I've always wondered why so many people seem to have an incredibly hard time, admitting to the fact that they're wrong. Some people will kill before they admit being wrong. But why? What is there to lose? I am not talking criminal cases (where lying is obviously wrong, and illegal) I'm talking about just simple discussions. Why do people continue to fight even after realizing they're not right. Is it pride? There is no pride in pretending like you're right. Is it stubbornness? Is it lack of self-awareness? Fear of a ruined "reputation"? Fear of "losing the argument"?
I always admit to being wrong the moment I realize it. No one has ever held that against me. In fact, I enjoy being convinced in a constructive argument, being wrong doesn't make a person weak.
People don't get blamed or punished for admitting to have said something wrong or done something wrong. Acceptance of being wrong doesn't make you wrong. Pretending that you're right, and that you think you're right, is what makes you, and your actions, wrong.
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I feel like as a society, we punish for mistakes people make instead of letting them learn from them.
This is why if I wrote how school works, I wouldn’t make exams worth as much as they are and make homework assignments worth more (except for final). That way people can make as many mistakes as they need to make sure that they nail the concepts instead of basing their entire careers on just a couple days out of the months of classes.
Oh, wow, I hadn't thought of it that way before. When I was at school (scratching away on my slate), exams were basically everything. Today, there's a lot more emphasis on coursework. I wonder. Was the idea, back then, to allow people to make the mistakes in the homework, which doesn't affect the grades, and test that they've got the hang of it in the final exams?
Something tells me the different approaches work best with different subjects.
@goaded Right, it also prevents teachers from fucking over the students with overly difficult problems on exams. I never understood why they do that anyway. If they don't know how to do the problem then they can't do it anyway. There's no real need make a problem super long and easy to mess up.
Very well said! Being wrong is a huge part of how you learn.