A friend told me about a time he was sitting by the lake with a few friends. There was a dark shape down by the water, and his aunt commented that it was a bear on the narrows. His cousin disagreed, insisting that it was a fisherman. Next his wife shook her head, certain that it was a gnarly tree trunk. Finally he laughed, and declared that it was a boulder. 

The argument continued for some time, each person staunch in their own belief. They were not compelled to walk the hundred steps down to the water's edge to solve the puzzle. Being right trumped getting the facts straight.

The book called You Can Be Right or You Can Be Married sits on my shelf. Sometimes I leave it on the coffee table just to keep the notion freshly in mind. Being right can be the booby prize, a gaudy, plastic trophy to clutch after everyone who has been made Wrong has gone away.