I've found that this is easy to flip on its head, at least for yourself. Convincing the masses to treat errors differently is another problem altogether.
People tend to get defensive about being wrong for two reasons. Either because they fear being punished, or they have associated the thing they are wrong about with their identity.
People don't tend to make mistakes knowingly. Either they were tired, uninformed, inexperienced, or whatever. Most often these things are out of their control. To attack them and say "What are you? Some kind of idiot?" is unhelpful and leads to the sentiments described in the parent. Next time they screw up, they'll lie about it, deny it, or blame it on someone else. Accepting that mistakes happen, and they're rarely intended helps you to be more empathetic when other people mess up, and helps you disregard the insensitive reactions of other people whenever you mess up.
When people associate ideas with their identity, this makes any attack on the idea an attack on them personally. This seems to be fairly common nowadays on the political landscape, especially with all the labels that people give themselves and each other. The matter of the fact is that ideas are only concepts, and their only attachment to a person is whether they think they are valid or not. A person can very easily change their mind, however the moment an idea becomes associated with their identity it becomes much harder. Allow yourself to be wrong, allow yourself to be convinced, and change your mind, and you likely won't care nearly as much when it turns out you were wrong - you just didn't know better, and you can't know everything, but now you know more.
People tend to get defensive about being wrong for two reasons. Either because they fear being punished, or they have associated the thing they are wrong about with their identity.
People don't tend to make mistakes knowingly. Either they were tired, uninformed, inexperienced, or whatever. Most often these things are out of their control. To attack them and say "What are you? Some kind of idiot?" is unhelpful and leads to the sentiments described in the parent. Next time they screw up, they'll lie about it, deny it, or blame it on someone else. Accepting that mistakes happen, and they're rarely intended helps you to be more empathetic when other people mess up, and helps you disregard the insensitive reactions of other people whenever you mess up.
When people associate ideas with their identity, this makes any attack on the idea an attack on them personally. This seems to be fairly common nowadays on the political landscape, especially with all the labels that people give themselves and each other. The matter of the fact is that ideas are only concepts, and their only attachment to a person is whether they think they are valid or not. A person can very easily change their mind, however the moment an idea becomes associated with their identity it becomes much harder. Allow yourself to be wrong, allow yourself to be convinced, and change your mind, and you likely won't care nearly as much when it turns out you were wrong - you just didn't know better, and you can't know everything, but now you know more.