Keeping Errors at Bay
Bertrand Russell
Literal
Comprehension
'Keeping Errors at Bay' is an essay. This essay was written
by Bertrand Russell. This essay, “Keeping Errors at Bay” provides us with
multiple examples of mistakes that people normally commit in their day-to-day
life. The writer provides us with many suggestions to avoid such silly
mistakes.
We need to be extra careful, logical, rational, and
analytical to get rid of these errors. This essay primarily focuses on avoiding
errors that occur in our daily life situations.
The great philosopher, Aristotle used to think that women
have fewer teeth than men. But in reality, it is not true. If he had ever
counted the teeth of his wife, he would have known the right answer. So, the
writer wants to say that we go on uttering silly and baseless opinions without
verifying them.
We are very narrow-minded people, and that’s the reason why
we don’t believe in sound knowledge. We should broaden our minds by traveling
to new places, meeting intellectual people, learning from useful books, and
searching for reality.
We don’t make decisions according to a logical base and for
that, we always get negative results. So, if we are not sure about our
conclusions, we must seek useful counseling from other experienced people.
If we consider ourselves superior and others useless, then
we might not like to listen to them. And it is not a good moral principle of
life. Instead, we should respect every people equally, and give them a chance
to place their opinions wisely.
When the situation is difficult to perceive, we have to
compare our ideas and conclusions with others’ outcomes. If there are some
evidence and knowledge that we unknowingly missed grasping, there will be no
wrong to understand them.
Learning others’ powerful ideas and philosophies makes us
less dogmatic. If we believe only what we know is true, then we always remain at
last finding the actual reality.
Fear and prejudice always create solid obstacles while
discovering the truth and reality. Thus, we always should practice developing a
great personality, and never lose our common sense while delivering our
content.
| Interpretation
People don’t like making mistakes, still, they make mistakes
knowingly and unknowingly. So, the writer wants to say that, if we want to be
free from committing nonsense and silly mistakes, we should develop our
knowledge database.
Humans are rational, logical, and intellectual. That’s why
we are seeing great inventions, discoveries, artistic things, brain-challenging
theories, undying philosophies, and visionary thoughts.
But many people don’t care about those achievements and are
straightforward to lie. They are always ready to destroy and betray each other
by any means.
Thus, it is important to save our world by teaching people
how to use their common senses.
| Critical
Thinking
The writer says we follow the scientific reasoning process
when we came to the conclusion. And it is obviously a good idea to reduce
error. Still, need to present some of my doubtful questions.
Humans are not machines, so how could we be completely free
from errors? Is it possible to follow the scientific reasoning process at any
time, and can everyone be taught about this?
How can we know if it was an error or not? If I found the
same conclusions as another one got, then it will be pretty convincing for both
of us. Still, if that was wrong there is no way we could be aware of that.
It doesn’t matter how convincing the writer sounds, it is
still impossible to maintain an error-free life as he describes.
| Assimilation
This essay gives us lots of ideas about different types of
errors and their impactful solutions too. I started to realize my past mistakes
and feel shame for being such unreasonable with my friends.
I started to respect everyone’s attempts and wise thoughts.
I also came to know why people make mistakes. And I stopped mocking others for
making mistakes, rather I now educate them on how to minimize their daily
mistakes.