THINKER'S ALMANAC - April 14

What insight about human nature does David Foster Wallace present via a parable about fish?

Subject:  Fundamental Attribution Error - “This is Water”

Event:  The book version of David Foster Wallace’s commencement address “This Is Water” is published, 2009

. . . learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. -David Foster Wallace

On this day in 2009, David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” was published.  The essay originated as a commencement address delivered by Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005.

Wallace began his address with an anecdote:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

As Wallace continued his address, he challenged the graduates to approach their lives philosophically by thinking and reflecting consciously, paying attention to the obvious realities that, though seemingly obvious, are -- like water to the fish -- often the hardest to see.  The freedom provided by education, according to Wallace, is the ability to choose to pay attention and see what is hidden in plain sight.

Wallace challenges our typical perspective from which we view the world.  Each of us sees ourselves as the “absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and most important person in existence.”  This is the hard-wired, default setting we have experienced since birth, and because we are so self-centered we often become overconfident about what we “know” and about what we are “certain” is true. 

As an example, Wallace asks us to imagine going into a busy grocery store after a long work day to buy food for dinner. Standing in line at the checkout counter, Wallace asks us to contrast what we might see with our default, judgmental mindset versus what we might see if we instead choose to consider other possibilities:

. . .  if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. 

Wallace never mentions it by name in his address, but one concept he is talking about is the fundamental attribution error.  This concept from psychology refers to our innate desire to understand the behavior of others -- a concept known as “attribution.”  When judging the behavior of others, we tend to make the mistake of attributing behavior to internal, dispositional factors:  in other words, we assume that the behavior of people is an exact reflection of their characters.  When judging our own behaviors, however, we turn to external, situational factors:  in other words, we cut ourselves slack by explaining our behavior based on circumstances, not our character. 

Wallace challenges us to avoid the fundamental attribution error by not assuming that people’s behaviors are a reflection of their characters.  Instead, he asks us to broaden our perspective and consider other possibilities. Like water was to the two young fish in Wallace’s opening parable, the specific circumstances of the people we encounter each day are invisible.  Wallace challenges us to become more aware “of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

‘This is water.’”

Armed with this broader perspective, Wallace gives us hope that even in the most mundane and seemingly meaningless situations, we will be equipped to something more:

It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the fundamental attribution error, and how does David Foster Wallace illustrate it in his commencement address?

Challenge - Commencement Speech:  Imagine you were giving a commencement speech.  What would be a good quotation to use to open up your speech -- the kind of quotation that would inspire the audience of graduates as well as the faculty, staff, friends, and family gathered?

Sources:

1-Wallace, David Foster.  “This Is Water.”  Fsblog.com.