Psychological Rigidity: Why Certain People Will Never Admit They are Wrong

 

I believe , by now anyone can rightfully wonder after years of being  wrong about  everything Apostle David C Pack can imagine , "What the hell is wrong with this man? 

 I have heard over the years that "Dave Pack is brilliant."  This is not true. If Dave Pack was brilliant, he'd not come up with such foolishness and take every Sabbath to bring his Prophetic Circus to town basing it on foolishness easily disproven. I did not find Dave "brilliant" in his refutable "Irrefutable Proof of God" series either. Loud, cocky and ill informed, but not brilliant in any sense of the word.  

So then I got to thinking that maybe Dave Pack is clever.  I gave up on that too. It is not a sign of being clever when week after week and month after month, ok, year after year,  the man is badly mistaken in his narrow field of prophetic woo woo and can not once admit he was mistaken. Like the Second Coming, everything is right on track even when there is no real train or tracks going anywhere. Most would be able to see this as mistaken and delusional.  Clever is supposed to have some kind of reward. Dave is not being rewarded for this foolishness available for everyone and anyone with half a brain to observe and evaluate. 

Dave seems oblivious to the fact that he has founded his Church on prophetic sand and that in his own mind, he is specifically spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures. That is simply crazy talk. Herbert Armstrong played that game as well and Dave has copied his mentor to the harm of all who come within his reach.  Most would call that a sign of mental illness or at least delusional thinking with religious content. Neither bodes well for RCG in the very near future. 

Dave Pack has become over the year, less and less coherent in his speaking. One can listen to his sermons of the past year and simply end up saying "Huh?  What the hell is he talking about?"  That's not a good sign.  Even I know "the simplicity that is in Christ" escapes Dave. I bet if you asked the Sacred Council of 13 to exactly explain what Dave just spoke about or the big picture of what he feels proves this or that, they would not be able to do it. Going along to get along is more their style it seems. I will be the local ministry is even more in the fog. 

So here ,in my view,  is what Dave's deeply embedded problem with himself is and why this Circus he calls the Restored Church of God is pretty much doomed to fail.  But I will let the experts speak to this. 

Why Certain People Will Never Admit They Were Wrong

Psychological rigidity is not a sign of strength.

Guy Winch Ph.D.

(Note: Definition of Psychological rigidity-)

"In psychology, rigidity or mental rigidity refers to an obstinate inability to yield or a refusal to appreciate another person's viewpoint or emotions characterized by a lack of empathy. It can also refer to the tendency to perseverate, which is the inability to change habits and the inability to modify concepts and attitudes once developed. A specific example of rigidity is functional fixedness, which is a difficulty conceiving new uses for familiar objects."

"Mental rigidity often features a high need for cognitive closure, meaning that they assign explanations prematurely to things with a determination that this is truth, finding that resolution of the dissonance as reassuring as finding the truth.^[17] Then, there is little reason to correct their unconscious misattributions if it would bring uncertainty back."  Wikipedia

In other words, when Dave adjusts his mistaken notions to make him feel like he is not mistaken, this is reassuring that he was not mistaken in the first place. Thus every failed belief is upheld and we can know that "the math is absolutely right" and "The prophecy is absolutely on track."  when it is neither. Eventually the end of the line will come when nothing can fix all the mistaken notions and something bad is probably going to happen.  It will not be, "I am sorry, I was mistaken"

The article continues...

We all make mistakes, and we do so with regularity. Some errors are small, such as, “No, we don’t need to stop at the store; there’s plenty of milk left for breakfast." Some are bigger, such as, “Don’t rush me; we have plenty of time to get to the airport before the flight leaves.” And some are crucial, such as, “I know it was raining and dark, but I’m sure that was the man I saw breaking into the home across the street.”

No one enjoys being wrong. It’s an unpleasant emotional experience for all of us. The question is how do we respond when it turns out we were wrong—when there wasn’t enough milk left for coffee, when we hit traffic and missed the flight, or when we find out the man who sat in jail for five years based on our identification was innocent all along?

Some of us admit we were wrong and say, “Oops, you were right. We should have gotten more milk.”

Some of us kind of imply we were wrong, but we don’t do so explicitly or in a way that is satisfying to the other person, “We had plenty of time to get to the airport on time if the traffic hadn’t been unusually bad. But fine, we’ll leave earlier next time.”

But some people refuse to admit they’re wrong, even in the face of overwhelming evidence: "They let him go because of DNA evidence and another dude’s confession? Ridiculous! That’s the guy! I saw him!”

The first two examples are probably familiar to most of us, because those are typical responses to being wrong. We accept responsibility fully or partially (sometimes, very, very partially), but we don’t push back against the actual facts. We don’t claim there was enough milk when there wasn’t, or that we were not late to the airport.

But what about when a person does push back against the facts, when they simply cannot admit they were wrong in any circumstance? What in their psychological makeup makes it impossible for them to admit they were wrong, even when it is obvious they were? And why does this happen so repetitively — why do they never admit they were wrong?

The answer is related to their ego, their very sense-of-self. (Note: Dave believes he is spoken of in the scriptures. There can be no more false sense of self than this.) Some people have such a fragile ego, such brittle self-esteem, such a weak "psychological constitution," that admitting they made a mistake or that they were wrong is fundamentally too threatening for their egos to tolerate. Accepting they were wrong, absorbing that reality, would be so psychologically shattering, their defense mechanisms do something remarkable to avoid doing so — they literally distort their perception of reality to make it (reality) less threatening. Their defense mechanisms protect their fragile ego by changing the very facts in their mind, so they are no longer wrong or culpable.

As a result, they come up with statements, such as, "I checked in the morning, and there was enough milk, so someone must have finished it." When it’s pointed out that no one was home after they left in the morning, so no one could have done that, they double down and repeat, “Someone must have, because I checked, and there was milk,” as though some phantom broke into the house, finished the milk and left without a trace.

In our other example, they will insist that their erroneous identification of the robber was correct despite DNA evidence and a confession from a different person. When confronted, they will continue to insist or pivot to attacking anyone who tries to argue otherwise and to disparaging the sources of the contradictory information (e.g., "These labs make mistakes all the time, and besides, you can't trust a confession from another criminal! And why do you always take their side?").

People who repeatedly exhibit this kind of behavior are, by definition, psychologically fragile. However, that assessment is often difficult for people to accept, because to the outside world, they look as if they’re confidently standing their ground and not backing down, things we associate with strength. But psychological rigidity is not a sign of strength, it is an indication of weakness. These people are not choosing to stand their ground; they’re compelled to do so in order to protect their fragile egos. Admitting we are wrong is unpleasant, it is bruising for any ego. It takes a certain amount of emotional strength and courage to deal with that reality and own up to our mistakes. Most of us sulk a bit when we have to admit we're wrong, but we get over it

But when people are constitutionally unable to admit they’re wrong, when they cannot tolerate the very notion that they are capable of mistakes, it is because they suffer from an ego so fragile that they cannot sulk and get over it — they need to warp their very perception of reality and challenge obvious facts in order to defend their not being wrong in the first place.

How we respond to such people is up to us. The one mistake we should not make is to consider their persistent and rigid refusal to admit they’re wrong as a sign of strength or conviction, because it is the absolute opposite — psychological weakness and fragility.