The Museum of Human Frailty

is the pet project of Emma Westling, who has only occasionally admitted to being wrong. Making mistakes is natural, and admitting them can be beneficial, so why is it so, so hard to say, “I was wrong”, “I’m sorry”, or “I don’t know”? Vulnerability and fallibility are so universal, it’s not hard to find lots of examples from every arena of human endeavor, and in that sense, creating this museum will be easy. The hard part will be trying to engender a sentiment that encompasses both charity and criticism, and encourages us to judge ourselves and others fairly, but with compassion, like the title character in the Somerset Maugham’s novel, Ashenden:

“…in the few to whom he was attached his eyes saw with equal clearness the merits and the defects. When he liked people it was not because he was blind to their faults; he did not mind their faults, but accepted them with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders, or because he ascribed to them excellencies that they did not possess; and since he judged his friends with candor, they never disappointed him and so he seldom lost one.”