All Conversations Should Begin with: 'I Think I'm Right, But I Could Be Wrong'
Ed. Note: The following Op-Ed is an excerpt from “How to Talk Politics Without Arguing” by Constantinos E. Scaros, reprinted by permission of the author.
The first step to talking politics without arguing is being able to say this about yourself in any — yes, any — situation: “I think I’m right, but I could be wrong.”
A lot of people have three big problems with being wrong. One is that they hate being wrong, especially if they’ve been proven wrong; the second is that they are often unable to realize when they’re wrong; and third, that they can’t even imagine the possibility that they could be wrong.
That third problem in many ways is the most fascinating of all: people’s inability to view the statistical probability that at some point they’ll make some mistakes.
Try this exercise right now: Think about five times in your life when you were wrong about something. Really wrong. When you miscalculated, misjudged and misunderstood a person, an event or a situation.
Specifically, think about instances when you had a discussion with someone else about how to fix a particular problem or speculate about some occurrence. Will the refrigerator fit through the front door? Is this restaurant going to be good? Should we go there on vacation? Seriously. Don’t just keep reading; it’s important to think about five such instances, now.
People tend to remember successes, but they either block failures out of their minds or keep the information to themselves.
Someone who plays the stock market or otherwise gambles won’t miss a chance to talk about good fortune. But rarely will you hear about that person’s losses. People will brag about the business deals they closed due to their savvy, but not the ones they blew because of their own blunders.
They’ll tell you about the time they believed at the beginning of the season when no one else did that a certain sports team would win the championship. But they won’t often admit the times when they were way off base. That’s because it’s human nature for people not to want to be wrong and to have enough of a problem with it that oftentimes they’ll try to sweep their mistakes under the rug.
A way to get used to feeling more comfortable with being wrong is to actually set yourself up to be wrong and to be happy about it. To say, ahead of time, “I hope I’m wrong.” An easy way to do that is to choose an outcome about which you are pessimistic.
For example, I remember becoming overwhelmed by an irrational fear as I was getting ready to graduate from law school. Generally, my law school experience was a happy one, particularly because of the lifelong friendships I made and the fun we all had together when we weren’t in class or hitting the books.
I looked forward to graduation, which would happen in a few days, but final grades weren’t announced yet. One of my friends said to me, “I’m not going to relax until I see my final grades,” which got me thinking, “What if I fail one of my final exams? What will I tell my family, who are coming to graduation, that I didn’t graduate because I failed? And what about all of my classmates? We were all looking forward to celebrating together, and now I’ll have to stay home?”
It was an irrational fear because I had never failed a class, in law school or elsewhere, but the possibility of such a calamity stayed in my mind until I got the good news that I had passed all of my classes and I would march across that stage on graduation day. Boy, was I happy to be wrong!
To review, four words that epitomize true open-mindedness are: “I could be wrong.” They can be prefaced with “I think I’m right,” which justifies defending a particular point in the first place. Taken together, “I think I’m right, but I could be wrong” captures the spirit of intellectual honesty and integrity.
If everyone involved in a discussion would begin by making that proclamation, acknowledging the very real possibility of being wrong, then there could be mutual respect among the whole group.
Just as “I could be wrong” are four of the most wonderful words to declare, perhaps the seven worst words to utter are: “You’re not going to change my mind.” Nothing screams narrowmindedness more than a phrase that essentially forewarns the others that “My mind is made up because I know I’m right. So either agree with me or don’t bother speaking.”
A closely related counterproductive phrase is: “I don’t want to talk about it.” However, there is a time and a place for that one.
If it is utilized to diffuse a potentially volatile, abrasive situation, then silence may be the best option. But if someone simply shuts down about a particular issue and says “I don’t want to talk about it,” that basically slams the door on the opportunity to be heard and often implies the aforementioned “You’re not going to change my mind” shout.
A good, productive, constructive conversation ought to be about being more informed once it has concluded, and the way to go about it is to leave emotions behind and not to go into it trying to win.
Far too often, people don’t just talk past one another, but in their absolutist conclusion that they must be right try to convince the other to join their way of thinking instead of working together to achieve a common goal.
That could have undesirable consequences for both.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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