them as if we were in the distant future, looking back.I don’t agree with Klosterman on every issue, but by and large his ideas are thought provoking. This might be a good book for book club discussions because it raises so many questions for which there are no “correct” answers. (JAB)
    • 4/5
      What if we're right that we're wrong

      This book is a great antidote to one of the diseases of our time: the self-righteous cock-suredness that if I am not absolutely right about everything I say (especially in social media) then at least I am absolutely right that you are wrong.
    • 3/5
      I am only rating this book as high as three stars because I am sure that there are people, who aren't like me, and would enjoy the book. I didn't finish it; I skipped the chapters that bored me, and tried out the later chapters. For the most part, Klosterman is talking about things that I really don't care about, or are not a social problem. Klosterman began losing me in chapter one when he got sniffy about someone giving Moby Dick a one star rating. I gave it two stars, myself. Klosterman admitted that the reader was entitled to his own opinion, and then seemed to take his condescending permission back as he went on about how Moby Dick is foundational to how "we" read and understand novels. There can be no argument about its quality. I find this wrong in several ways.

      One of the questions that needs to be asked more is, "Who do you mean 'we'?" (Another one is "and then what?) I am not part of this 'we,' I refuse to made part of it without my permission, and I don't like many of the philosophies which underline this incorrect use of 'we' and 'us.' I doubt that Moby Dick has had much influence on how I read novels. In what way has Moby Dick changed how "we" read novels? Klosterman doesn't say. Claiming that it does assumes that I have been trained into a consensus that I actually have very little use for run by authorities that I mostly ignore. (I do agree with the early critic who described Moby Dick unfavorably as "a salad.") It seems to me that "critics" in many fields concentrate too heavily on technique and novelty which are only secondarily important to me. Other people look for other things. There is one writer who has been praised for surpassing his genre by the quality of his writing. I agree that he writes beautifully, but for emotional reasons, I simply cannot read his books.

      If a novel has won several prestigious prizes like the Pulitzer for Fiction or the Man Booker, or has been recommended by Oprah, I probably don't want to read it. (The Pulitzer for Nonfiction is a different matter.) I am very selective in reading "contemporary serious fiction" because it usually has little to say to me. Apparently I am not what passes for a typical American. I actually do not care who people in the future will hail as the greatest writer of our time; it is nothing to me.

      One change in reading that Klosterman didn't seem to notice, but which fascinates me, is the great increase in prestige for novels. In "Northanger Abbey," written in the early 19th century, Jane Austen felt obliged to defend novels. It now seems that they are regarded as the summit of literature; if you don't "serious contemporary fiction," the reader who wastes time on genre fiction and nonfiction, except as an occasional change, is little better than functionally illiterate.

      I bailed out of chapter two on music for reasons that probably don't need explaining.

      As for science, we've been told before that we have reached the limit of science and technology. If someone asks me how the universe came into being, I say that the preferred scientific explanation at this time is the Big Bang. Considering our rather parochial position in the universe, there is probably a lot that we don't know and I won't be surprised or chagrined if that isn't the explanation in the future. A friend of mine was upset that I don't actually care whether we live in an oscillating universe or not, but I find it unlikely that this will be significant to me in my lifetime.

      Klosten later gets to the Constitution, which is one thing I do care about. He's interesting until he gets to arguing that the Founders were overly concerned with freedom. I think he gets this wrong; they feared the "mob." Not only did they continue slavery, but they limited both voting and other civil rights on the basis of sex, race, and wealth. The Electoral College elected the president and vice president without regard to party (the existence of parties is one thing the founders didn't foresee) and without any direct input from the electorate. The state legislatures selected the electors, and they also appointed the senators until the 17th amendment. I suspect that if we could tell them that we are now working on the civil rights of LGBTetc., their jaws would hit the table. Historically, the Constitution has been altered from time to time, and this may keep it alive in the future.I don't think this is a bad book per se, just not for me. I hope that other potential readers are able to decide for themselves if it is of interest to them.
    • 4/5
      Another good group of essays by Chuck. A bit denser than the previous ones and a bit more to wade through on this one. He also goes off on a bit more tangents and rambles in this one. I think his "I Wear the Black Hat" was better than this though; but that's not diminishing this.

      His essay on the NFL and football in general I think was pretty spot on. As was his multi-verse and the Phantom Time conspiracy theory essays. The NFL essay was particularly poignant now with the current 'embroilment' of politics and sports due to Trump and kneeling/standing for the anthem, (as well as continued research into CTE).

      As usual Chuck touches deeply on issues and actually gets to the point, and doesn't matter if he might be viewed as wrong, or if what he says isn't "correct" or "the right way to say it". He gets to the nitty-gritty of the matter with a no holds bar way of looking at it, and comes at things from a multitude of perspectives that makes topics refreshing, concise, and entertaining.
    • 5/5
      Clever, thought-provoking, and funny. Klosterman often seems to have a twisted way of looking at things, and that really takes center stage in this book. It reminds me of those university nights staying up far into the night, having addled and trippy discussions that questioned just about everything in one's life. Like those nights, this book was satisfying, but I'm not sure what I take away from it. Glad I was there, but not sure what it all meant.
    • 3/5
      5441. But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past,. by Chuck Klosterman (read 6 Feb 2017) I had never heard of this book nor of its author until I saw it at the library and decided to read it. It was published in 2016 by a guy who was born in Breckenridge, Minn. and was "raised Roman Caholic". If I did not usually finish a book I start I might well have quit reading this book, since many of the things he talks about have no interest for me, such as music and TV shows I never watch. But by about the middle of the book I was glad I had not quit reading. On page 136 he begins talking about "phantom time," a weird claim by a German named Herbert Illig that the years 614 A.D. to 911 A.D. did not exist and thus we are 297 years closer to the birth of Christ than we assume we are. This is a silly claim but Klosterman's discussion of it is insightful and of interest. There is also a thoughtful discussion of dreams which I admit led me to conclude dreams are of no significance, despite what Sigmund Freud says. So, anyway, I found the last part of the book of more interest than the first.
    • 4/5
      Chuck Klosterman definitely provides ample food for thought in this book, where he tackles plenty of modern questions - from the relatively mundane "what are the great books of our era?" to "how might current democracies collapse?" as long-term trends. As someone who studied history as an undergraduate, I found this fascinating, as a discussion about human memory and historical trends come up frequently in this book. For anyone who appreciates their own ideas and conceptions being challenged and thinks about how our contemporary world falls in the long-term historical trend, this is a book for you.
    • 4/5
      This book is a fun thought experiment Klosterman's premise is that most predictions about the future turn out to be wrong. So from there, he tries to figure out how we will be wrong, and then make some predictions about the future (acknowledging that those predictions will undoubtedly be wrong).I found the first two sections to be utterly fascinating, to the point that I read big chunks of them to my partner and we found ourselves discussing them on our daily walks. The first section asks what contemporary authors will be famous in the future, and the second looks at what rock and roll music and musicians will be famous. Klosterman is very well informed in these areas, particularly in music. His assumptions and predictions here are fascinating, and well worth a lot of conversation.Unfortunately, from there, the book peters out. Klosterman attempts to apply the same type of analysis to other cultural endeavors, but he just doesn't have as much to say about them, and doesn't seem as well-informed. He does a lot of circular rambling in some chapters, particularly the chapter about politics. (And I bet the chapter on politics would be completely different if he had written it now, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, which just goes to prove his point that the future is unpredictable.)Still, this book is full of fun food for thought, and lots of great conversation starters. This isn't the kind of book that you read and then put down - you'll want to think about it and talk about it.
    • 5/5
      In 500 years, what will people remember about our era? What music will be remembered? What authors? Which scientific and technological insights will be the path to greater understanding and which will be nothing more than footnotes in a history book?Klosterman writes about these topics with extreme scepticism. If a candidate seems like a logical choice for canonization (i.e. The Beatles will represent twentieth century music), it's likely wrong. He argues this way by examining the past. The people we remember are not necessarily the most popular or logical choices for posterity. We remember people because they resonate with our current values.In But What If We're Wrong?, Klosterman has written some of his best cultural criticism. He sees everything we take for granted with an odd slant. After all, "the juice of life is derived from arguments that don't seem obvious" (92). Klosterman's trademark sense of humour and entertaining use of footnotes are in full display.The rock critic turned cultural analyst has written another insightful book that draws on his knowledge of music and culture while stretching his boundaries. Read and prepare to question everything.
    • 1/5
      Rambling and not well-thought out
    • 5/5
      Easily one of the best think books I've ever read or listened to.
    • 1/5
      Very dissatisfied with this.
      I was expecting a somewhat thought-provoking and amusing book, but it wasn't funny and the only thoughts I had were 'what a waste of time.'
      Klosterman writes like the Architect from the Matrix talks but makes less sense and isn't nearly as clever or humorous.
      Overall a big disappointment.
    • 2/5
      Enjoy Klosterman's ideas and thought experiments but this book was too erratic for me jumping back and forth across pop culture. I found the tone too familiar and self consciously clever at times. Lots of diversions, footnotes, and parenthetical comments made it hard to follow his ideas.
    • 2/5
      A peculiar mix of honest skepticism and open-mindedness, mixed with some utterly bat shit "theories" (the universe is actually a computer simulation concocted by some far future teenage in his garage), and literally everything he suggest is qualified to the point that it becomes pointless. I read the part on which rock star will be remembered many years ago, and it's an entertaining exercise, but you don't examine physics with the same tool set. The idea that much of what we think we know is likely wrong (or more accurately, incomplete) is sound, but too much of this book sounds like two stoners free associating about the universe.
    • 2/5
      The concept of this book intrigued me as the author tries to imagine (and get us to imagine) a future very different from today. His premise is that we are hampered by our tendency to think about the present as if it were the past. Sort of like if I'm asked to predict the weather tomorrow, I'd assume it'll be much like today. And I'll be right at the margin, but overall, would miss big weather changes. The problem is that the book was a difficult read. The ideas weren't always clearly presented. The verging-on-farcical was presented in much the same way as ideas more based on science. I sometimes lost the point of what the author was trying to say. So, great concept but far from great execution.
    • 2/5
      This book will blow your mind... if you're a pop-culture obsessed stoner. Otherwise you might just find it pretentious.
    • 4/5
      I got an early look this through First to Read. I was skeptical with Klosterman's opening salvo (what if we're wrong about gravity?), but I found myself liking his writing style and some of what he had to say...enough that I'll probably go looking for more of his books.

      Klosterman asks, "Which statement is more reasonable to make: 'I believe gravity exists' or 'I'm 99.9 percent certain that gravity exists'?" using if we admit the slightest possibility of being wrong about something so fundamental as gravity as a segue into admitting we might not be right about anything at all. I think this is a silly and misleading tangent from the rest of the text of the gravity chapter. Being wrong about the mechanism of gravity doesn't refute the math that already works. Yes, Aristotle's followers were wrong for 2,000 years as to the mechanism, but once Newton established the math, the only thing that's changed in 330 years is that Newton's understanding breaks down at relativistic speeds, and Einstein's breaks down at quantum levels. That we were wrong, and can still be wrong, shouldn't be a quibbling point, but in a larger sense, we are more right than wrong, and even more right in investigating our wrongs. Being wrong about understanding something completely is not the same as being wholly wrong about most of something.

      While I'm at odds with Klosterman's take on gravity as a fundamental question, I find I am more in line with most of what he covers in the rest of his book. What is truth? Where is truth found? How much of what we perceive to be true can be classified as objective and how much as subjective? And when a new truth is found, what do we do about it? Klosterman observes with the modern proliferation of information that "reevaluating what we consider to be 'true' is becoming increasingly difficult" - it's much easier for any individual to dispute something, and with that proliferation, what may have been limited to a small exposure in the past is now broadcast to a worldwide audience. As such, the collective wrongness increases. And that makes Klosterman's case.

      Well, not really. We can be wrong about many things, but not likely everything. For example, I think Klosterman is both right and wrong about this:It's impossible to understand the world of today until today has become tomorrow. [...] We constantly pretend our perception of the present day will not seem ludicrous in retrospect, simply because there doesn't appear to be any other option. Yet there is another option, and the option is this: We must start from the premise that - in all likelihood - we are already wrong.

      One for the armchair philosophers, I submit that we might avoid attributing wrongness because it's possible we are/will be wrong when we do so. Nah. Call it wrong if it's wrong, and admit you're wrong if you are when you say it's wrong!

      I'm going to skip my favorite part of Klosterman's look at lists and their temporality and jump to a different point in the book. I'll allow that I may have been (somewhat) wrong in my dislike of Neil deGrasse Tyson (I can still dislike him for his treatment of a nine year old former fan many years ago, and his disparagement of homeschooling at least at that time), because he makes sense in a couple of areas.

      On why shifts from widely accepted beliefs are rarer now and why the scientific understandings we have is not completely wrong:What was different from 1600 onward was how science got conducted. Science gets conducted by experiment. There is no truth that does not exist without experimental verification of that truth. And not only one person's experiment, but an ensemble of experiment testing the same idea. And only when an ensemble of experiments statistically agree do we then talk about an emerging truth within science.
      And I acknowledge that Tyson is spot on with this (excepting one part):
      In physics, when we say we know something, it's very simple. Can we predict the outcome? If we can predict the outcome, we're good to go, and we're on to the next problem. There are philosophers who care about the understanding of why that was the outcome. Isaac Newton [essentially] said, "I have an equation that says why the moon is in orbit, I have no f...ing idea how the Earth talks to the moon. It's empty space - there's no hand reaching out." He was uncomfortable about this idea of action at a distance. And he was criticized for having such ideas, because it was preposterous that one physical object could talk to another physical object. Now, you can certainly have that conversation [about why it happens]. But an equation properly predicts what it does. That other conversation is for people having a beer. It's a beer conversation. So go ahead - have that conversation. "What is the nature of the interaction between the moon and the Earth?" Well, my equations get it right every time. So you can say gremlins do it - it doesn't matter to my equation...Philosophers like arguing about [semantics]. In physics, we're way more practical than philosophers. Way more practical. If something works, we're on to the next problem. We're not arguing why. Philosophers argue why. [...] We're just not derailed by why, provided the equation gives you an accurate account of reality."

      The one part? I drink beer...real beer, and not the Super Bowl stuff, and I would never have that conversation.And accuracy is relative. Sometimes close enough is good enough.

      On blogging vs book writing, Klosterman opines:[they] have almost no psychological relationship. They both involve a lot of typing, but that's about as far as it goes. A sentence in a book is written a year before it's published, with the express intent that it will still make sense twenty years later. A sentence on the Internet is designed to last one day, usually the same day it's written.
      Now, he's not saying that the transience of the Internet is a problem. He sees it as an advantage that "aligns with the early-adoption sensibility that informs everything else." Something written gets rewritten again, or differently.

      In a brief discussion of the groundbreaking cinematography of Citizen Kane, Klosterman asks, "Was it simply a matter of time before this innovation was invented, or did it have to come specifically from Toland [the cinematographer]?" An interesting question, and likely a matter of time. Some things, particularly in the arts, vary with the times, and if the 20th century proved anything to us, somebody is going to push the boundaries of the arts they are in. Klosterman doesn't address religion except tangentially, but others have made the point that if knowledge of all religions and all science were wiped out today, new religions would likely surface, and be nothing like any to date, yet science would certainly be discovered as we know it now. So, in that respect, science is a matter of time.

      Klosterman writes conversationally, and makes some interesting points. I think he's probably wrong about being wrong, but then so am I.
    • 1/5
      I found this book to be very frustrating and ultimately a waste of my time. I agree with the authors main thesis, that we can’t really judge our past or look to the future without having our views colored by who and where we are now but every time he tried to explain/defend his point using different examples such as music or science I would end up getting so frustrated by things, opinions of his that he stated as given facts that I felt were dead wrong, that I would find myself disagreeing with the whole concept by the end of each chapter. I really should have given up on this book pretty early on, right about the time we spend way too much time going over how Rock and Roll, Rock ‘n Roll and Rock are completely different things. It never got better after that. I still like his main idea, I just can’t stand how he tried to present and defend this idea. I can see this being a good book for those who are already fans of his writing but I seriously doubt I will be reading more by this author.
    • 2/5
      From the title and the blurb I expected this book would address basic assumptions that we, as a culture, seldom question but which are not necessarily true. It doesn't do that. Although there is a little about science and some philosophical underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution, most of the book looks at pop culture—fiction, TV, music, and sports—and asks if the assessments of contemporary critics will reflect how people of the future judge these things.

      My initial reaction was something like, "Don't know. Don't care. Not important." Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of such things. I seldom watch TV, have never followed sports, and don't much care for pop music or most books that appear on bestseller lists. (I have quirky tastes in fiction and music.) It's not that pop music and TV sitcoms aren't culturally significant, it's just that I was hoping for a bit more depth in this book.

      I'll give you an example of what I mean. Until about the middle of the last century, most Americans seemed to assume that people whose ancestors had not come from north-western Europe (excluding Ireland, for some reason), were intellectually and morally inferior. That was a pervasive and almost unquestioned belief. But then someone asked, "But what if we're wrong?"

      There are many cultural assumptions that could stand a bit of scrutiny—religion, the free market, democracy.... These are important. How a cultural anthropologist in the year 3016 will regard the TV show Three's Company or the music of the Sex Pistols? Not so much.