No More Hedging

I considered hedging by clarifying I don’t support giving a platform to those who promote hatred or harm.

As part of my newly-forming life philosophy, I’ve decided to give up hedging.

We often feel the need to add qualifiers ( hedges) to clarify exactly what we mean. This added nuance is harder to attack.

For example, I could assert:

Depending on the social environment, I might also decide to hedge the statement:

My hedge clarifies exactly which kind of people we should engage, in case anyone takes issue with my original assertion.

I see two reasonable motivations to hedge:

In all other instances, I despise hedging.

Great people have historically never hedged their revolutionary ideas.

Plus, life is far more fun not hedging.

We clarify because we second-guess negative reception. When we constantly consider what others may think, we create our own anxiety.

We stop truly believing our own world views.

On the cosmic scale, nothing we do matters.

The eventual heat death of our galaxy doesn’t care we said something silly that one time. Deep down, humans already know this. We place meaning in things we decide matter such as getting a good job or being successful.

It makes life worth living.

Developing the courage to speak without hedges allows us to live a more meaningful life because at the very least: this chosen belief is ours, not someone else’s.

Needing to hedge everything in controversial topics seems tedious to me. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, my worldview is almost definitely wrong.

If I start hedging, I place myself into a debating mindset. Debating necessitates a winner and loser. This is in stark contrast to a friendly discussion that seeks to simply find the truth. When we need to be right, we hold onto beliefs too strongly, even in the presence of valid contradictory evidence.

This propagates societal cracks.

Secondly, I refuse to waste effort appeasing people who would automatically assume the worst.

Life is too short to allow them to live in my head rent-free. I can spend more time listening to people whose values I respect, which is crucial as I am never right.

They understand the scope of my beliefs does not extend towards harm, so I am eager to learn from them on how to improve my views.

I’ve noticed girls hedge more than boys.

I’m pretty sure this is because guys overestimate and girls vastly underestimate themselves. Girls also tend to be a lot more empathetic — considering their words from many different viewpoints.

Though this is admirable, I fear hedging can water down great ideas — leading to them being unintentionally misinterpreted.

However, I can’t relate to women’s lived experiences and I’m blind to numerous barriers others face. There may be many more reasons as to why someone might hedge. I’m very unsure about this and would love to hear your thoughts ( hit reply or DM me)!

Statements can get hedged so much that we end up saying nothing. Life is a lot more exciting when leaving ideas open and inviting discussion.

Peace,

Anchit x

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