One reason I stay on this list is that it gives me lots of ideas an information and feedback on my own that improve and sometimes changes my mind. Generally the process of changing minds rarely involves an I was Wrong And You Were Right admission. This isn't just me, as you note. Part of the reason must be embarrassment or shame or some similar emotion linked to public or even interpersonal statement of error.
But part of it, possibly connected to the same emotion, is that changing minds rarely involves a sudden realization, except with regard to simple objective facts that are not core beliefs.* Rather one works through things as the necessary adjustments get made in one's overall web of belief and finds oneself, subtly, with changed views at the end. There wasn't a moment at which I realized, for example, that I wasn't really a Marxist, this just emerged from thinking about issues and questions over many years.
Even relatively rapid changes often take some time. I recall back during the invasion of Lebanon in '82 (yes, yes, I'm ancient) visiting to my then-girlfriend's place and getting into the screaming argument about Israel with her folks that every progressive young Jew got into at that time with their parents (or in-laws, etc.), when it was no longer possible to be silent for the sake of civility. It made for a very antagonistic visit, but we were gratified, on a subsequent trip that fall to hear her father, who was not, to put it mildly, receptive when we first raised the point, basically echoing our arguments in a fight (which we fled) with other family. It just took him a few months to readjust. And then the point was that he came to see it our way, not that he ever said to us, I Was Wrong -- which he never did.
What's the point of looking for the further statement, I Was Wrong. What one hopes for in discussion, ideally, is to be enlightened and to help enlighten others, not to establish victory or defeat. Looking for admissions of error in that context only gets people's back up and interferes with the purpose.
It reminds me (speaking as lawyer) of a basic mistake novices make in cross-examination, asking one question too many. Witness says, X. You say, did you not say not-X at your deposition? Witness grudgingly concurs and tries to explain. Instead of saying, thank you, and asking the next question on a different topic, you say, So were you lying then or now? At this point the court will indeed allow the Witness to explain, and your impeachment will probably fail.
Just as in cross, it's best to let the jury see the contradiction and ask that question itself, here it's best to watch as one's ideas quietly change minds over time, and to let others note how their ideas have changed yours, rather to to try to make points and keep score. That might not be the intention of expecting admisions of error, but it is the effect.
[WS:] Great posting, Andie. I can pretty much say the same thing about my own participation in this list. It provides me with ideas, feedbacks, references and, yes, straw men (or straw women?) against which I develop my own arguments. Sometimes it is like a tripartite Zen journey: in the first state you see the world as it appears to you, in the second stage you see it as something else, and in the third stage you see it again as it appears to you, but from the vantage point of seeing it as something else.
This certainly has been the case of highly contentious issues, such as our criminal justice and penal system. In the first stage I saw it "as it is" - a bloated bureaucracy pandering to special political interest groups, sponging off public resources, and creating more social problems than it is able to solve. Then after being exposed to the idiotic babble of "innocent brothers in prison" I came to the second stage as seeing it as "something else" - a parallel universe to which dangerous elements of society are relegated and where they disappear line in a black hole. Now, I am in the third stage when I see it again as a bloated and counterproductive bureaucracy, but I am also aware of the serious social problems and dysfunctions it was commissioned to solve. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, if you will.
Of course, there were other issues as well. As yourself, I realized that I am not a revolutionary or a populist, or even a Marxist - albeit there are so many different strands in Marx that one can be almost anything and claim to be inspired by Marx. I also realized that despite my fascination with rationality, I am not a rational choice person, as I learned the importance of emotions and social environment, networks, values, sentiments etc. in "real life" cognitive process. Nonetheless, I still believe in rational discussion, reasonably free of emotional and populist appeals. Although I remain strongly anti-authoritarian, I find anarchism (to which I was strongly attracted in my college years) rather unappealing.
I can also see similar process taking place in some other people posting to this list, which is yet another reason why I stay.
Wojtek