What was it about? Did you admit you were wrong or adamantly insist on your point? How did your interlocutor react? How would you like someone to react if you concede errors?
No…wait, yes.
One where I realized I was wrong three times. My wife and I had visited a modern art museum. One of the installations was a pile of candy in the corner. We got home, I said it’s ridiculous to call that art, and ridiculous to fund artists to create lazy, self-indulgent nonsense. She convinced me that I am in no position to arbitrate what is or isn’t art (she is right, of course). Then I realized she wasn’t arguing about art, she was upset about something that had happened at work (that was my second miss).
Twenty years later I found out what that candy is all about. It was a piece by Felix Gonzalez Torres called “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) 1991” It is 175 lbs of candy that patrons are free to take. It represents his lover, Ross Laycock, who had wasted away from AIDS earlier that year (Gonzalez Torres would die from AIDS six years later). So long as there is funding for the arts, Ross is replenished endlessly. For the third miss, I was Oedipean-level wrong.
So long as there is funding for the arts, Ross is replenished endlessly.
Holy shit. What a direct and quantivative comparison to the power of memories to keep the spirit of our loved ones alive through giving (in my family’s case, stories; did I enter tell you of the time when my uncle met Loretta Swit?) of ourselves and sharing them with others.
Huh. I’m no judge of art, being a low-born oaf, but in retrospect that is clearly art; and evocative as fuck.
Oh fuck, “so long as there is funding for the arts,” seems very precarious right now.
Often. I just say something like “okay, you might be right/you’re entirely right, my bad and thank you”. I like to ask and answer all sorts of things, this happens somewhat often, lol.
Oh yeah. Happens to me not infrequently, though less as I get older and choose my battles more wisely.
On my best days, I apologize and bow out of the discussion. On my worst days, I just ghost the entire thread.
Choosing your battles wisely seems to be good advice. I think it’s a good quality, if people can concede if they were wrong. I hsbe the impression that being wrong is too often sanctioned or frowned upon, whereas a more accepting, forgiving stance might make it easier for people to admit their errors.
I think there are definitely a lot of compounding issues that all combine to make admitting you’re wrong something that’s really hard to do. Some of them related to brain chemistry, some of them entirely societal, like you mentioned. But I do think that it’s on the person who was wrong to be the one who does the growing; it shouldn’t be society that has to pick up the slack for an arrogant and incorrect person.
Once it was demonstrated to me that I was wrong acknowledge that I was wrong and we moved forward.
I have never had this happen because I have never made a mistake once /s
that’s what they’re supposed to be for
Several times! And not necessarily wrong, but missing a perspective that changes my opinion. That’s how we learn and grow. It’s also why you and more people should read books.
I have a tendency to mix things together, especially if the two things getting mixed in my mind are already pretty similar. Sometimes I realize this mid-way through a sentence.
At this point in my life, I’m extremely comfortable admitting when I’m wrong. It earns credibility.
The ability to point out my own mistakes has maybe done the best for my career, long-term.
Yes, it’s a superpower.
On several occasions, it has hit me like a truck and I’ve instantly reversed my thinking. For this reason, I am open to listening genuinely to other sides, so long as they are not intolerant. But I’m a petty bitch, so I still have strong opinions until they get flipped.
Sure, it happens all the time. Someone shows me a piece of evidence that I trust, or points out that I missed something in what they had originally said, or whatever. What else is there to do in that situation other then go ‘Oh. You’re right, my bad.’?
But I’m kinda weird, I enjoy having my beliefs and ideas challenged and I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong and updating my worldview to reflect the most accurate information I have access to.
Yes, I’d like to think I’m open to having my mind changed about things. I try to follow both left wing and right wing media (New Statesman and The Spectator respectively in the UK) to try to get both points of view on current affairs.
I don’t actively seek out media from both sides of political issues because in the US we don’t really have ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ media, we have media all owned by billionaires that mostly stay center-right on most subjects, and let the occasional center-left viewpoint slip through so they can seem to be unbiased. Unless I’m reading Jacobin or other actually-leftist (read:socialist) papers/magazines, all I get is right-wing perspectives.
I really can’t think of a time where I have. But I also don’t see myself making factual claims about anything without having sufficient first hand experience. If I get into any kind of online “argument”, my contribution is basically only going to be logic, not facts. The other person brings the facts and we walk down the logic tree together.
Yeah. If I think the person isn’t being a dick I apologise.
I’ve had a couple lemmy arguments where I missed a subtle point that the other person was making and mistook it for something else.
You just got to bite that bullet, I usually say: I’m sorry. I misread what you were saying. It’s my bad.
And then I continue on with any other disagreements I may have, but if there’s none then I usually end it with. Have a nice life.
The moment it is more about winning than it is about truth, the less interesting the conversation is to me.
