Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #22 "Why Can't Anyone Admit They Were Wrong"

Transcript

Episode #22 "Why Can't Anyone Admit They Were Wrong" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There are three words that may be disappearing from the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: English language. Not please, although that one appears to be
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in some trouble too. Not thank you, we're still hanging
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: on to that one. Usually by typing the letters T
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and Y because apparently gratitude now takes too long to spell.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The three words I'm talking about are I was wrong.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: That's it. Three little words. But some people would rather
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: crawl barefoot through a briar patch, wrestle an angry raccoon,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and then explain their browser history to their grandmother than
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to look another human being in the eye and say,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you know what? I was wrong. And before anybody thinks
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  Speaker 1: I'm about to spend 20 minutes pointing at everybody else,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: let me be very clear. I don't particularly enjoy saying
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  Speaker 1: it either. I've been wrong before. Charlie just fell out
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  Speaker 1: of his chair. Apparently, my podcast chief of staff's been
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: waiting for this historic admission. Today, we're asking a simple question.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Why can't anybody admit they were wrong? And maybe the
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  Speaker 1: more important question is, what would happen if we got
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: better at it? You've seen this before. Somebody makes a
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  Speaker 1: confident statement. Not a cautious statement. Not, I think this
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  Speaker 1: may be true. No, sir. They plant a flag on
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  Speaker 1: top of it. They know it. They've always known it.
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  Speaker 1: Their cousin knows it. A man they met at a
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  Speaker 1: gas station in 1997 confirmed it. Then somebody produces evidence
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  Speaker 1: that they're mistaken. You would think the matter was settled.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But now the argument changes. First it was, that never happened.
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  Speaker 1: Then it became, well it happened, but not the way
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  Speaker 1: you're saying it. Then, okay, it happened exactly that way,
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  Speaker 1: but you're missing the larger point. And finally, why are
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  Speaker 1: you so obsessed with the past? The past was four
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  Speaker 1: minutes ago. We don't like moving from I know to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We especially don't like moving from I'm
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: right to you were right. That feels like handing the
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  Speaker 1: other person a trophy, a parade permit, and legal ownership
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  Speaker 1: of the conversation. But admitting error is not supposed to
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: be a humiliation ceremony. It is supposed to be what
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: happens when an honest person receives better information. This is
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  Speaker 1: how learning works. If I believed something on Monday, discovered
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: reliable evidence on Tuesday against it, and still repeated it
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  Speaker 1: on Wednesday because I couldn't stand the embarrassment, then I'm
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  Speaker 1: not standing on principle, I'm babysitting my pride. And pride
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  Speaker 1: is a demanding little customer. It never tips, it complains
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  Speaker 1: about everything, and it wants to speak to the manager
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  Speaker 1: even when it is the manager. I think part of
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  Speaker 1: the problem is that we've turned every disagreement into a contest.
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  Speaker 1: There has to be a winner and a loser. Somebody
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  Speaker 1: gets the final word. Somebody gets the clever comeback. Somebody
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  Speaker 1: walks away thinking, I destroyed him. No, you didn't. You
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  Speaker 1: argued about lawnmower oil on Facebook for an hour. Civilization
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  Speaker 1: remains largely unchanged. When every conversation becomes a competition, admitting
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  Speaker 1: error feels like surrender. So we start protecting our position
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  Speaker 1: instead of searching for the truth. And those are not
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  Speaker 1: the same thing. If I'm searching for the truth, I
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  Speaker 1: want the best evidence, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
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  Speaker 1: If I'm protecting my position, I only want evidence that
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  Speaker 1: makes me look smart. That second approach has a name
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  Speaker 1: researchers use, confirmation bias. In ordinary English, it means we're
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  Speaker 1: very good at noticing information that agrees with us and
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  Speaker 1: finding creative reasons to dismiss information that doesn't. Charlie calls
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: it the Kevin has already made up his mind department. Apparently,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that's not just a department. It's an entire floor. Psychologists
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  Speaker 1: also talk about intellectual humility. That doesn't mean having no
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: convictions or treating every idea as equally good. It means
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: recognizing that our knowledge has limits and that something we
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: believe could be mistaken. Researchers have found that people with
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  Speaker 1: more intellectual humility tend to pay closer attention to the
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  Speaker 1: quality of evidence and spend more time considering views that
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  Speaker 1: challenge their own. In other words, humility doesn't make a
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  Speaker 1: person intellectually weak, it can make a person more careful.
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  Speaker 1: You can hold a strong opinion and still say, here's
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  Speaker 1: what I believe, here's why I believe it, and here's
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  Speaker 1: the kind of evidence that could make me reconsider. That
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  Speaker 1: last part matters. If there's no possible fact, document, witness, recording,
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  Speaker 1: court decision, scientific finding, or act of God that could
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  Speaker 1: ever make you reconsider, then you may not have an
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  Speaker 1: opinion anymore. You may have adopted a house cat. It
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: lives there now. It doesn't contribute, and if you try
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  Speaker 1: to move it, it becomes violent. Another reason admitting error
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  Speaker 1: is so hard is because we don't just have opinions anymore.
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  Speaker 1: We've become our opinions. Politics is the obvious example, but
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  Speaker 1: it happens everywhere. Ford or Chevy, Android or iPhone, Razorbacks or... Well,
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  Speaker 1: Charlie says not to alienate anybody unnecessarily, so we'll just
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  Speaker 1: leave that one alone. Once an opinion becomes part of
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  Speaker 1: our identity, evidence against the opinion can feel like an
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  Speaker 1: attack against us personally. If somebody tells me a politician
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  Speaker 1: I supported did something wrong, I may hear, Kevin, you're
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  Speaker 1: a fool and a bad person. But that's not what
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  Speaker 1: the evidence says. Evidence doesn't know who I voted for.
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  Speaker 1: A fact is not responsible for my emotional reaction to it.
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  Speaker 1: And accountability cannot mean hold everybody accountable except the people
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  Speaker 1: I like. If wrongdoing is wrong when the other side
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  Speaker 1: does it, it's still wrong when our side does it.
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  Speaker 1: If government power is dangerous in the hands of people
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  Speaker 1: we don't trust, it doesn't become harmless just because our
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: preferred team takes control of it. Principles that only operate
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: when they are convenient are not really principles. They're declarations.
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  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean every accusation is true. It doesn't mean
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  Speaker 1: we should abandon somebody the moment a rumor appears. It
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  Speaker 1: means we investigate honestly, apply the same standard, and go
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  Speaker 1: where the evidence leads. Sometimes that will confirm what we believed.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it will not. And sometimes the most honest sentence
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  Speaker 1: available is, I don't know yet. That sentence ought to
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  Speaker 1: make a comeback. I don't know is not an omission
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  Speaker 1: of stupidity. It's a boundary marker between what you can
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  Speaker 1: support and what you cannot. Unfortunately, I Don't Know does
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  Speaker 1: not perform well on television panels, internet arguments, or family
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: gatherings where Uncle Somebody has already conducted extensive research on
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: a meme. This episode of the Kevin Stone Podcast is
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: brought to you by the Emergency Portable Gold Post Company.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Were you proven wrong in the middle of an argument?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: No problem. With emergency portable goalposts, you can move the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: standard of proof quickly, quietly, and without acknowledging a single
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: inconvenient fact. Did you say it would never happen, and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: then it happened? Simply unfold your new goalpost and say, well,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that's not what I meant. Did somebody produce the exact
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: evidence you requested? Move the goalpost again and demand evidence
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: printed on parchment, signed by 12 witnesses, and delivered by
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a bald eagle. Emergency Portable Goalposts come with wheels, cup holders,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and a complimentary phrase book featuring classics such as That's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Taken Out of Context. Do your own research. And our
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: most popular model, everybody knows that. Emergency Portable Goalposts. Because
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: changing the subject is easier than changing your mind. Not
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: available in stores because we were wrong about the distribution deal,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but we're not ready to discuss that. And now, back
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to the show. There's a close relative of I was
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: wrong that people also struggle with. I'm sorry. So we
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: invented apologies with escape hatches. I'm sorry if you were offended.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: That's not an apology. That's assigning paperwork to the injured party.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but you made me angry. That little word, but,
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  Speaker 1: just drove a bulldozer through everything that came before it.
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  Speaker 1: Mistakes were made. By whom? Apparently, mistakes simply float down
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  Speaker 1: from the sky like pollen. Nobody releases them. Nobody's responsible.
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  Speaker 1: They just collect on the windshield of public life. A
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  Speaker 1: real admission is much plainer. I said this, it was incorrect.
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  Speaker 1: I did this, I shouldn't have done it. You tried
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  Speaker 1: to tell me, I didn't listen. I'm sorry, I'll correct it.
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  Speaker 1: No speech, no courtroom defense, no attempt to make the
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  Speaker 1: other person apologize for catching you. That kind of honesty
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  Speaker 1: can actually build trust. Think about the people you trust
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  Speaker 1: the most. It's not because they've never been wrong, of
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  Speaker 1: course not. You don't know anybody who's never been wrong.
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  Speaker 1: You trust them because you believe they'll tell you the truth,
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  Speaker 1: including the truth about themselves. Leaders ought to understand that.
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  Speaker 1: Parents ought to understand that. Public officials ought to understand it.
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  Speaker 1: Podcast hosts with imaginary chiefs of staff definitely ought to
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  Speaker 1: understand it. Research and leadership writing have made the same
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  Speaker 1: basic point. Leaders who openly acknowledge mistakes can create an
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  Speaker 1: environment where people learn from failure instead of hiding it.
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  Speaker 1: When the person in charge pretends to be infallible, everybody
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  Speaker 1: underneath learns to conceal bad news. And hidden bad news
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  Speaker 1: does not improve with age. It's not a fine wine,
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  Speaker 1: it's potato salad left in a hot car. Now, there's
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  Speaker 1: another side to this. Amending you were wrong does not
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  Speaker 1: mean changing your beliefs every time somebody raises an eyebrow
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  Speaker 1: at you. There is a difference between being open-minded and
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  Speaker 1: having a screen door where your convictions ought to be.
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  Speaker 1: Some things deserve firm commitment. Moral principles matter. Evidence matters.
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  Speaker 1: The Constitution matters. Your word matters. But firmness and arrogance
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  Speaker 1: are not the same thing. A strong person can say,
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  Speaker 1: I've considered your argument and I still disagree. That's perfectly fair.
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  Speaker 1: The key is whether we actually considered it or merely
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  Speaker 1: waited for the other person to stop talking so we
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  Speaker 1: could reload. Changing your mind because the crowd pressured you
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  Speaker 1: is not courage. Changing your mind because the evidence proved
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  Speaker 1: you were wrong is not weakness. That's integrity. We should
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  Speaker 1: probably celebrate it more often. Imagine a politician walking to
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  Speaker 1: a microphone and saying, I supported that policy. Here is
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  Speaker 1: what I expected it to do. Here's what it actually did.
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  Speaker 1: I was wrong. And here's how I intend to fix it.
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  Speaker 1: Half the country would assume it was an AI video.
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  Speaker 1: No offense, Charlie. He says, none taken. Artificial intelligence apparently
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  Speaker 1: has enough problems without accepting responsibility for Congress. But seriously,
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  Speaker 1: what if we stop punishing every honest correction as though
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  Speaker 1: it proved permanent unfitness? We complain that leaders never admit mistakes.
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  Speaker 1: But when one does, opponents turn the admission into a
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  Speaker 1: campaign commercial by sundown. We may be creating the very
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  Speaker 1: dishonesty we complain about. Accountability requires consequences when appropriate. But
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  Speaker 1: accountability should also leave room for truth, correction, restitution, and growth. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 1: people have every incentive to deny everything until the building
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  Speaker 1: collapses around them. I'm not an expert on this. That's
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  Speaker 1: why Charlie keeps research nearby and a fire extinguisher under
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  Speaker 1: the desk. But I think there are a few things
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  Speaker 1: ordinary people, including me, can practice. First, separate the fact
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  Speaker 1: from your worth. Being wrong about something doesn't mean you're worthless, foolish,
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  Speaker 1: or dishonest. Refusing to correct something after you know better...
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  Speaker 1: that's where the character problems begin. Second, slow down before
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: making a confident claim. There's nothing wrong with saying, as
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: far as I know, or I need to verify that,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: those phrases can save you from having to perform a
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  Speaker 1: full emergency extraction of your foot from your mouth. Third,
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  Speaker 1: ask yourself what would change your mind. If the honest
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  Speaker 1: answer is nothing, you're no longer evaluating evidence. You're guarding
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  Speaker 1: a fort. Fourth, practice small admissions. I had the time wrong.
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  Speaker 1: I misunderstood what you said. You were right about the directions.
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  Speaker 1: That last one may be advanced level training for some
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  Speaker 1: of us. Fifth, correct the mistake where you made it.
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  Speaker 1: If you give somebody false information privately, correct it privately.
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  Speaker 1: If you announced it publicly, the correction belongs in public too,
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  Speaker 1: and preferably in the same size lettering as the original claim.
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  Speaker 1: Whispered corrections do not erase shouted accusations. And finally, don't
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  Speaker 1: add a counterattack. I was wrong, but remember what you
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  Speaker 1: did in 2014? is not an omission. It's a hostage exchange.
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  Speaker 1: Just own your part. You're not responsible for confessing everybody
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  Speaker 1: else's mistakes. Most people are fully equipped to avoid doing
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that themselves. So why can't anybody admit they're wrong? Because
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  Speaker 1: it embarrasses us. Because we confuse being corrected with being defeated.
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  Speaker 1: Because our opinions get tangled up with our identity. Because
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  Speaker 1: we fear losing status, trust, votes, followers, authority, or the
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  Speaker 1: argument at the dinner table. But refusing to admit a
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: mistake does not make the mistake disappear. It only adds
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  Speaker 1: a second problem. Now we're wrong and dishonest about it.
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  Speaker 1: There is something quite strong about a person who can stop,
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  Speaker 1: look at the facts, and say, I believed that. I
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  Speaker 1: said that. I was wrong. Not crushed. Not humiliated. Not destroyed. Corrected.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And a person who can be corrected is a person
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: who can still learn. Maybe that's the challenge for this week.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Find one thing, large or small, that you need to own.
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  Speaker 1: Admit it without an excuse. Correct it if you can.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And learn something from it. And if you cannot think
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of a single thing you've been wrong about lately... Ask
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: someone who lives with you. They probably have documentation. Charlie
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: certainly does. He's now placed three binders on his desk.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: That's all for this episode of the Kevin Stone Podcast.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I'm Kevin Stone, reminding you that changing your mind after
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: learning the truth is not weakness. It may be one
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of the strongest things you ever do. And Charlie, before
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: you say anything else, I was wrong about the file.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: It's apparent that there's four binders. This concludes our broadcast day.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Good night, and God bless America.