Why do we hate being wrong?

I picked this section of the forums as it deals with philosophy.

Why do we hate being wrong? What is it about ourselves that can drive an otherwise intelligent person to live in belligerent denial of reality rather than admitting that we are wrong and realigning our thinking? I am almost 50 years old and I no longer see being wrong as a negative, but as an opportunity for positive change... yet I still hate being wrong... its like intrinsically imbedded in me! This juvenile need to be right is really starting to tee me off! Does anyone else relate with what I am saying?

From my perspective one can see many debating shades of "being right" on the forums. Whose right is the right right? What is the basis of an ideological, theological, philosophical, sociological, psychological right or wrong? The more I analyze this dissonance created by the need to be right, the more I see the value of tolerance. Obviously some things cannot be tolerated like murder, but do we really need to prove to others that our God is the God... or there is no God... or that my politics are the right politics... .ect?

There clearly is a right and wrong... its just that in many cases right and wrong is relative to the individual or the society. If my right does not harm others then what basis is there to view it as a wrong? Again an argument for tolerance.

What are your thoughts?

 

I can imagine it's very difficult to accept that much loved parents and other highly respected authority figures of one's youth were wrong, and in effect (though unconsciously) lying. That's got to be a terrible thing to confront. If one is of the type to keep parents etc on pedestals ... even more so.

 

My parents fell from their pedestals a few decades ago. The biggest failing of my parents is that they told me what to think rather than teaching me how to think (critical thinking). Luckily college remedied that... albeit a bit late in my life. Do some have an easy time admitting they are wrong? Perhaps, but I am not sure as I can only see this from my perspective. Its not always hard for me, but the more entrenched a view the tougher it is to concede defeat. I was raised in a very strict Christian conservative family... how would my perspective have changes if I were raised in a liberal non religious family? Guess it really does not matter at this point. Perhaps if I were raised in a family that valued questioning and critical thinking I would still have a hard time admitting when I am wrong... who knows.

 

I guess the point is that it's not, for many, a case of prideful "I don't want to be wrong", but of effectively denouncing people they love. Hard to condemn them for it. Easier to condemn those who imposed it on them.

Meanwhile, I was raised by godless liberals lefties, and don't like being wrong. I imagine it comes with the territory (being human)

 

In my opinions, there is no ultimate right or wrong. We categorize things in terms of whether it's a good or not because we feel better about taking the correct position. It's an ego issue. So whenever we are criticized or proven wrong, the ego is severely hurt and we just hate being lower than the others. It's a common problem. Everybody is somewhat arrogant in different degrees and we all have certain defense mechanism to protect that arrogance because it gives us comfort.

The thinking of "I am right and you are wrong" is the fundamental behavior of every human being. We are blinded by our pride and we rarely regard opinions of others. Even open-minded people who fairly debate ideas still cannot accept the fact that they are selfish towards others. It takes us a lifetime to realize that everything is just one, everything has its purposes and things exist not to be right or wrong but to be in contrast to develop and progress.

 

Of course people don't want to be wrong, it's a survival instinct thing.....and being wrong is a negative thing, you can waste a lot of time and do a lot of damage being wrong.

Now, I think I'll try to remember if I've ever been wrong....hmmm..... nope!

 

Well, this is a good observation that forces us to rephrase the question. Being wrong is very bad. Thinking that one is wrong is completely different. I don't want to be wrong but whenever I am, I would like to know that I'm wrong so I can fix it. Nonetheless, people tend to be set in their ways.

I'm frankly at a bit of a loss with this one. I can't really tell if there would have been an evolutionary pressure for this kind of behaviour or if it is merely a side effect deriving from analytical brains and wanting to give an illusion of perfection.

 

I definitely have known people who hate being wrong because they want people to think they're perfect....well, that's OK but they then go on to HAVING to prove they're right.....if you look at the thermometer and you say it's 39 degrees THEY will check it and correct it to , "no, it's 40 degrees".......that is a mental illness.

I place no such pressure on myself, everybody's wrong sometimes (being 39 or 40 makes no difference )......now, if I can just remember when I was ever wrong......

 

I too am over 50 and I had to learn to accept myself as being wrong, but as it turns out since I do confess the times when I find or shown that I am wrong THEN as a result I now see that other people jump onto me as if my confession is dead-meat-for-the-vultures and some people attack as if it is showing them my vulnerability.

Thankfully I learned how to defend myself and I do not get taken down because I confess a wrong, but when I was younger then I would never had withstood such attacks.

For whatever reason people see that if we are wrong about any one (1) thing then that makes us wrong about everything or at least everything is put into doubt or suspicion.

At one time on these discussion forums then people would attack just because we spell a word wrong as if the wrong spelling makes everything wrong.

There really are lots of differences and mistakes which simply can not be let-go or tolerated.

You mention "murder" and in fact we debate whether Drone bombings are murder or not, and abortion being murder, or war and torture and atrocities being right or wrong.

If it does not hurt anyone then yes we can tolerate that, but we do not really fight about harmless stuff.

 

This might be a good time to apply some critical thinking to the idea that teaching someone how to think is somehow less stultifying than teaching him what to think.

 

I disagree as what constitutes harmless action is subjective and wide open to interpretation. Who is a braless woman hurting? If the answer is no one then why are they often the target for verbal abuse, insults, and even physical attack? I argue that a woman going braless in and of itself harms no one... but many do disagree with me.

 

In the USA the BIG change or the big reduction came after the 1954 case decision of "Brown v. Board of Education" because the US schools were all degraded by the whites in order to prevent the black people from getting a white education.

Honestly the white population refused to comply with the SCOTUS order and what the whites did was to destroy the school curriculum and replaced it with the useless teaching of garbage (reading, writing, arithmetic) to the students.

Many of the teachers quit their jobs, and those teachers that stayed resented teaching the black students, and many whites put their children into private schools, and those whites who could not leave remained resentful and hostile.

After that there were reports of overcrowding and of race riots in the schools, and under-funding.

And the schools have never recovered, and there has never been any real effort to recover.

Link = https://books.google.com/books?id=d...=onepage&q=the school curriculum 1954&f=false


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This is why we need strong moral leadership, and I would even say that the entire world needs a healthy Theocracy that can make the big decisions about our human realities.

Here in the USA we do NOT have any moral leadership and we are like on the Titanic (a doomed ship) which everyone knows that we are going down but no one can do anything to stop it.

 

For the life of me I can't fathom what any of this has to do with my post.

 

It was because you said that it might be better to teach students "how to think" instead of teaching "what to think" and my point is that change happened here in the USA in 1954 where we reversed that teaching.

Just thought it was relevant that we (the USA) use to teach right but we STOPPED doing that based on our white racism.

 

I said no such thing. I actually suggested there's little to choose between them.

 

OKAY, that is on you.

But I still mean exactly what I said.

 

actually your country is sinking because it's full of fat people. fat lazy people. fat lazy people who can't be bothered picking up the slack of the education system on behalf of their kids. fat lazy people who can't be bothered teaching their kids because they'd rather go shopping or watch tv. probably the only reason you guys haven't imploded yet is that the hippies and activists of the 60's triggered a movement which attracted enough concerned and intelligent people to maintain some sort of equilibrium.

in the meantime, if 1952 is such an appealing place for you, feel free to take a trip in my time masheen. I can have you sent back as a widowed, black mother of 8 kids, living in the deep south. Of course you'll have no job, and no money, and half your kids will be chronically ill due to lack of nutrition and decent health care. Enjoy!

 

A theocracy is fine in a society where all agree with the dictates of said dogma, else it becomes tyranny when dogma is forced upon the masses. In a society with many religions and a large atheist minority how do you get those who do not believe, or do not share the belief of the theocracy to follow the rules of a dogma that they reject?

What constitutes a strong moral leader?

 

my guess is that it's not a liberal, progressive, socialist, environmental activist, anti-gun, peacenik. which makes you wonder what this person means when they say 'moral'.

 

I know exactly what they mean.........It means THEIR morals, which they want to shove down everyone's throat in an act of unbelievable arrogance and ignorance.

 

Having a difficult time admitting one is wrong, when one is wrong, is a character flaw, created by not understanding what the ego is. Once the ego is understood, the character gets cleaned up. That is why some of the ancients thought it was so important to understand oneself, the nature of the ego. It brings intelligence which is not possible until the understanding takes place.

On right and wrong, well, that is easily determined by if your actions hurt another human being. I can hurt another human by killing them, stealing their resources that they need for survival, and so on. These do not change with culture or era. They are a commonality, shared by all cultures.

 

The dogma can actually be separate from a Theocracy, because having a flexible dogma that includes everyone gives a Theocracy its endurance - if done correctly.

The USA did start out as a Christian nation, so having a National-religion / National Church based on Christianity would have been rather easy at the first, but now that 200 plus years later it is a confusing mess, but a better one still could be done.

And it does not have to be a National-Church which every person or every citizen has got to be a member, as it would not even need to have any official membership so anyone could come and go as they please.

As like there is a Church of England, and a Church of Scotland, and we could do better than those.

The problem is that the USA does not have any moral authority and no place to turn for moral guidance and as such we have an immoral cesspool going onward.

What I said is that we need a Theocracy as the moral leader, and that can not mean any one (1) person as the leader.

A Theocracy can still have a Calif or a Pope or a high Shaman, but that one "leader" is just a figurehead (or spokesperson) based on the official Theocracy and not a lone Dictator based on their own Theocracy.

That is the ideal = The Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven.

That "Kingdom" is based on a Theocracy.

 

Really? You think it's impossible to do wrong without hurting another human being?

 

You have a historical example of this? My review of theocracies throughout history does not return positive results. A theocracy is guided by its dogma thus a flexible dogma seems unlikely as God sets the dogma, and to mess with the dogma of God is for the will of man to trump the will of God.

America has never been a Christian Nation. America has a secular government that rules a society with a large Christian majority. Our country was founded upon an amalgam of ideas including Christian, and many Enlightenment thinkers who were opposed to America being a theocracy.

The USA has a moral athority, which is for better or worse the judiciary and the laws of the land many of which are based on the mitigation of harm (morals). This is not a perfect system, but I have not seen a theocracy that does better.

Go far enough up the hierarchy and you will inexorably arrive at a single person. If the one person is but a figurehead matters little because it then becomes a group of people interpreting the word of God for all. I follow my own understanding of God and argue to follow another's understanding of God is to follow man not God.

 

Actually I was trying to present a new and improved idea which has never been tried.

First we would have a Theocracy created by people and for people, and NOT the old dogmas as from God.

All religions and moralities agree on some big critical points, as like do not steal or lie or cheat, and other dogmas can be worded in such a way as to create a Theocracy which acknowledges "God" by many names or titles and a dogma that people can live under.

That would be the way for a government to create a national-Church or call it a united-religion based on the best that we know.

My point was that they were wrong, or that they just made a mistake, or they just lacked vision.

I do NOT suggest that we now create a Christian nation - certainly not.

But that is not likely to happen and the USA will continue sinking into the scum.

Other parts of the world will some day rule over top of our ruins - my prophesy.

As like the powerful religion of Islam knows the point and purpose of Theocracy, and the vast dangers of immoralities.

The Courts have failed in that, and the Courts are corrupt even at their best.

And I do include that the Lawyers are corrupt, just as the Judges are compliant, and the Clerks are in on it, and Political leaders are no diversion from the corruption.

I too reject the power being in the hands of any one person.

There are ways to restrict the power of the leaders and ways of protecting any opposition, and it could be done.

To do nothing while our ship-of-State is severely damaged and doomed is the lowest form of surrender.