I’ve been thinking lately about why, in debates (usually) about highly emotional topics, so many people seem unable to acknowledge even minor wrongdoings or mistakes from “their” side, even when doing so wouldn’t necessarily undermine their broader position.

I’m not here to rehash any particular political event or take sides - I’m more interested in the psychological mechanisms behind this behavior.

For example, it feels like many people bind their identity to a cause so tightly that admitting any fault feels like a betrayal of the whole. I’ve also noticed that criticism toward one side is often immediately interpreted as support for the “other” side, leading to tribal reactions rather than nuanced thinking.

I’d love to hear thoughts on the psychological underpinnings of this. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to “give an inch” even when it wouldn’t really cost them anything in principle?

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
    5·
    8 days ago

    One thing I would add to all the good answers here: It stems from a lack of contact with real-world, messy, difficult environments.

    Usually people who come into contact with harsh reality a lot in their daily life are pretty humble. They don’t get stuck on one way of looking at things, they don’t refuse to admit obvious good sense arguments. Even if they get to the point that they’re super-qualified, they just kind of have common sense and are approachable. Mostly, not always. I think this is why people kind of fall in love with certain types of environments with a lot of challenge or “win or lose” aspect to them: Business, sports, law, war, esports, mountain climbing, whatever. It’s like you get to prove yourself and all your bullshit against the harsh light of day, and a lot of times what you learn is that some genius theory wasn’t really all that solid once it got exposed to the real world.

    But then, a whole lot of first-world modern life isn’t like that. You can just go around your entire life talking about economics or politics and just be wrong as hell and you never get to find out. So it’s easy to be super-confident, and it’s obviously a lot more comfortable to be always right about everything than it is to admit when someone’s maybe successfully poking a hole in your genius.