Please, tell me you don't know.

“I don’t always agree with me,” says Tim Kreider of his own writing. I like that.  I think there is value in writing, even when you haven’t yet resolved the issue being explored.  He continues on this theme. 

The one thing no editorialist or commentator in any media is ever supposed to say is I don’t know: that they’re too ignorant about the science of climate change to have an informed opinion; that they frankly have no idea what to do about gun violence in this country; or that they’ve just never quite understood the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in all honesty they’re sick of hearing about it. To admit to ignorance, uncertainty or ambivalence is to cede your place on the masthead, your slot on the program, and allow all the coveted eyeballs to turn instead to the next hack who’s more than happy to sell them all the answers. 

I don’t completely agree with that.  The part I don't agree with is that all writers are like that.  I follow some writers who don’t proclaim to have all the answers.  But I could stand to see more “I don’t know.”  Ta-NehisiCoates is one writer who is open about what he doesn’t know, and below he expresses some unusual ideas about writing.

[To write for others], you have to actually be curious. You have to not just want to be heard, but want to listen. [David] Brooks makes the point that the detached writer's role should be "more like teaching than activism." I would say that it should be more like learning than teaching. The stuff you put on the page should be the byproduct of all you are taking in -- and that taking in should not end after you get a degree from a selective university. Keep going. You must keep going.

Some times I look at what I post here and wonder, what am I doing?  Even if it doesn't look like it, learning and curiosity are a big part of it.