The Need to Be Right
There is a quiet shift that seems to be happening in how we relate to one another.
Conversations are no longer just about understanding or exchanging ideas. More often, they feel like contests. Not always loud or aggressive, but steady and persistent. A need to be right. A need to correct. A need to stand firm, even when the cost is connection itself.
We may not always notice it in ourselves. It’s easier to see it in others.
We hear someone dismiss a different perspective without pause. We see a conversation turn into a defense of identity rather than an exploration of truth. We watch people hold their ground, even when the ground itself may be uncertain.
And perhaps, if we are honest, we have felt that pull within ourselves too.
The desire to be right is not new. But the weight we place on it may be growing.
So we might ask quietly:
When did understanding become less important than winning?
Validation and Identity
Part of this shift may come from something deeper than disagreement.
We are not only defending ideas. We are often defending ourselves.
Our views can become tied to our sense of identity, our place in the world, our sense of belonging. When someone challenges what we believe, it can feel like more than a disagreement. It can feel like a threat.
Psychology gives language to this. Confirmation bias quietly reinforces what we already believe. We seek information that agrees with us and avoid what unsettles us. Tribalism strengthens this further. We find comfort in groups that reflect our views, and those groups, in turn, affirm us.
In those spaces, we are not just accepted. We are reinforced.
And there is something deeply human about that. We all want to feel seen, understood, and secure.
But when validation becomes the primary goal, something begins to shift.
We may start to value agreement more than truth.
We may begin to prefer being affirmed over being challenged.
We may slowly lose the ability to sit with ideas that do not immediately feel comfortable.
And in that process, we risk narrowing our world without realizing it.
So we might ask:
Are we seeking truth, or are we seeking to feel certain?
When Connection Turns Into Division
There is another layer to this.
What begins as a search for belonging can, over time, become something more rigid.
If we are consistently surrounded by voices that mirror our own, we may begin to see those outside of that circle differently. Not just as people who disagree, but as people who are wrong in a deeper sense. Misguided. Uninformed. Even undeserving of consideration.
This is where something important can begin to erode.
Our ability to see one another fully.
When that happens, it becomes easier to dismiss, to label, to reduce a person to a position rather than recognize them as a whole human being. The conversation is no longer about ideas. It becomes about sides.
And once people become sides, empathy becomes more difficult.
Scripture reminds us, in a simple but profound way, to “look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Philippians 2:4, KJV). It is a call not just to kindness, but to perspective. To remember that others carry lives, stories, and experiences we may never fully see.
Without that posture, division does not just remain. It deepens.
So we might pause and consider:
When we encounter someone who thinks differently, do we still see a person first?
Choosing a Different Posture
If these patterns are present in our culture, they are also present in us.
That may sound uncomfortable, but it is also where change becomes possible.
We may not be able to reshape the broader conversations happening around us overnight. But we can choose how we enter into them.
We can choose to listen a little longer.
To ask a question before forming a conclusion.
To remain steady even when disagreement arises.
To care more about understanding than about being seen as correct.
This does not mean abandoning conviction. It does not mean accepting everything without discernment.
It means holding both truth and humility together.
It means remembering that the person across from us is not simply a viewpoint to be corrected, but a life to be understood.
And perhaps that begins with a quieter question:
When we speak, are we trying to prove something, or are we trying to understand someone?
And if we are honest with that answer, what might begin to change?
Further Reflection
If we continue as we are—seeking validation, defending identity, and narrowing our circles—what kind of conversations will we be left with?
What kind of communities will we form?
And what might it look like, even in small ways, to choose a different posture moving forward?
THE CS COLUMN 