Look at me. I'm a paragon of integrity.

I'm Angela Duckworth.

I'm Stephen Dubner.

And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show, whatever happened to our ability to compromise.

I don't need to debate with you about whether the world is round or flat.

We know it's flat.

Also, what is the difference between not being wrong and being right?

I think I can be obnoxious in my desire to be right.

Angela, I would submit that most people have a strong sense of right and wrong, wouldn't you agree?

I would absolutely agree. Moral right and wrong, right?

Yeah, but even, you know, if you're driving on the wrong side of the road, you know it.

Even that's not a moral thing.

As individuals and society, I would argue we really value that distinction between right and wrong.

But I've got a but.

Okay.

It strikes me that this sense, which is essentially, as you say, a moral judgment,

that it's infiltrated every realm of our lives and that it's risen to a sort of fundamentalism,

not just in moral or religious issues, but in politics and intellectual matters, so that if I think

I'm right about something and you're wrong, there's a lot of friction. And I might think of

you as an enemy or at least a rival. I may sever ties with you. Now, another choice would be

to compromise, to say, look, I think you're wrong, I think I'm right,

...