Someone recently expressed their appreciation of my ability to speak intelligently on a variety of topics in public. About that, I like to sound smart, and I like to think that people appreciate me for my ability to articulate complex ideas. At the same time, I don't want to come off as a smarmy know-it-all. And since I know with certainty that I don't know everything, I also want to avoid projecting undue confidence when talking about topics that I'm fairly shaky on. I also want to remain aware of the possibility that I'm actually wrong about things that I hold with strong conviction. A two dollar phrase I use to convey this idea and to sound smart (or at least educated) is "epistemological humility."

I want to hold open the possibility that I could revise my opinion on any topic, even though that's probably not true. Not instantaneously anyway. When I was a child, I believed in God. When I was in my early teens I decided that God was a harmful fiction that humans used to exercise power over other humans. In my late teens and early 20s, I took large doses of psychedelic drugs and had experiences that, at the time, seemed to render my atheistic convictions irrelevant. Now, I can't summon up the visceral texture of those experiences. I can only remember what I said about them to myself and to others afterwards. It's like I'm consulting a transcript.

If I can go from believer to disbeliever to someone who cares little for belief or disbelief and then, eventually, to someone so distant from all those states that my memories of them seem like a written report submitted from a far off country that is supposed to be my homeland but which I can barely remember, then it seems like I should be able to change any opinion or ideological conviction. Maybe I can, but not immediately, and not on command. The change in my opinions about the existence of God, my evolving political beliefs, fervently held desires that have dissipated over time, these are not instances of my using logic and will-power to deliberately overwrite my own cognitive processes. The way I think, feel, believe, speak and experience the world has changed over time in response to my lived experience and to the ideas that other people have articulated and either expressed directly or embedded in entertaining narratives.

My mind changed. I don't take credit for it. I didn't autonomously decide what it was that I would believe and value and then execute that decision with superhuman powers of self control. I've just noticed that, over time, things change. And I'm a thing.

But when it comes to talking about stuff in a public forum, which I do regularly in order to maintain an income, I fall back on a few familiar strategies which allow me to present myself in a favorable light while exploring a variety of topics on which I am no expert without stepping on too many landmines and ending up looking ridiculous. Here are a few such techniques that occur to me in this moment.

When introducing a provocative idea, do so in the context of paraphrasing someone else's presentation of that idea. "I remember back in the 1980s, when liberals and Democrats used to play up the dangers of nuclear war to make Republicans look bad, Carl Sagan went on TV and described the possibility of a nuclear winter in which the smoke from burning cities would block out so much sunlight that the temperature of the Earth would drop dramatically and stay that way for years. People who weren't killed by the blasts or the radiation would starve in the millions from failed harvests."

See what I did there? Since the 80s, this notion of nuclear winter has fallen out of favor, and Sagan had his scientific detractors even back then, but I'm not responsible for the nuclear winter theory being correct. It's not my idea. I'm just referencing Carl Sagan. I made a political point before I even mentioned Sagan. There was a time, in my lifetime, when militarism was more strongly associated with the Republican Party, and Democrats imagined themselves to be the party of peace. You don't hear much talk like that from 21st Century Neoliberal Democrats. These days, that anti-war stuff is associated with the lunatic fringe, but really none of that is open for consideration right now because the topic here isn't that Democrats are useless shitheads, I'm just providing some context around Carl Sagan's articulation of the possibility of nuclear winter. I can now proceed to speak as if the idea was a demonstrated certainty. Maybe it's not, and if the person I'm talking to raises valid objections to it, no skin off my nose. They may have scored some points on Carl Sagan, but I'm sitting pretty.

With uncomfortable frequency, I can't remember where I encountered a given idea, A book I read in high school, a movie, an interview I conducted a few years back.  No matter, I just say, "I don't remember whose idea this is, but I'm reminded of..." From a not-getting-caught-with-your-pants-down perspective, this is even better than introducing something as a specific person's brainchild. If it sounds good, then I sound smart and articulate as I reconstruct it on the fly in conversation, but if it's found wanting, again, no points scored against me. I didn't champion the idea, I just coaxed it out into the light to be subjected to a none-too-gentle examination. But if it stands up to scrutiny, if it's a solid idea, hey, you heard it from me, and you'll probably associate it with me going forward.

And then there's self-deprecation. A little goes a long way, but you can lay it on really thick, and if you do so with snark or what seems like casual cynicism, then it comes off as self-assurance. But beware, self-deprecation can go wrong. If you fail to pair it with clever conversation and demonstrations of cognitive acumen, it can come off as ineffectual flattery or just the sad recognition of your own obvious inadequacy.