Honesty For Dumbasses: A Glamour Magazine Quiz

Page 42, the June issue of Glamour. Question 3 of a quiz described as “You Golden-Tongued Devil! (How to make anybody do anything by talking straight)”: At a dinner party, a Ralph Fiennes type asks what you think of the USA’s policy in Israel. You’re worried about showing your ignorance, so you:

A: Waffle with conviction
B: Say you can see both the Israeli and Palestinian point of view (even though you know neither)
C: Say, “I really don’t know for sure what the USA’s policy is”

The correct answer is apparently C. “In reality, what we don’t know completely outweighs what we do know about the world. People will respect your honesty.”

It didn’t perhaps occur to the writer of this quiz that some Glamour readers may actually have an informed view on US policy in Israel? I agree unreservedly that what I don’t know about the world completely outweighs what I do, but this is hardly an obscure issue. Anyone who reads the newspapers and has a modicum of intelligence should be able to put a view forward that doesn’t involve ignorance.

Mind you, if he really was a Ralph Fiennes type, I expect I’d be too entranced by his piercing blue eyes and noble, brooding brow to even register what he was saying to me at all, so I’m not sure what I’ve just been trying to prove.