The Mistakes of Pedantry and Contrarianism
We’ve all experienced it at some point: the pedant or contrarian. The person who dredges up the most trivial detail and “corrects” it. Maybe you sent out a post online and the person showed up in a reply telling you about a spelling mistake. Maybe you regaled others about a trip you had and the person pointed out a seeming inconsistency in your story or brought up how his/her experience was different. Maybe you played hide-and-seek and the person claimed that while you were the seeker you had counted to 100 too fast. A lot of the time such people are technically or objectively correct—yet they are contextually mistaken. Sometimes, they can even be categorically wrong. Let’s look at how, shall we?
I’m sure this topic conjures up the image of a doofus pushing glasses up his nose, but avast such stereotypes! The pedantic contrarian can be and often is anyone, maybe someone among your friends or family. It could even be you at times.
Being an aficionado of online discourse, I’ve seen my fair share of grammar police who fixated on a spelling mistake while missing the content of social media posts. When arguing (which, let’s face it, is what people tend to do online), it’s enticing to find a flaw of any kind and make it the deciding factor of who is right or wrong. That idea, who is right and who is wrong, is what tends to drive pedantic contrarians—specifically the need to be right.
“The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.”
-Albert Camus
I’ve succumbed to that need myself on occasion. Being wrong can lead to all sorts of cognitive dissonance; it’s more comfortable if not easier to believe I’m right. And if I’m not right, I might experience a deep desire to make sure you’re wrong (whoever you are!). And if you’re not wrong, I might experience a deep desire to make sure you suffer for it!
Alas, this line of reasoning is very emotionally driven and hence inherently flawed itself. It is this reasoning that often distinguishes the antagonists from the protagonists in fiction. But, we’re not getting (too much) into the philosophical dilemmas and quality of character of such people here—we’re mainly talking about mistakes made by those who rarely or habitually search for mistakes themselves. Nonetheless, it would be remiss to not ask: What kind of people are these? Again, they could be friends, family, you, or me. Typically, they have certain characteristics: exaggerated confidence, self-importance, arrogance, and general narcissistic traits are common; and low self-esteem and insecurity are also common. All right, enough typifying who these pedantic contrarians are, let’s really look at how they make mistakes.
Returning to the grammar police example, it’s widely known how a spelling mistake can torpedo the rest of what someone says. What they say isn’t itself wrong, it’s just how they say it.
Person A: Marijuna is bad for kids.
Person B: It’s ‘marijuana,’ idiot! Argument #rejected!
The obvious mistake the grammar police make in the example is dismissing the fact marijuana is bad for kids. Duh. But, of course, they’re right that there was a spelling mistake. Ugh. Another example and version of this kind of mistake is actually more common than grammar policing—it’s tone policing.
Person A: Marijuana is f***ing bad for kids you f***ing r3t4rd!
Person B: You’re being mean! I won’t listen to the words of someone so profane and rude!
While it’s easier to be sympathetic with person B, the obvious mistake person B makes is still dismissing the fact marijuana is bad for kids. But, of course, they’re right that person A was rude. This can be less a case of a pedantic or contrarian thing to do and more so an impulsive thing, however it can still very much be pedantic and contrarian to, say, analyze Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and determine it to be too preachy due to the way he enunciated words.
No, I didn’t make a mistake and put a picture of Neil deGrasee Tyson in place of Martin Luther King Jr. Tyson is a perfect example of a pedantic contrarian. He nitpicks a variety of things almost like it’s his job. He once nitpicked how smoothly the robot BB-8 rolled in Star Wars, among several other nitpicks of Star Wars. I myself am not really a fan of Star Wars, but holy moly do I not care if a sci-fi robot rolls realistically or if lightsabers would actually pass through each other. I’m not saying there’s no room to be playful or thoughtful and particularize the realism of things, because there definitely is. Taking it overly seriously, however, is another thing. In the context of Star Wars, Neil deGrasse Tyson is contextually wrong because that’s the way the world works in Star Wars. Lightsabers clash with each other and robots move like that. You can, of course, argue that that goes beyond your suspension of disbelief, though I’d wonder what you’d be willing to suspend your disbelief for. This is, again, speaking as someone who isn’t a fan of Star Wars and has a plethora of other problems with the movies.
There are various subreddits dedicated to discussing Neil deGrasse Tyson as he displays a variety of questionable behaviors (i.e., pedantry and contrarianism). While he is more often contextually wrong when trying to correct things, he can also be technically and objectively wrong, particularly when discussing topics outside his scope of knowledge (i.e., astrophysics). A recent example during an interview with Bill Maher (video here):
Maher: What I’m asking is, Scientific American is saying basically that the reason why an NBA, WNBA team can’t beat the Lakers is because of societal bias.
Tyson: What you’re saying is not Scientific American says that. An editor for Scientific American says that, who no longer has the job. So don’t indict a 170-year-old magazine because somebody—
Maher: Okay, this is called Scientific American, and they’re printing something.
The discussion goes on, and to sum it up Bill Maher expressed frustration that Neil deGrasse Tyson avoided engaging with the scientific content that the Scientific American article talked about. Instead, Tyson particularizes who actually says what regarding the Scientific American article, which is a red herring fallacy (that Maher correctly points out as being ridiculous given the article is in Scientific American). Maher is correct that the reasons a women’s basketball team can’t compete with a men’s basketball team aren’t just because society made it that way. But the pedantic contrarian avoided that and looked to correct something.
I’m picking on Tyson a lot, so I’ll broaden my criticisms of him to a general criticism of experts or authorities who may assert their superiority in knowledge.
Person A: The moon is big tonight.
Person B: Actually, the moon doesn’t change size. I know this because I’m a scientist.
In the above example, person B mistakenly takes person A literally and makes a correct statement. How lovely. Experts and authorities have the tendency to assert their esoteric knowledge or credentials, and they can do so in place of an argument. For example:
Person A: The moon is big tonight.
Person B: Actually, the moon doesn’t change size.
Person A: Why does it look bigger?
Person B: I know this because I’m a scientist.
Now Person B is correct while failing to explain why he/she is correct about the size of the moon. Perhaps Person B is a nutritionist and doesn’t know the ins and outs of celestial movement like an astrophysicist. Experts and authorities can mistakenly overestimate their knowledge while also levying their supposedly superior knowledge, such as Neil deGrasse Tyson.
You may have noticed a pattern in the examples of pedantic contrarians: they all come from a place of real or imagined authority. In my personal experience, they can be most difficult to interact with when they have real authority. Without naming names, these people have been supervisors/bosses, parents, and older peers. Any such relationship dynamic involving a power imbalance is fertile soil for pedantic contrarians to take advantage of their… advantage. It’s rough interacting with them, since even when you’re aware that they’re wrong it would be a faux pas to point it out, you being the one with lower status. It could also incur retribution along the lines of what I implied earlier in them seeking your suffering. How does one respond to a pedantic contrarian of higher status than you? It depends. Idioms like “Pick your battles” and “There’s a time and place for everything” are helpful rules of thumb.
A final example of pedantic contrarianism goes back to the first paragraph in which a hypothetical person who listens to you regaling a story decides to “correct” you. Let’s say you had traveled over a winter holiday and were talking about how lovely Versailles was and how the artwork and architecture was exquisite and the plants were beautiful and the weather was nice and—
“Hold up!” the pedantic contrarian interjects. “The weather at Versailles is cold in winter, hardly ‘nice.’ ”
“Well, sure,” you say, “However it was good when I was there!”
“I don’t think so,” the pedantic contrarian replies confidently. “I went there myself some time ago, and it was definitely cold!”
Here endeth the hypothetical. It can feel weird and controlling for this pedantic contrarian to contradict you about the weather in France, and that’s because it is. Whatever the reason, the pedantic contrarian is mistaken for several reasons. One reason is that ‘nice’ is a relative term, and so cold weather may be nice to one person and not nice for another person. Another reason is that the weather was nice as you were hypothetically there when the weather was hypothetically nice. And another reason is that the weather the pedantic contrarian experienced was not the weather you experienced, because you both had anecdotal experiences. If you decided to point these reasons out to this pedantic contrarian, you might be met with more pedantic contrarianism. You might be questioned about what the exact temperature was and the exact date you went and the exact places you visited and the exact clothes you wore and a bunch of other exact things I don’t have the patience nor interest in listing but that a pedantic contrarian would agonize over.
It can be aggravating, especially when such scrutiny and questioning crosses into the realm of gaslighting. There is some comfort in that you don’t have to take things as seriously as pedantic contrarians do, or anyone else for that matter. They fundamentally disregard those aforementioned idioms and mistakenly take up battles that amount to little-to-nothing when won (or lost), and they mistakenly nitpick when it’s not the time or place. I believe these are the core mistakes of pedantry and contrarianism.
