Author(s): Klosterman Chuck

Culture & Ideas

'But What if We're Wrong?' is a book of original, reported, interconnected pieces that speculate on the likelihood that many of our universally accepted, deeply engrained cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Looking at our present-day society as we consider past civilisations, Klosterman points to a profound and simple idea: what if one day our thinking is as hopelessly outdated as that of that Middle Ages? Using a range of original interviews with a wide variety of thinkers, including George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Ross, Kathryn Schulz and Neil deGrasse Tyson, 'But What If We're Wrong?' makes an irreverent and thought provoking critique of our assumptions: How certain is our understanding of gravity? What do we really know about time? What will be the defining cultural moment, 500 years from now? What contemporary film and literature will be canonised and celebrated in centuries to come? (How, in fact, is science and history constructed?) Is it possible that we over-rate democracy and freedom when we claim it is a universal value? Most disturbingly of all, Klosterman asks if we have reached the 'end of new knowledge' itself.