Right it's as if the low-information people are saying (and believing) "I have just as much the right to be correct as anybody else. It's my right. Don't tell me I'm wrong because it is my right to be the one who tells what is the truth".
I find it funny how people have to clarify "I'm not right-learning btw" to lend more credence to their claims, and to not be attacked. Shows where we're at.
Thanks for pointing this out. "Right" is the wrong word. I think I would have been better to say something like, "whether I'm simply ignorant or whether they're deceiving themselves."
It depends a lot on tone and body language, but "right" usually means "I agree with you" while "correct" can come off as them deigning to give their approval from a high place, like "I'm the one who actually has the knowledge, but you happen to be correct in this specific instance". But it's more about the person and their tone, the people who feel strongly about this are probably who have experienced it from someone insufferable who uses it as a power play. I.e. if you're not intentionally using it this way, you don't have much to worry about.
A lot of people have built the idea of being "right" so deeply into their identity that admitting they are wrong is unthinkable and traumatizing. They weave a narrative about how they were really right in some way.
Normally, people have been wrong so many times in their life that they learn to admit it, learn, and move on. Only if you are highly insulated from objective reality can you maintain some idea that being "right" is one of your qualities.
Where is such insulation from reality happening? College is the most obvious answer. Rather than being a place to be challenged intellectually, it has become a place to learn the current politically-correct perspectives and have them reinforced constantly.
I have no idea why someone at the NYT was not more skeptical of an official from one of the parties involved in the conflict. But once the headline goes out, they are "right" and that will never change.
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