the typology of accusation

Milan Kundera, in his work The Festival of Insignificance, presents us with a revealing dichotomy:

“To feel guilty or not. I think everything comes down to this. Life is a struggle of everyone against everyone. This is known. But how does this struggle unfold in a more or less civilized society? People cannot throw themselves against each other as soon as they meet. Instead, they try to cast the disgrace of guilt on the other. The one who manages to make the other feel guilty will win. The one who confesses their error loses. You’re walking down the street, absorbed in your thoughts. Walking in your direction, a girl, as if she were alone in the world, without looking left or right, advances straight ahead. You bump into each other. And here is the moment of truth. Who will insult the other, and who will apologize? It’s a model situation: in reality, each of the two is both the disturbed and the disturber. However, there are those who immediately, spontaneously, consider themselves as disturbers, that is, as guilty. And there are others who always see themselves immediately, spontaneously, as disturbed, that is, within their rights, ready to accuse the other and have them punished. In this situation, would you apologize or accuse?”

“I would certainly apologize.”

“Ah, poor you, you belong, consequently, also to the army of apologizers. You think you can flatter the other through your apologies.”

“Exactly.”

“And you are mistaken. Those who apologize declare themselves guilty. And if you declare yourself guilty, you encourage the other to continue insulting you, to denounce you publicly, until your death. These are the fatal consequences of the first apology.”

Typically, the accusers Kundera speaks of are people who have more certainties than doubts. By never questioning their own responsibility and guilt, they readily accuse. They blame something or someone for their misfortunes and discomfort. Interestingly, these same certainties lead accusers to take full and absolute credit for their victories and achievements. They are certain of others’ defeats and their own victories. It seems easy to live this way, but at what cost to truth, growth, and genuine human connection?

On the other hand, the apologizers appear to have a symbiotic relationship with permanent doubt: “Was I the one who bumped into them?” To their misfortune, repeated doubt progressively becomes certainty: “It was certainly me. It was my fault, as usual.”

Kundera makes it clear that one group creates, feeds, and legitimizes the other. I agree. However, contrary to what seems clear in the novel, I don’t believe the solution is to enlist in either of these two armies. Virtue should be found somewhere between these extremes.

the value of doubt in an age of certainty

“I know that I know nothing” is the famous and often misquoted phrase attributed to Socrates, the Greek who lived more than 2,400 years ago. The Athenian claimed that only in relation to doubt and ignorance can we be certain; awareness of one’s own ignorance was, therefore, the ultimate virtue. Clearly, this idea didn’t catch on. Security, the illusion of knowing, and the pretense of judging others wrong is where the sensation of safety and confidence is found.

In fact, isn’t the escape from doubt and the unknown one of the reasons for science’s existence? Science, differing from philosophy or art, exists to transform questions into answers. In science, a question that remains unanswered is failed work. Certainly, the answers found should generate new questions, but the sensation left by the answers we find, often, or in many people, especially non-scientists, is that of cessation of the need to ask again. A confident and conclusive answer kills uncertainty, doubt, and insecurity which, in the right dose, guarantee tolerance and acceptance. Socrates was absolutely secure in his intellectual humility, which implies some insecurity.

Contemporary society and culture are prolific in creating accusers. Increasingly, we are less tolerant of doubt and uncertainty. We need to have everything clear, always. Only then will we be recognized and rewarded, one might think. When the inability to question oneself prevails, “the other” always appears, conveniently, to bear the blame and mistakes.

the digital reinforcement of certainty

The mechanisms are there, in plain sight and in our hands—more specifically in our thumbs. For example, social media and the algorithms that feed their timelines lead us to see more, or only, information that aligns with our interests and viewpoints, creating what researchers now call “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers.” These digital environments seal us within worlds that mirror and amplify our existing beliefs. Thus, these networks and other information vehicles reinforce our certainties, with our consent. Moreover, they demand that we choose who and what to “follow.”

Conversations, from what we read in etiquette and good manners manuals of the time, were considered places of learning where respect was not just practiced but cultivated. Patience, respect for time, for others’ prominence, and for ideas were virtues turned into conduct.

It’s interesting to note how much has changed in this regard. Television is flooded with debate programs (conversation?) about football, which today has as much or more “media weight” than religion had one or two centuries ago. The same happens with political debate and commentary. In both types of programs, conversation is very different from what we get from descriptions of what happened in Parisian salons, in British nobles’ mansions, and in European capitals’ cafés where conversations and gatherings took place. Overlapping, attack, distortion prevail, often crossing the boundary of good manners. The objective is to win. All that matters is defeating the adversary, staining their image if there’s an opportunity for it, tinting their ideas through manipulation. All this is very different from what was intended from conversation in the past.¹ Before, learning, building, and evolving were the objectives of conversing. In fact, a conversation to be good couldn’t have an objective, except to enrich the conversation itself. And that meant everyone participating could come out richer.

When everyone seeks to enrich everyone, without force, there are no adversaries. The solution lies in something close to the exercise a historian dedicates themselves to. Those who study history seek to approach the ideas, intentions, and feelings of people from the past. Due to the distance time imprints, the object of historians’ study is necessarily different from themselves. The effort required to understand and accept that people who lived before us thought differently could help train and strengthen the “muscles” of tolerance and acceptance of difference. On the other hand, they could help make rigid and immovable certainties and convictions more flexible.

We all need to read a bit more history, and think like historians.² We need to invest more energy in asking more questions. We need to spend less time always having ready answers in the form of accusation. After all, as Maurice Blanchot tells us: “the answer is the misfortune of the question.”

the salt test: a case of certainty

I recall reading about a fascinating psychological observation that categorized two types of people regarding the intersection between adaptability and need for control. One of the examples described related to salt usage “at the table.” People who asked for salt before tasting the food were observed to be more rigid regarding their preconceptions and opinions. They were also perceived by others as more secure and confident. However, they were the ones more prone to authoritarianism, arrogance, and intolerance. Since they were “certain” it would be necessary, they asked for salt without needing to know if there was a real need. The second type of people, those who, eventually, salt their plate after a taste, were seen as having greater capacity for adaptation and improvisation. The first ones “mold” the world to satisfy their needs while the second ones “mold themselves” more easily according to the conditions the world presents them. It remains to be seen which of these types of people might contribute more to changing the world we live in. I know where I place my chips, because I believe the solution will not be in control.

In the work world, I believe the combination of these phenomena with hierarchical stratification and the power games inherent to it leads many professional contexts to become spaces that degrade our well-being or even our health, physical and mental. Truth is more present on the higher floors, and those who inhabit them become experts at pointing out the errors of those who live below. All this seems to be fueled by the fear of being deceived or by the presumption that others are not mature and intelligent enough to think for themselves. The result is seen in dependency, in the shirking of responsibility. In short, those above always know the right amount of salt, for themselves and for others; the conviction is so strong that they may even throw salt on wounds that this way of being helps create.

curiosity as antidote: the flame we need to nurture

How many times have you encountered someone who “knows” what’s best for others? How often—and forgive the provocation—do you “know” what’s best for others with absolute certainty? And how irritating is it when others presume to know what’s best for you? If these questions seem to lead to contradictory answers, that’s not an error. It appears to happen quite often: we know what’s better for others yet dislike when others tell us they know what’s better for us.

This phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the corporate world, but there we find numerous examples. Typically, in my experience and that of many colleagues, we encounter such people inhabiting human resources departments or in positions that involve leading others. ³

Curiosity’s fire triangle: heat, fuel, and oxidizer

To understand how curiosity can serve as an antidote to unhealthy certainty, consider how it requires three essential elements, much like fire requires heat, fuel, and oxygen. Drawing from psychoanalytic thinking, particularly Paul Stokoe’s development of Wilfred Bion’s work,⁴ we can understand curiosity as requiring its own triangle of elements: heat (curiosity itself), fuel (humility), and oxidizer (confidence).

Curiosity as heat serves as the animating question—the heat that ignites the process. It is the initial spark that transforms potential into actuality. But this spark cannot catch or sustain itself in isolation.

Humility serves as the fuel. Just as wood, paper, or oil contain potential energy waiting to be released through combustion, humility contains the potential for new understanding. The moment we assume we no longer need to search—that we’ve gathered all there is to know—we deplete our fuel source. The fire of curiosity cannot burn where there is nothing left to consume. This explains why experts in any field face a peculiar challenge: the more expertise they accumulate, the more vigilantly they must cultivate humility to preserve their capacity for genuine discovery.

Confidence functions as the oxidizer—the element that activates and accelerates the reaction. Just as oxygen enables combustion without itself being consumed, confidence enables vulnerability without destroying the self. Curiosity demands exposure, the revelation of what one doesn’t know, and confidence provides the psychological oxygen to sustain this exposure. Without confidence, the admission of ignorance feels threatening rather than liberating, and curiosity suffocates.

The dynamics between these elements reveal further insights. Like actual fires, the curiosity triangle can manifest in various states:

• A smoldering curiosity occurs when heat (the initial question) meets sufficient fuel (humility) but lacks adequate oxidizer (confidence). This manifests as the person who harbors questions they never voice, who recognizes gaps in their understanding but feels unsafe acknowledging them. These embers of curiosity may persist for years, waiting for the right conditions to flame into active inquiry.
• Flash fires of curiosity erupt when heat and oxidizer meet in abundance with limited fuel—moments of intense questioning fueled by sufficient confidence but insufficient humility. These produce spectacular but brief illuminations—the quick, passionate investigation that exhausts itself when the inquirer too quickly believes they’ve found the answer.
• Sustainable, controlled burns emerge when all three elements exist in balance. This is curiosity at its most productive—persistent enough to transform understanding yet contained enough to direct its energy toward specific questions rather than consuming attention indiscriminately.

Just as firefighters understand that different types of fires require different suppression techniques, we might consider what extinguishes curiosity in its various forms. Common extinguishers include:

• The foam of mockery that smothers the confidence needed to ask questions
• The blanket of authority that cuts off the oxygen of independent inquiry
• The removal of incentive that depletes the fuel of continued investigation

What makes the curiosity triangle fascinating is its relationship to transformation. Physical fire converts matter from one state to another, releasing energy in the process. Similarly, curiosity transforms ignorance not into certainty, but into understanding—a distinction with profound implications. Certainty is static; understanding is dynamic. Certainty closes questions; understanding generates them. The energy released in this transformation manifests as intellectual vitality and emotional engagement—the lived experience of meaning-making.

In anxiogenic environments, this delicate triangle collapses entirely. Anxiety operates like a fire suppression system that indiscriminately floods the environment, eliminating all possibility of controlled burning. When survival mode activates, the organism cannot afford the luxury of curiosity—it requires immediate certainty, regardless of accuracy. This explains why chronically anxious systems—whether individual psyches or organizational cultures—tend toward rigidity rather than growth.

The cultivation of curiosity, then, becomes not merely an intellectual exercise but an ecological one—creating environments where the right conditions allow for the controlled, sustainable burning of questions that illuminate without consuming everything in their path.

This framing helps explain why some organizations unwittingly extinguish curiosity despite claiming to value it. They may provide the spark (incentives for innovation) and even the fuel (resources for exploration), but simultaneously remove the oxygen (psychological safety) necessary for the reaction to sustain itself. Similarly, educational systems might supply abundant oxygen (encouraging question-asking) and heat (presenting provocative problems), while depleting the fuel by implicitly teaching students that admitted ignorance represents failure rather than opportunity.

finding the middle way: between accusation and doubt

Not long ago, I had a conversation about vaccination, a divisive topic. Although I am in favor and have vaccinated all my children, in the middle of the conversation I was telling someone that “we needed to respect, even if not agreeing” with those who didn’t want to do the same to theirs. The response from the other side came full of certainties, intolerance of my idea, and was configured into an almost accusation of my own position: “excuse me, but those who don’t vaccinate put others at risk, and whoever lets that happen does the same!”

My reaction was to give up on the discussion. I didn’t do it because of the forcefulness of the arguments used but because of the intuition that it would be fruitless. I was annoyed, as I realized the other person didn’t understand they were being obtuse in their judgments. To be honest, this reaction of mine wasn’t born of doubt or uncertainty. It arose from the conviction that accepting different opinions and actions was the right option. At that moment, I became as much of a “know-it-all” as my interlocutor; I became inflexible regarding my stance of accepting opinions different from mine. I became what I seek to combat and what I began by criticizing at the beginning of this text.

Therefore, it’s not enough to taste the food to see if salt is needed. We must educate our palate for new flavors, and for that, we must experience them. We won’t get there with theories or manifestos. Acceptance and tolerance are practiced knowing, above all, that these principles, when taken to an extreme, become their opposite.

The relationships—both personal and professional—that endure and thrive are those whose participants remain curious about others (and about themselves); where they don’t fix on absolute explanations about themselves, the other, and the relationship. Curiosity can emerge from interest in knowing more and better about the other, who, like us, is constantly changing. The ability to relativize experience or even to “forget,” to selectively and consciously erase memory, creates space for new explanations and new experiences. Thus, a certain type of “amnesia” can drive curiosity.

There is a long road ahead for me. There is a long road ahead for humanity.

This essay combines and expands upon ideas originally published in Portuguese as “Os Acusadores: um retrato contemporâneo” (February 27, 2019), “Certezas e Dúvidas” (June 9, 2020), and “Abraçar a curiosidade” (April 14, 2021). While the mechanisms of certainty and accusation continue to evolve, especially in our digital landscape, the philosophical questions about how we approach doubt remain timeless—even more urgent in our current moment. As historian D. Graham Burnett notes in his reflection on AI and the humanities,⁵ we now face systems that offer “Ph.D.-level competence” across virtually all domains of knowledge, promising answers without the uncertainties that have traditionally characterized human thought. Yet these certainties need to be questioned deeply, for “to be human is not to have answers. It is to have questions—and to live with them.” In a world where algorithms increasingly reinforce our certainties rather than challenge them, cultivating the courage to doubt and the flame of curiosity becomes an act of resistance.⁶