The need to be right!!!

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” -Goethe

If you agree with everything, there not much of a discussion, not much of a conversation and definitely not much of an exchange of ideas.Remembering past occurrence as my boss always says, we don't want any yes man in our organisation.

At another extreme we have people who makes a point of disagreement with everything's being said. The highly argumentative person who demonstrate superiority through disagreement. One gracious fact emerge here as too often, academics or highly educated people behave in this manner extensively because they have been encouraged to do so.

The Need To Be Right

This is very much tied up with ego. An argument is a battle of ego. When you agree you seem to be submitting to the other point of view -so you lose. When you disagree you are asserting your ego and indicating that you may be superior.

Ironically, if you insist always winning an argument you end up with nothing more than you started with -except showing off your arguing ability. A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing ego.

Ancient Greek (about 400 BC) thinking habits of logic, reason, argument, truth and the importance of man(kind). Before the last Renaissance the thinking habits of the Western world were derived from dogma and theology." ..." The search for truth - as distinct from dogma - was to be made through the exposure of falsity by means of argument, reason and logic. This reason, not dogma, was to decide what was right and what was wrong".

Unfortunately, many people with a high intelligence actually turn out to be poor thinkers. They get caught in the ‘intelligence trap’, of which there are many aspects. For example, a highly intelligent person may take up a view on a subject and then defend that view (through choice of premises and perception) very ably. The better someone is able to defend a view, the less inclined is that person actually to explore the subject. So the highly intelligent person can get trapped by intelligence, together with our usual sense of logic that you cannot be more right than right, into one point of view. The less intelligent person is less sure of his or her rightness and therefore more free to explore the subject and other points of view.

A highly intelligent person usually grows up with a sense of that intellectual superiority and needs to be seen to be ‘right’ and ‘clever’. Such a person is less willing to risk creative and constructive ideas, because such ideas may take a time to show their worth or to get accepted. Highly intelligent people are often attracted to the quick pay-off of negativity. If you attack someone else’s ideas or thinking, there can be an immediate achievement together with a useful sense of superiority. In intellectual terms attack is also cheap and easy because the attacker can always choose the frame of reference.

And provoking statement that totally not in phase with most of the managers out there but trust me, it's the fact.