Healthy Relationships > Communication > Dealing With Know It Alls

Dealing With Know-It-Alls
By C.V. Doner PhD

We all know them. Those people who seem to think they know everything - the proverbial "know-it-all." Not only are they never wrong, but they also tend to be judgmental, condescending, haughty and bossy. In other words, full of themselves (or something else)! To boot, they're seemingly unaware of other people or at least of other people's feelings or perspectives.

In conversation, they never seem to tire of talking about themselves or their ideas or instructing you on how to improve or change yours. Asking what you think never crosses their mind. They are always ready to tell you how to run your life or how to think about almost every conceivable subject. And of course, they do all this without taking note of the glaring gaps in their own life, relationships, etc. They seem able to automatically cue into your weakness, while being blind to their own personality flaws - especially their overwhelming self-confidence.

Amazingly, these usually bright people (many are from the "helping professions," i.e. pastors, priests, counselors, teachers, etc.) are some of the least self-aware people that you'll ever care to meet. One possible reason for their avoidance of the rigorous self-examination that self-awareness demands is to avoid peering into the terrible void of their own insecurities. To do so would not only force them to face and possibly work on the source of their insecurities (childhood traumas, multiple rejections and failures, etc, etc.), it might even destroy their carefully constructed self image - a wall of confidence seemingly so strong it fools even themselves. And for these folks their "image" is really all they have or at least all they think they have. To acknowledge a chink in their armor, a missing brick in the wall is to risk, like Humpty Dumpty, their undoing. So, they keep themselves together by fanatically pursuing whatever they believe their "mission" to be, which is often something like helping or "enlightening" others, or "setting the standard" for their field of endeavor. Whatever their "calling" may be, you can be sure that with each pronouncement out of their mouth, they feel increased righteousness and a renewed sense of dedication to straighten everyone else out.

By now you may be wondering, "can we say anything positive here?" Well, at least many of these people enjoy a true competence in their field, which might help justify arrogance in their given expertise. In other words, the recipient of an Oscar, Emmy, Pulitzer or Nobel Prize at least has a rationale to be arrogant but only in their own field of specialty. Unfortunately, many successful people, whether they are trial lawyers, medical professionals, CEO's or ministers seem to think that because they are an expert in one area - they are infallible in all. For example: doctors, ministers, actors and professional athletes are known to be some of the worst investors in the world. Why? They think their expertise carries over to business, when in fact it doesn't. And please, don't give a super successful businessman a few books on politics or theology and expect him not to be an expert on the topic!

Feeling their successes are universally transferable, they aren't shy when it comes to telling you what to do with your life. Incidentally, you may wonder why I left out the most obvious category of arrogant would-be-experts telling you how to run your life -politicians. It wasn't an oversight. I simply assumed that nobody takes their statements seriously. Unless of course, it happens to be your favorite politician or a member of your party, in which case they are no doubt an unblemished fount of objectivity, virtue and truth!

What may be even more vexing is when someone, especially in your own family, neighborhood, circle of friends or office, suffers a case of their arrogance being exceeded only by their own ignorance. There seems to be an endless supply of narrow-minded, obscurantist, fundamentalist religious leaders (of all persuasions), cults and scientists who want to tell you exactly "how it is." They will pontificate until the end of days, explaining the truth about God, life and your destiny. They will do this without entertaining any exceptions, questions, alternatives, logic or evidence that may contradict their own theories. Ironically, they are usually unaware of or worse, uninterested in, alternative worldviews or paradigms.

The inflexible insistence of the Islamic, Christian, Evolutionist, or Atheist fundamentalist is based on the naïve conception that only they are capable of knowing TRUTH in its true, unadulterated form. But of course, this isn't possible because even assuming they held before them God's objective truth, their own mind set (formed by their culture and its various notions and traditions) would render them incapable of understanding objective truth without interpreting it through their own worldview "lens" or "filter." Worse yet, these folks usually continue to reinforce their dogmatic view through their reading habits - studying or accepting only that which reinforces rather than challenges or contradicts their preconceived notions. Consequently, they remain blissfully ignorant of key assumptions essential to their theories, often including the history of their own thought traditions.

Bottom Line: next time someone behind a lectern, pulpit or your fencepost presumes to have a monopoly on the truth, begin running for cover. A true teacher will admit even their strongest held beliefs are only personal opinions and may or may not be true. They will also acknowledge that they have changed their opinions many times over the years and will hopefully continue to do so. Finally, they will respectfully point out the various schools of thought or experts that disagree with them and encourage you to entertain a variety of different views. Above all, a wise teacher should display charity toward those with different ideas and admit that there may be information that they have not yet been able to comprehend or apply. They are simply doing their best with what they have and are willing to humbly share it with you.