Keeping Errors At Bay - Four level interpretation

Bertrand Russell, England (1872 – 1970)

Literal Comprehension: This essay by Bertrand Russell provides multiple examples of mistakes that people generally commit in their day to day life.

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and edited by Samit Sah

His main idea is to provide suggestions to avoid the mistakes. We need a careful, serious, critical and analytical mind to get rid of these errors. If there is evidence and knowledge, there will be no wrong understanding. Visiting different places and observing societies of the world also helps us to purify our own opinions. This essay deals with the ideas of avoiding errors that happen in our daily life situations. We can remove many foolish opinions by observing the related facts. When observations are impossible, we have to compare our ideas with those of the others.  Knowing others' ideas makes us less dogmatic. If we have a one-sided idea about anything, we will not find out the truth, such a situation, we will make our good points more important. Fear and prejudice of different types create obstacles from learning the truth or reality. So we should be very careful while doing any work. We should not take anything as granted without proper observation.

Interpretation: To err is human but to make a mistake is not excusable. Humans make errors knowingly or having known about that error is not human. This is somewhat punishable also. We cannot find the truth without proper understanding. The essay tries to tell us why human beings are unable to see the truth. They do not see the matter. They have the illusion that they know everything without knowing it properly. It says that we have some mistakes and generally we do not compare our ideas with that of others. We unnecessarily feel pride and ignore things. Therefore, we commit crimes or errors. This is human but to make a mistake knowingly cannot be human. There are solutions for errors but not knowingly committing mistakes. 

Critical Thinking: Russell gives very concrete idea about errors and their solutions. He says how and why we do errors and how can we correct them. After reading this story I came to know and have some questions. The essayist has presented a scientific way of thinking. By comparing and contrasting, we can judge our own ideas. I agree with many things which the essayist says but there are some questions in my mind. Who can remain without doing any error? How can one know that it is error and this not? Can we change our mind not to doing errors? Why people cannot find out the fact easily? How we can compare such things to those of the others? What are the forms of the truth? How to know that whose idea is right or wrong? Because of these reasons generally people commit errors in life.

Assimilation: Generally, whatever we do, we think it is right in our sense. This essay gave me lots of ideas about errors and their types as well as their solution to solve problem I started to realize my mistakes in my life as I sometimes used to stubborn and think everything right. I started to honor other’s ideas. I also came to know why people mistake while making ideas. A wise man should look at the things from different sides. We should be comparative and multi-dimensional perspectives should be used. I came to know that we can do errors in every work and  every time but that is only found out after its proper judgment.