I Don't Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance and Doubt (Except When You Shouldn't)

Leah Hager Cohen

Sep 2013 · Ascent Audio · Narrated by Karen Saltus

About this audiobook

A short, concise audiobook in favor of honoring doubt and admitting when the answer is: I don't know. In a tight, enlightening narrative, Leah Hager Cohen explores why, so often, we attempt to hide our ignorance, and why, in so many different areas, we would be better off coming clean. Weaving entertaining, anecdotal reporting with eye-opening research, she considers both the ramifications of and alternatives to this ubiquitous habit in arenas as varied as education, finance, medicine, politics, warfare, trial courts, and climate change. But it's more than just encouraging listeners to confess their ignorance-Cohen proposes that we have much to gain by embracing uncertainty. Three little words can in fact liberate and empower, and increase the possibilities for true communication. So much becomes possible when we honor doubt.

About the author

Leah Hager Cohen, a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, established herself as a serious writer in 1994 with her nonfiction book, Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World. Chosen by the American Library Association as one of the best books of 1994, Inside a Deaf World details what it was like growing up as a hearing child around deaf children. Cohen's first fiction novel, Heat Lightning, is a coming-of-age story told from the point of view of two sisters, ages eleven and twelve, who have to deal with the death of their parents.