On Being Wrong and Admitting It

THERE is an ancient but ageless statement accredited to Aristotle which says that “Some men are just as firmly convinced of what they think as others are of what they know.”13 Perhaps we have all seen men so confident in their own opinions and so accustomed to over-riding all opposition that they come almost to believe in their own infallibility. Perhaps we have all seen those who, once having set out upon a course, think it necessary, right or wrong, to continue as they have begun, for the sake of what they believe to be their pride or prestige. Being right is exceedingly important_so important that men will go a long way, at times, to seem to be right, whether they are or not. But danger comes when we become so blindly convinced of being right that it is difficult for us to recognize when we are wrong and even more difficult for us to admit being wrong. Even those who usually are right should never, for their own safety and for the safety of those who rely upon them, come to believe that they could never be wrong. However sincere a man might be, if his confidence in his own judgment becomes so overgrown that neither the sober counsel of others nor the facts of experience nor demonstrated truth can move him, he has become living proof of the scripture which says that “Pride goeth before . . . a fall.”14 Anyone who has placed his pride above principle has fallen far already, whether he knows it or not. That kind of pride is always dangerous and often disastrous. We all have our good opinion of ourselves, or should have. We all have our pride. To some degree we all have the prevalent human tendency of justifying ourselves; and we all find it difficult at times to admit that we are wrong. But, when we are wrong and know it, there is no other way in which we can salvage prestige, no other way in which we can retain the confidence of friends, no other way in which we can keep straight with ourselves, except by having the honor and the good sense to concede it. There is no man who is above being wrong, and there is no man who is beyond the moral responsibility of admitting it when he is.