Consistency and Imperfection

Writing something and publishing it for public scrutiny offers the chance to display the consistency of one’s beliefs and thoughts. People who publish much and remain consistent deserve admiration.

What about the other folks who don’t always display rigorous consistency in their beliefs as expressed in their writing? Well, events and times change. Ideas and arguments change along with changed circumstances. Consistency fetters creativity and thought in this case. Fairness requires we forgive inconsistency.

Human nature causes problems with consistency. We say we believe something in all honesty, for we consciously do believe it. Nonetheless, our unconscious beliefs, the ones to which we have no direct access, cause problems with consistency. We say things without knowing we do not really believe them. We would all be dead should we consciously process all our beliefs and the actions deriving from them. Thinking and acting swiftly has survival value.

Unconscious beliefs do not make liars of us. However, they have a nasty habit of making us inconsistent. That is merely to say human nature is not perfect. But we already know about the imperfection of human nature in all its glorious aspects.