Nobody really likes to be wrong. Regardless of whether it is at the workplace or with the family at home it is always a humiliating experience to discover that the opinion or belief that one holds is errant or inferior to that of another, or that the reality of a situation does not match up with one’s standpoint.
Many persons take such situations personally and feel threatened by this situation of being mistaken. Whether it is a matter of pride, or its twin brother ego, a fear of loss of standing, of legitimacy in the eyes of others or the fear of finding that a part of what one’s perceptions are based upon is, in fact, lacking of truth and substance, the fact remains that we feel obliged to ourselves to put our foot down and take a stand. Such is human and a part of life.
However so is the situation of being wrong. To never be wrong is a virtual impossibility. Likewise the degree to which one is right is similar to the mastery of a fine art - it is not a completely empirical process as the very act of being considered right or wrong requires at least a modicum of subjectivity, of judgement.
One wonders why it should be so that individuals should feel threatened by their self-perceived inadequacies. This perspective shackles the individuals’ mentalities and compels them to take their views to be akin to internal organic processes without which their very being might collapse. Hence it also compels them to take such more seriously than might actually be reasonable… a disproportion that invites ideological inequity and hence also conflict.
The process empowers an engine that can itself empower some of the worst traits to be found in humanity - jealousy, greed and even hatred. To free the self from the ever recurring cycle it hence makes sense to disempower the profound perception we have of our perceived inadequacies - to accept them and to seek to better them. Doing so would not only help the self to avoid some very human pitfalls but would also help set us upon the path of self-improvement.
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