Pundit's Disease

Daily News regular Steve Young has written an interesting column about an affliction that spreads like wildfire among those of us in the opinion-making business -- Smartest Person in the Room Disorder (or SPIRD):

It's a baffling psychosomatic disorder because being the smartest person in the room doesn't mean that you're actually the smartest person in the room. Only that you believe you are. It's not so much about being smart as feeling you're always right.

SPIRD symptoms include, but are not limited to: thinking you have all the answers; thinking you should know all the answers; bulging forehead blood vessels; a compulsion not only to shout down your adversaries, but finally to demonize or ruin them.

I must plead guilty to wrestling with this disorder and some of its symptoms at various points over the years, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If you're someone whose job or hobby is to publicly declare opinions -- whether in print, on the web, on the radio or even at the dinner table -- then, by definition, you're someone with opinions. More to the point, you're someone with reasonable confidence in your opinions, otherwise you'd be more inclined to keep them to yourself.

But how does one write, or talk, about deeply held beliefs in a way that is confident but not arrogant? How does one effectively make the case for one's beliefs while still maintaining a sense of humility, i.e., "Take this all with a grain of salt, because I'm just some schmo and I very well could be wrong"?

I ask the question because I truly don't know the answer -- a sign, I suppose, that for this moment, anyway, I've got my SPIRD under check. I also have had the experience of being tragically, spectacularly wrong, and that will do plenty to temper one's sense of intellectual superiority.

I suppose that we are each presented with unique temptations in life tailored to our state and temperament. The accountant, given his position, may especially feel the lure to embezzle; the rock star to philander; the salesman to lie. For the editorialist, the temptation is intellectual vanity.

For all the times I've acted like a know-it-all jerk -- past and, sigh, probably future -- my apologies.