Do you know people who have a hard time admitting they were wrong?
By The Horse
@TheHorse (218890)
Walnut Creek, California
September 20, 2024 12:38pm CST
I was on a river rafting trip several decades ago with my then girlfriend Lisa and her family. The guide and I were cooking up a rattlesnake we had killed. It was in our campsite, and we could have just shooed it off, but we were worried it would return to snuggle with one of us warm-blooded people in our sleeping bag.
Anyway, as the guide and I (he and I were both in our 20s at the time) were cooking up dinner (we had steaks and corn--not just rattlesnake), I looked toward the Southeast. "Look! Orion!"
He said, "No, Orion is a Winter constellation. That's Scorpius." I researched what he had said when I got home and learned that he was right. Of course, I never got to see him again to thank him.
Years later, I tried to pass what I had learned on to someone here In the Bay Area. He made exactly the same mistake I had made decades before as we were sipping a beer on my balcony. I tried to explain to him that Orion and Scorpius were 180 degrees opposed to each other in the night sky, but he would not have it. "I took a Ptolemy class," he said. "I know these things." It took him more than a year to admit that he had been mistaken.
With politics in the news these days, we see lots of people who have a hard time admitting they were wrong. Both @Porwest and I were wrong about the dogs and cats thing in Springfield Ohio. We (OK, I'll speak for myself: *I*) thought it was just a goofy ploy by Republicans to distract Democrats.
But it turned out Trump believed it too, and now he's talking about it, as if it were true, in his speeches. So Jim and I area eating crow (heh), while Springfield worries that Trump might actually visit there.
I was about to write abut my misunderstanding of the Freudian term, "Thanatos," but I just realized that I was right abut a part that I thought I had been wrong about. Sigh. I have to do more research. And I'm not being facetious. I have more learnin' to do.
Do you know people who have a hard time admitting they were wrong about something? Do you think that tendency inhibits learning?
22 people like this
21 responses
@RasmaSandra (79886)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
20 Sep
I hate what I call uppity people and for that reason I have chosen to remain alone, I don't want to start a new life and suppose I wind up with a person who horrors I cannot stand after all,
3 people like this
@RasmaSandra (79886)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
20 Sep
@TheHorse I am taking no changes, I had some fellows I got into chats with and all of them were odd because they thought you could really find out about a person just by chatting online, Luckily once I informed them otherwise and that I would not want another involved relationship they just went away,
3 people like this
@TheHorse (218890)
• Walnut Creek, California
20 Sep
@RasmaSandra My internet friends are my internet friends.
3 people like this
@celticeagle (167025)
• Boise, Idaho
21 Sep
That's life. It's all about the journey and learning along the way. I will admit to several occasions when I didn't want to admit to being wrong. But, you know what? It gave me a warm feeling to be honest about it. Figure that one out.
2 people like this
@TheHorse (218890)
• Walnut Creek, California
22 Sep
@celticeagle I think some see an argument as something to "win," and not something that can yield new knowledge.
@xander6464 (44250)
• Wapello, Iowa
21 Sep
Does crow taste better than rattlesnake?
2 people like this
@xander6464 (44250)
• Wapello, Iowa
21 Sep
@TheHorse I like metaphor with a lot of spice, too.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (218890)
• Walnut Creek, California
22 Sep
@xander6464 Would Trump claim he's speaking in metaphor if he knew what it was?
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (178790)
• United States
21 Sep
I'm getting better. I used to hate to admit I was wrong; but I do it more easily these days. Have a good weekend.
2 people like this
@TheHorse (218890)
• Walnut Creek, California
22 Sep
@LindaOHio Wheee! I don't have to work tomorrow!
1 person likes this
@pumpkinjam (8763)
• United Kingdom
21 Sep
I think it's a natural human trait to have a hard time admitting you might be wrong. And, yes, I do think it can inhibit learning.
I never admit I'm wrong because I'm always right anyway 
What is particularly annoying is those people who will argue with facts. Or the ones who make you lose pub quizzes because they've insisted on a wrong answer when someone else has known the right one!
I've had discussions with people who insist they're right while clearly not even understanding what's being discussed. Some can be shown that they are incorrect in the most simplistic possible way yet still won't fathom that they were wrong.
I find it happens frequently with people who think they're cleverer than they are. I've also got a friend who might admit she was wrong if she ever stopped talking long enough for anyone to tell her that what she's saying is wrong.
What is particularly annoying is those people who will argue with facts. Or the ones who make you lose pub quizzes because they've insisted on a wrong answer when someone else has known the right one!
I've had discussions with people who insist they're right while clearly not even understanding what's being discussed. Some can be shown that they are incorrect in the most simplistic possible way yet still won't fathom that they were wrong.
I find it happens frequently with people who think they're cleverer than they are. I've also got a friend who might admit she was wrong if she ever stopped talking long enough for anyone to tell her that what she's saying is wrong.1 person likes this
@TheHorse (218890)
• Walnut Creek, California
21 Sep
It's funny. The guy who partially inspired my recording of "Your Mind is on Vacation and Your Mouth is Working Overtime" is like that. He'll join a conversation (about music theory, for example), and try to dominate, even if he has no understanding of what we're talking about.
1 person likes this
@jaylar (682)
• Kingston, Jamaica
21 Sep
@TheHorse In my life, I have found people who know absolutely nothing about a topic can pontificate. There was big deal case here some years ago. I was physically in court. I saw and heard the evidence. Yet people who weren't there will babble
2 people like this
. We learn if we can be open to things . . . even if we discover we were wrong. Close minded folks already have their minds made up - they go no higher than the height of their high horse.
@LadyDuck (471547)
• Switzerland
21 Sep
Now I remember we already extensively discussed about this fact that happened about Orion.
My husband tends never to admit that he is wrong, his Mom was like him. Her second husband and I used to go for a walk when my husband and his mom started to argued about something they remembered very well, but their opinion was not the same.
1 person likes this
@Tampa_girl7 (50258)
• United States
20 Sep
I have known a know it all or two that would never admit to being wrong.
2 people like this
@aninditasen (16395)
• Raurkela, India
21 Sep
My mother-in-law was like that. She behaved badly with everyone in the family but never admitted it. She had her own strange logic. So most of us in the family avoided her, I the most.
1 person likes this
@aninditasen (16395)
• Raurkela, India
23 Sep
@TheHorse None of us know about that, each one told a different story.
@porwest (90912)
• United States
22 Sep
I never admitted to anything. I said that I find it to be ENTIRELY believable that immigrants, who come to this country penniless, MIGHT resort to eating things WE would not eat. In Venezuela, for example, as their currency was being decimated and inflation was eating citizens alive, there were confirmed reports of people eating stray dogs.
It happens. It is not outside the realm of possibility.
Not that many years ago people were found to be taking ducks from public ponds to take home and cook and eat. People who are hungry who cannot afford to go to the grocery store will eat whatever they can get their hands on, because if they don't, they will die, and when it comes to WHAT you eat, it doesn't matter so long as it fills you up.
Should Trump have said it? Well, how many times has Trump said something someone said was a lie that turned out to be true? Too many times to count. He could have kept quiet about it. Maybe he SHOULD have kept quiet about it. At the same time, I bet if Biden or Harris had said it people would have believed it was true without any question.
The ONLY reason it is an issue is because of who said it. Not WHAT was said. Obama once said he was tired from campaigning in all 54 states. No one blinked. Because it was Obama. If Trump said something like that there would be immediate calls for a cognitive test.
When you evaluate weird or odd things that are said, you don't need to examine the words. You need to examine who reacts to them and HOW they react. Biden says, "I will cure cancer in my first term," and no one winks or nods or goes nuts. But if Trump had made such a bold claim? It'd be front page news and you'd hear about it for months and months and months.
1 person likes this
@RevivedWarrior (2209)
• India
21 Sep
I know a quite a lot of people who have hard time admitting they were wrong. They in fact see such admissionas failure in lives! I used to listen what the person says and do reasearch whenever possible.It has kept me humble and I have gracious enough to accept my mistakes. Most of the times, arguments go down when i state that my understanding was incorrect. But then , i do go down for arguments which I believe is absolutely true.I also agree with you thinking in such cases , can definitely inhibit learning. Good to read about your thoughts and experience . Enjoy the weekend!
@RevivedWarrior (2209)
• India
21 Sep
@TheHorse Go deep into argument till an end is met
1 person likes this
@snowy22315 (180780)
• United States
21 Sep
Maybe me, but I would admit it if I ever was..
. J/K I will admit if I don't know something and had a wrong idea.
. J/K I will admit if I don't know something and had a wrong idea.1 person likes this
@abhi_bangal (5534)
• Ahmednagar, India
22 Sep
It's human nature to see faults in others and if we do the same mistakes then we have something to cover up. In the same way, we are quite prompt in finding faults in others. And whatever we do is correct in every situation. In short, each individual wants to be in a win-win situation always.
Some sort of self introspection will give us the idea of what I am saying. It doesn't mean that every individual will be like this. Because, everyone is unique and different.
@kaylachan (69776)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
21 Sep
I think we all have a hard time admitting we were wrong sometimes. We always want to be right.
1 person likes this
@wolfgirl569 (106323)
• Marion, Ohio
21 Sep
I know people like that. I usually have no problem but can at times.
1 person likes this
@jaylar (682)
• Kingston, Jamaica
21 Sep
I know a lot of people who cant admit they are wrong. People who pontificate about what they dont know. Usually I don't say anything unless I know for a fact... I dont guess...if you say you're going to town and someone asks me where you are I will say....He said he was going to town... for I don;t know if you did or not.
1 person likes this
