Why Is It So Hard to Question Ourselves?

In a conflict, it’s common to want the other person to admit they were wrong, that they acted badly, that they hurt us, that they question themselves. We sometimes expect an apology, but even more, we want acknowledgment: for them to finally see what we see, to admit their responsibility, to say, “Yes, I was wrong, I hurt you.”

Yet when it comes to ourselves, this kind of self-questioning becomes much harder. We find mitigating circumstances, explain our intentions, downplay what happened, or conveniently bring up what the other person did too. We’re quite willing to demand self-criticism — as long as someone else is the one practicing it.

When a Mistake Becomes a Verdict on the Self

Why is it so hard to acknowledge a mistake or a fault? Perhaps because we don’t simply experience them as information about what we did. We often interpret them as information about who we are. An error in reasoning can seem to threaten the image we have of our own intelligence. A moral fault can threaten the image we have of our own worth. In both cases, something concerning a particular action risks turning into a sweeping judgment about ourselves.

This panic at seeing a cracked self-image is probably not just about our self-regard. It may touch something deeper: our need to belong to the group. If I discover that I’m less intelligent than I thought, less fair-minded than I imagined, or capable of behavior I condemn in others, what’s threatened isn’t only the idea I have of myself. It may also be, perhaps, the fear of no longer being recognized by others.

Being seen as incompetent, bad, or harmful can mean, symbolically, losing one’s place among others. So we tend to quickly correct this threatened image: we try to show that we aren’t responsible, that our intentions were good, that circumstances explain our behavior. This reflex isn’t necessarily just a defense of our ego; it can also be understood as an attempt to preserve our sense of belonging to the group.

When a Remark Becomes a Reproach

This confusion between a particular action and a global judgment of the self often shows up in the philosophical practice workshops I lead. When I point out to someone that they rushed their reasoning, that they didn’t answer the question, or that their point lacked clarity, they often react immediately with “Sorry,” “my apologies.” Yet I hadn’t made a moral accusation. I hadn’t said, “You did something wrong.” I had simply drawn their attention to how their thinking was working. But the remark is often heard differently. It’s no longer received as an invitation to examine something, but as a reproach that demands a response. The person doesn’t seem to hear, “Let’s look together at what happened in your reasoning,” but rather, “You did something wrong and you need to apologize.” As if I already occupied the position of judge, and they had to plead to be absolved.

Another reaction also occurs: aggressive pushback. “Who do you think you are, my teacher?”, “Who are you to tell me that?”, “I don’t take lessons from anyone.” Here again, the remark isn’t treated as information to examine, but as an attack on the standing of the person receiving it. If I refuse the position of the one being corrected, I may try to challenge the legitimacy of the one doing the correcting.

These two reactions, opposite as they are, seem to come from the same movement: the difficulty of tolerating having some part of oneself put under examination. In one case, I rush toward the apology; in the other, I rush toward defense and attack. But in both cases, something perhaps blocks the harder moment: simply looking at what’s there and asking, “What does this reveal?”

From Self-Criticism to Self-Trial

This difficulty appears with even more force when it comes to a moral fault. Acknowledging a fault isn’t simply a matter of noting that a behavior had regrettable consequences. It requires admitting responsibility: I should have acted differently, something in my behavior is a problem, I have to answer for it.

But this acknowledgment can quickly turn into a sweeping condemnation. “I did wrong” becomes “I am a bad person.” Examining an act then turns into putting oneself on trial. Faced with this threat, two strategies become available: condemning oneself to show that one has understood, or justifying oneself to avoid being condemned.

Self-criticism thus seems caught between two pitfalls. It can become a way of judging oneself without really understanding what happened and what it stirs up in us. But it can also become a way of explaining oneself without really acknowledging responsibility. The real challenge would be to acknowledge a fault without condemning oneself once and for all.

Investigating Before Judging

We would still need to distinguish several moments we often lump together. First, there’s the investigation: what actually happened? What did I do? What led me to act that way? What did I fail to see? Then comes the judgment: what is my responsibility? Did I make a mistake, cause harm, act unjustly? And finally, there’s the practical question: what should I do now?

The problem is that we often start with the judgment. We deliver the verdict before conducting the investigation. Or we rush to defend ourselves before we’ve even examined what happened.

Understanding the causes of a behavior doesn’t mean approving of it, though. I can understand why I got angry, why I lied, or why I hurt someone, while also recognizing that I shouldn’t have acted that way. Understanding what led me to act therefore doesn’t mean that action was justified. Explanation lets us understand a behavior; it doesn’t thereby make it legitimate.

What Competition Reveals

I can see this when I feel in competition with someone. Faced with a person I find brilliant, well-regarded, or particularly at ease in a field that matters to me, I may find myself becoming more critical, more quick to spot their flaws, minimizing what they do, or feeling irritated by their success. I might then immediately conclude: “I’m jealous,” “I’m being aggressive,” “I shouldn’t react this way.” That judgment isn’t necessarily wrong, but it doesn’t teach me much.

A different approach is to examine what’s really at stake in this reaction. What does the other person’s success threaten in me? Do I feel that their worth diminishes mine? Am I this dependent on other people’s recognition? Do I believe I hold the one right way of doing things, to the point that someone else’s success in a different way feels like a challenge to my own?

Aggressiveness then becomes something to examine rather than simply a flaw to condemn. It can reveal a particular way I position myself relative to others, an implicit conception of worth as something distributed competitively: for me to be recognized, the other would have to be recognized less. What we dislike in ourselves can then become a subject for inquiry rather than a piece of evidence against us.

That doesn’t make the aggressiveness acceptable. But instead of stopping at the verdict “I shouldn’t be like this,” I can look for what this reaction reveals about how I think. Self-criticism then becomes an inquiry into the beliefs guiding my conduct, rather than a simple judgment passed on myself.

Looking at things this way keeps us from immediately turning a self-observation into a condemnation. Perhaps that’s when self-criticism becomes truly possible: when I can look at something in myself that I dislike without immediately needing to deny it or defend it.

Why Do We Want the Other Person to Confess?

So far, we’ve looked at self-criticism from the side of the person who must examine themselves. But the difficulty also shows up on the side of the person demanding this self-criticism from someone else. When we ask someone to “question themselves,” what are we really asking for? Do we want them to examine what happened, or do we mainly want them to admit they were wrong?

Because when someone says “I was wrong,” they’re not only acknowledging something about themselves. They’re also confirming something about us. If they were wrong, then we were right. If they acknowledge having hurt us, our way of interpreting the situation gets a kind of confirmation.

That’s perhaps why confession matters so much in conflicts. We’re not only looking for acknowledgment of the harm caused; we’re also sometimes looking for validation of our own position. The other person’s confession clarifies the roles: the one who caused the harm and the one who suffered it, the one who must acknowledge and the one before whom that acknowledgment is made.

But this structure also explains why confession is hard. Acknowledging a fault isn’t just about looking at what one did. It also means momentarily accepting a certain asymmetry: being the one who has to answer for their conduct before someone who is waiting for that acknowledgment.

This position can be especially hard when we sense that the other person also bears some responsibility. And indeed, in many conflicts, the faults aren’t necessarily equal, but they aren’t always entirely on one side either.

Foucault: Telling the Truth About Oneself, Before Another

Michel Foucault offers an interesting perspective here. In his analyses of Christian practices of confession, he shows that producing a truth about oneself is never a purely inward act: this truth is formulated within a relationship to another person, according to certain rules, and it also produces a particular way of constituting oneself as a subject.

What’s valuable in Foucault isn’t just showing that confession reveals something hidden within us. He also shows that this search for truth about oneself is embedded in a relationship. Telling the truth about oneself is never simply a matter of looking inward; it’s also accepting a certain position toward the one to whom this truth is addressed.

This helps explain why acknowledging a fault can be experienced as such a difficult thing. We’re not only afraid of discovering something unpleasant about ourselves. We’re also afraid of the position this acknowledgment puts us in relative to others. What we sometimes refuse isn’t so much seeing our fault as becoming, in someone else’s eyes, “the one who was wrong.”

Acknowledging Responsibility Without Condemning Yourself

Genuine self-criticism therefore requires separating two things we often confuse: acknowledging our responsibility, and conceding the whole story to the other person. I can acknowledge a mistake without losing my capacity to think. I can acknowledge a fault without being reduced to it. I can acknowledge my share of responsibility without denying the other person’s.

Self-criticism shouldn’t be either a permanent tribunal or an elegant way of avoiding all responsibility. It consists in being able to shift position: investigating before judging, judging without condemning once and for all, and acknowledging responsibility without seeing it as a humiliation.

It begins with a simple but difficult question: “What actually happened?”

Then come other questions: “What’s my part in this? What does this reveal about the way I act? What should I do with this now?”

Self-criticism, then, is neither about declaring ourselves innocent nor condemning ourselves, but about being able to bear becoming, for a moment, a problem to ourselves.