Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There is a phrase I’ve always liked: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

It’s a remarkably humble little sentence. It reminds us that the universe is considerably larger than our personal experience, that other people have lived lives we haven’t lived, seen things we haven’t seen, and learned lessons we haven’t had the privilege—or misfortune—to learn.

Unfortunately, we live in America in 2026, where humility has apparently been classified as a character defect.

We have smartphones.

Therefore, we know everything.

At least that seems to be the theory.

We carry around a tiny computer capable of accessing more information than the Library of Alexandria could have dreamed about, and somehow we’ve interpreted that technological miracle as evidence that we personally are experts on everything.

Politics? Expert.

Medicine? Expert.

Economics? Expert.

Military strategy? Absolutely.

Immigration? Expert.

Climate science? Expert.

The Middle East? Expert.

Constitutional law? Expert.

What happened in a country we’ve never visited? Expert.

What an entire religion, culture, ethnic group, political party or foreign nation supposedly thinks? Expert.

And if Google happens to produce a result that confirms what we already believed, congratulations: We have just completed our doctoral dissertation.

“See? I told you I was right.”

That’s not knowledge.

That’s confirmation bias with Wi-Fi.

The problem isn’t that information is unavailable. The problem is that information isn’t understanding.

You can Google the history of Vietnam without understanding what it feels like to be Vietnamese.

You can read about poverty without knowing what it feels like to wonder whether the electricity is going to be shut off.

You can look up immigration statistics without understanding what it feels like to leave the only country you’ve ever known because you’re terrified your children won’t survive there.

You can read about war without ever hearing artillery in the distance.

You can look up racism without ever experiencing discrimination.

You can read about homelessness without understanding what it feels like to have nowhere to go.

And you can read ten thousand articles about another country without ever understanding what it feels like to actually live there.

That’s the part we seem to have forgotten.

Americans Are Not Automatically the Good Guys

There’s another uniquely American assumption we might want to reconsider:

Everybody loves us.

Why wouldn’t they?

We’re America!

We’re the greatest country on Earth!

Everybody wants to be like us!

They probably all dream of eating hamburgers, watching the Super Bowl and someday owning a 75-inch television while arguing about politics on Facebook.

Except… no.

If you’ve traveled internationally, you learn something pretty quickly:

America is not universally adored.

And frankly, why would it be?

We’ve done some pretty shitty things.

We’ve invaded countries.

We’ve supported governments that were convenient for us even when they weren’t particularly good for the people living under them.

We’ve interfered in other nations’ politics.

We’ve conducted military operations that killed civilians.

We’ve supported dictators when it suited our interests.

We’ve made decisions based on geopolitical strategy, economics, power and ideology that looked considerably different from the perspective of people on the receiving end.

And yes, America has also done extraordinary things.

We’ve helped rebuild nations.

We’ve provided humanitarian assistance.

We’ve defended allies.

We’ve created extraordinary technological and scientific advances.

We’ve welcomed millions of immigrants.

We’ve contributed enormously to medicine, science, culture and democracy.

Both things can be true.

America can be a remarkable country and still have a remarkably ugly history.

Those ideas aren’t mutually exclusive.

In fact, perhaps genuine patriotism requires being able to acknowledge both.

Because if your definition of patriotism requires believing your country has never done anything wrong, that’s not patriotism.

That’s nationalism wearing a flag as camouflage.

Perspective Is a Humbling Thing

Imagine being born somewhere else.

Just for a moment.

You didn’t choose your country.

You didn’t choose your parents.

You didn’t choose your language.

You didn’t choose your religion.

You didn’t choose the historical events that shaped your nation.

You didn’t choose whether your country was rich or poor.

You didn’t choose whether your grandparents survived a war.

You didn’t choose whether your homeland was colonized.

You didn’t choose whether a foreign military once occupied your city.

You didn’t choose any of it.

Yet somehow we expect people everywhere to see the world through our particular windshield.

And when they don’t, we’re shocked.

“How could they possibly think that?”

Maybe because they have a different history.

Maybe because they learned different lessons.

Maybe because something we consider heroic is something they remember as devastating.

Maybe because their grandparents told them stories about America that weren’t included in our fourth-grade history books.

That’s the uncomfortable thing about history:

There are usually at least two sides to the story, and sometimes both sides have receipts.

Empathy Doesn’t Require Agreement

This is where collective empathy comes in.

Empathy doesn’t mean agreeing with everybody.

It doesn’t mean pretending that every opinion is equally valid.

It doesn’t mean abandoning your principles.

It simply means being capable of saying:

“I don’t understand this person’s experience, but maybe I should try before I judge it.”

That’s it.

That’s the revolutionary concept.

Maybe we don’t have to immediately categorize someone as stupid, evil, lazy, ignorant, socialist, fascist, woke, racist, privileged, radical or whatever convenient little box we’ve invented this week.

Maybe we could actually listen.

Maybe the person screaming about immigration has never actually spoken to an immigrant.

Maybe the person screaming about poverty has never been poor.

Maybe the person screaming about crime has never lived in a neighborhood where crime is a daily reality.

Maybe the person dismissing someone’s fear has never had that particular fear.

Maybe the person insisting that another country “hates America” has never bothered to ask anyone from that country.

And maybe—just maybe—we should stop assuming that our personal experience is the universal human experience.

Google Can’t Give You Perspective

Technology has given us something previous generations never had: instantaneous access to information.

But we’ve confused access to information with possession of knowledge.

Google can tell you what happened.

It can’t necessarily tell you what it meant.

It can give you statistics.

It can’t make you feel the consequences behind them.

It can show you someone’s words.

It can’t automatically give you the context behind those words.

And it certainly can’t make you care.

That’s our job.

Empathy is still analog.

You have to talk to people.

You have to listen.

You have to travel.

You have to read things written by people who don’t agree with you.

You have to occasionally admit that the person you despise might have a legitimate reason for believing what they believe.

And perhaps most importantly, you have to occasionally say:

“I don’t know.”

Those three words might be among the most intellectually honest words in the English language.

I don’t know.

I might be wrong.

I haven’t experienced that.

I hadn’t considered that.

Tell me more.

Imagine if those became common phrases again.

Imagine an America where being uncertain wasn’t considered weakness.

Where changing your mind wasn’t considered losing.

Where learning something new wasn’t an admission that you were stupid.

Where saying, “I don’t know what I don’t know,” was considered the beginning of wisdom rather than the end of an argument.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:

We are all walking around with incomplete information.

We all have blind spots.

We all have biases.

We all have experiences that distort our understanding of other people’s experiences.

And no smartphone is going to fix that.

No search engine can give you a lifetime of someone else’s experiences.

No algorithm can substitute for compassion.

And no amount of being absolutely convinced you’re right changes the possibility that you’re missing something.

Maybe that’s the humility we need.

Not “I’m wrong about everything.”

Just:

“I might not know everything.”

Because there is a gigantic difference between being informed and being wise.

And if we’re ever going to become a more compassionate society, perhaps we should start by accepting that the person standing across from us isn’t necessarily an idiot simply because they see the world differently.

They might know something we don’t.

They might have lived something we haven’t.

They might understand something our little glowing rectangle hasn’t taught us.

And maybe, instead of immediately reaching for Google to prove them wrong, we could do something far more difficult.

We could listen.

Because sometimes the most important things we don’t know aren’t sitting somewhere on the internet.

They’re inside another human being.