The Tragic Consequences of Self-Justification on Public Policy and Private Action

[Time for change]

“Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. They hate goodness because it reveals their badness; they hate love because it reveals their laziness. They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of such self-awareness.” – psychiatrist and best selling author M. Scott Peck, from his book, “People of the Lie”

The essence of Dr. Peck’s definition of an evil person is one whose self-awareness is so painful to himself that he will do anything in his power to avoid it. When I first read Peck’s discussion of evil about twenty years ago, it didn’t seem quite right. But as I thought about how it applied to real life situations I came to regard it as one of the most important insights of my life.

The concept is inseparable from that of self-justification – which almost all humans engage in to a greater or lesser degree. But the evil person takes it to such an extreme that he is totally unwilling to admit fault or to try to understand him or herself. So, in order to avoid having to do that, the evil person spends his or her whole life trying to make other people and himself see himself as he would like to be seen, rather than as he really is. That means pretending, lying, killing, or whatever it takes. Therefore, no fault of an evil person can ever be corrected because that would mean having to admit that it exists.

Psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson discuss much the same concept in their book, “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by me) – Why we Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”. Their emphasis is a little different than Peck’s, primarily in that they exhibit less of a moralistic attitude. They use the word “evil” rarely if at all. At times they even seem to provide moral justification for what many would consider blatant dishonesty and destructive behavior, by referring to “well intentioned” people who do terrible things in their efforts at self-justification. But the general principle is very similar to that of Peck’s.

The main theme of their book is the many terrible consequences of self-justifying thought and action. They discuss self-justification as arising from the need to reduce cognitive dissonance to tolerable levels. People need to think of themselves as basically “good”. So when they do bad things, they tend to justify it – to themselves and others – through whatever twisted reasoning they can summon.

Tavris and Aronson describe self-justifying thought and behavior as addictive and destructive, and they use the analogy of a pyramid – which is identical to the concept of the “slippery slope”. In a moment of weakness a person may give in to temptation and do something thoughtless or unethical. They then may give in to the temptation to justify their actions, thereby making it easier for them to repeat them. The more they repeat their bad actions, the more they justify them, and the more they justify them the easier it is to repeat them the next time they have the opportunity. Eventually they find themselves at the bottom of the pyramid – or slippery slope.


Self justification in marriage

One of the chapters in “Mistakes were Made” is titled “Love’s assassin – Self-justification in marriage”. After describing how self-justification causes marriages to fall apart, the authors contrast failed marriages with good marriages:

In contrast, the couples who grow together over the years have figured out a way to live with a minimum of self-justification, which is another way of saying that they are able to put empathy for the partner ahead of defending their own territory. Successful, stable couples are able to listen to the partner’s criticism, concerns, and suggestions undefensively… They are able to yield, just enough, on the self-justifying excuse… They reduce the dissonance caused by small irritations by overlooking them, and they reduce the dissonance caused by their mistakes and major problems by solving them.

The role of self justification in hatred and aggressively hostile behavior

More generally, self-justification plays an important role in facilitating most hostile and violent behavior. Once you treat someone badly or unfairly there is the tendency to justify it, which in turn makes it easier to continue:

The same mechanism underlies the behavior of gangs who bully weaker children, employers who mistreat workers, lovers who abuse each other, police officers who continue beating a suspect who has surrendered, tyrants who imprison and torture ethnic minorities, and soldiers who commit atrocities against civilians. In all theses cases, a vicious circle is created: Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression…

The greater the pain we inflict on others, the greater the need to justify it to maintain our feelings of decency and self-worth. Because our victims deserved what they got (we say), we hate them even more than we did before we harmed them, which in turn makes us inflict even more pain on them…

The same concept applies to prejudice against racial or other minority groups:

Prejudice justifies the ill treatment we want to inflict on others, and we want to inflict ill treatment on others because we don’t like them. And why don’t we like them? Because they are competing with us for jobs in a scarce job market. Because their presence makes us doubt that we have the one true religion. Because we want to preserve our position of status, power, and privilege. Because we need to feel we are better than somebody. Because our country is waging war against them. Because we are uncomfortable with their customs, especially their sexual customs, those promiscuous perverts. Because they refuse to assimilate into our culture…

By understanding prejudice as our self-justifying servant, we can better see why some prejudices are so hard to eradicate: They allow people to justify and defend their most important social identities – their race, their religion, their sexuality – while reducing the dissonance between “I am a good person” and “I really don’t like those people”.

Self justification as a basis for criminal national policies

In previous posts I’ve discussed misplaced “patriotism” as a basis committing criminal acts on a national scale. Tavris and Aronson show how self-justification serves as the basis for those criminal acts:

How to reduce the dissonance caused by the information that America, too, has been systematically violating the Geneva Convention? One way is to say that if we do it, it isn’t torture. “We do not torture,” said George Bush, when he was confronted with evidence that we do. “We use an alternative set of procedures.” A second way to reduce dissonance is to say that if we do torture anyone, it’s justified. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib deserved everything they got, said Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), because they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands.” He seemed unaware that most of the prisoners had been picked up for arbitrary reasons or minor crimes, and were never formally accused. Indeed, several military intelligence officers told the International Committee of the Red Cross that between 70 and 90 percent of the Iraqi detainees had been arrested by mistake…

Most people want to believe that their government is working in their behalf, that it knows what it’s doing, and that it’s doing the right thing. Therefore, if our government decides that torture is necessary in the war against terrorism, most citizens, to avoid dissonance, will agree. Yet, over time, that is how the moral conscience of a nation deteriorates. Once people take that first small step off the pyramid in the direction of justifying abuse and torture, they are on their way to hardening their hearts and minds in ways that might never be undone. Uncritical patriotism, the kind that reduces the dissonance caused by information that their government has done something immoral and illegal, greases the slide down the pyramid…

Excessive Party loyalty

Tavris and Aronson describe a study by psychologist Geoffrey Cohen titled “Party over policy – The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs”, which demonstrates the general phenomenon of excessive attachments to political parties. People who develop these excessive attachments become blinded to the faults of their political party for similar reasons to why they become blinded to the faults of their nation or of themselves:

Cohen found that Democrats will endorse an extremely restrictive welfare proposal, one usually associated with Republicans, if they think it has been proposed by the Democratic Party, and Republicans will support a generous welfare policy if they think it comes from the Republican Party. Label the same proposal as coming from the other side, and you might as well be asking people if they will favor a policy proposed by Osama bin Laden.

How self-justification corrupts our politicians and political system

“Mistakes were Made” goes into great detail about the effects of self-justification on the political process in our country:

Most politicians, thanks to their blind spots, believe they are incorruptible. When they first enter politics, they accept lunch with a lobbyist, because after all, that’s how politics works and it’s an efficient way to get information about a pending bill, isn’t it? “Besides,” the politician says, “lobbyists, like any other citizens, are exercising their right to free speech. I only have to listen; I’ll decide how to vote on the basis of whether my party and constituents support this bill and on whether it is the right thing to do for the American people.”

Once you accept the first small inducement and justify it that way, however, you have started your slide down the pyramid. If you had lunch with a lobbyist to talk about that pending legislation, why not talk things over on the local golf course? What’s the difference? It’s a nicer place to have a conversation.

Of course our system is very much to blame for this state of affairs. In a country where bribery of our public officials is legal as long as the briber and the bribed make some minimal effort to pretend that they are acting in good faith, rampant corruption can be expected.


The role of self-justification in the corruption of scientists

In a recent DU post I described how epidemiologists who worked for the tobacco industry prostituted themselves by minimizing the adverse health effects of cigarette smoking. Two years ago I posted a discussion about corruption in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for which I’ve worked for the past ten years. Tavris and Aronson discuss the corruption of science in the United States over the past few decades:

The critical event occurred in 1980, when the Supreme Court ruled that patents could be issued on genetically modified bacteria, independent of its process of development. That meant that you could get a patent for discovering a virus, altering a plant… The gold rush was on… Before long, many professors of molecular biology were serving on the advisory boards of biotechnology corporations… Throughout the 1980s, the ideological climate shifted from one in which science was valued for its own sake, or for the public interest, to one in which science was valued for the profits it could generate in the private interest… federal funding of research declined sharply… The pharmaceutical industry was deregulated, and within a decade it had become one of the most profitable businesses in the United States …

And then the scandals involving conflicts of interest on the part of researchers and physicians began to erupt. Big Pharma was producing new, lifesaving drugs but also drugs that were unnecessary at best and risky at worst: More than three-fourths of all drugs approved between 1989 and 2000 were no more than minor improvements over existing medications, cost nearly twice as much, and had higher risks. By 1999, seven major drugs… had been removed from the marked for safety reasons. None had been necessary to save lives and none was better than older safer drugs. Yet these seven drugs were responsible for 1,002 deaths and thousands of troubling complications…

Of course, the path to this corruption is greased with self-justification:

The great danger to the public comes from the self-justifications of well-intentioned scientists and physicians who, because of their need to reduce dissonance, truly believe themselves to be above the influence of their corporate funders. Yet, like a plant turning toward the sun, they turn toward the interests of their sponsors without even being aware that they are doing so. How to we know this? …

Investigators selected 161 studies, all published during the same six-year span, of the possible risks to human health of four chemicals. Of the studies funded by industry, only 14 percent found harmful effects on health; of those funded independently, fully 60 percent found harmful effects.

The accountability of public officials for their actions – A comparison of John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan

Tavris and Aronson note the rarity with which high level public officials sincerely take responsibility for their actions. They ask their readers rhetorically how the American people would react if our elected leaders would actually take full responsibility for their mistakes:

How would you feel about these people? Would you lose respect for them? Chances are… if they are professionals or political leaders, you will probably feel reassured that you are in the capable hands of someone big enough to do the right thing, which is to learn from the wrong thing. The last American president to tell the country he had made a terrible mistake was John F. Kennedy in 1961…

The invasion (at the Bay of Pigs) was a disaster, but Kennedy learned from it. He reorganized his intelligence system and determined that he would no longer accept uncritically the claims of his military advisers, a change that helped him steer the country successfully through the subsequent Cuban missile crisis. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy spoke to newspaper publishers and said: “This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, ‘An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.’ Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed – and no country can survive.” The final responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was, he said, “mine, and mine alone.” Kennedy’s popularity soared…

Most of us are not impressed when a leader offers the form of Kennedy’s admission without its essence, as in Ronald Reagan’s response to the Iran-Contra scandal, which may be summarized as “I didn’t do anything wrong myself, but it happened on my watch, so, well, I guess I’ll take responsibility.”

A capsule summary of the problem of self-justification

Near the end of their book, Tavris and Aronson summarize the problem and hint at the solution. They briefly summarize the benefits of self-justification as giving people more self-esteem and precluding the need to think too hard about why they believe what they believe. Then they summarize the harmful effects.

This ability (self-justification) can get us into big trouble. People will pursue self-destructive courses of action to protect the wisdom of their initial decisions. They will treat people they have hurt even more harshly, because they convince themselves that their victims deserve it. They will cling to outdated and sometimes harmful procedures in their work. They will support torturers and tyrants who are on the right side – that is, theirs. People who are insecure in their religious beliefs may feel the impulse to silence and harass those who disagree with them, because their mere existence arouses the painful dissonance of doubt.

Lastly, they note the fact that human beings have the ability to overcome their weaknesses if they choose to do so:

The need to reduce dissonance is a universal mental mechanism, but that doesn’t mean we are doomed to be controlled by it. Human beings may not be eager to change, but we have the ability to change…. Is the brain designed (for self-justification)? Fine – the brain wants us to stock up on sugar, too, but most of us learn to enjoy vegetables. Is the brain designed to make us flare in anger when we think we are being attacked? Fine – but most of us learn to count to ten and find alternatives to beating the other guy with a cudgel. An appreciation of how dissonance (and associated self-justification) works, in ourselves and others, gives us some ways to override our wiring – and protects us from those who can’t.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Bookmarking to read again more carefully later, and to give

to Someone who Really Needs to Read It. IYKWIM.


Tansy Gold

[chill_wind]

2. K & R.

eom

[jonathon]

3. Who ARE the evil people? The perpetrators of evil acts or the good men who do nothing who know...

Or, those who acquiesce to evil to not have confront harsh truthes...

[Time for change]

11. That's a very complicated question

Some believe that there are no "evil people", just people who do evil things. Maybe the distinction is important, because the former implies that nobody is inherently evil.

But I don't know how to make the distinction. If a person repeatedly does evil things, then I guess I'd have to say that they are evil. I think it's more difficult to categorize "good men who do nothing who know". There can be many reasons why people do nothing -- and for most people their actions vary over time. Most of the time they may do nothing, but under certain circumstances they may rise to the occasion and do something heroic.

But on the other hand, evil may sometimes begin with doing nothing -- acquiescing to evil, so to speak, like those who went along with the Holocaust. If you begin by doing nothing in the presence of evil, that could lead a person to justify their passive actions on the basis that the genocide going on before their eyes is actually a good thing, and that could lead to eventual active participation.

It's very complicated, and there is a lot more that I don't know about it than what I do know.

These are not abstract issues. Our world is filled with evil behaviors.

[jonathon]

15. Evil isn't the other.

It is within all of us.

[PufPuf23]

4. People of the Lie - Peck

This is an important book marketed as popular psychology.

[Time for change]

12. It was one of the most interesting books I've ever read.

Unusual perspective, controversial ideas, easy to read read, and as you said, important. "The Road Less Travelled" was excellent too.

[libertyvalence]

5. SELF JUSTIFICATION

To hear some people describe taxes, high prices and health
care, it sounds like a part of them has been amputated or one
of their children has been kidnapped.They are the impoverished
of spirit and soul. The biggest complainers are only
complaining about a lack of adequate dishonesty that favors
them. They won't admit it. Oh, they are so righteous.
	There is however, a problem that they point to, however
stupidly. It is about freedom and liberty but it is more basic
than any disgruntled and impotent individual portrays it. It
can be solved in a genuine democracy; it is about who keeps
the books, how they are kept and what is valuable. 
      People must force politicians to enact public financing
of political campaigns. That is the only way that elected
officials will support voters instead of perpetuating
autocratic and failed institutions like banks, insurance
companies, the Defense Department and Treasury.
          Conservatives have no role in a democracy or in
American government. All they want is power and to destroy all
that gets in their way. They are in an all out war to rule, we
are in a struggle for humanity, human rights, social justice
and the realities of a complex civilization. Yet, they justify
what they do and say in a world in which there is no
justification for getting up in the morning.
    All the tories mean by small government is that it will be
easier for them to be in control and to ignore reality.
               

[Time for change]

14. I'm totally with you on public financing of campaigns

Legalized bribery of public officials makes a sham out of our supposed democracy.

Welcome to DU :toast:

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Luminous Animal]

7. K & R

[hfojvt]

8. I think I am justified in kicking this

"Given a choice between a) changing their mind and b) proving that there is no need to do so, most people will get busy on the proof."

[unhappycamper]

9. An early morning K & R. n/t

[nightrain]

10. knr. Thanks for posting this. Helpful to be reminded of Peck's work...

To digest more later, when awake!

[Overseas]

13. K&R. Lots of confusing justifications in politics.

The GOP uses the fear tactic they really promoted during Bush Gang Rule when they oppose basic compassionate Democratic legislation, calling the moderate President Obama socialist communist Nazi. They have continued and amped up that kind of dangerous hatred they paraded during their ugly McCain Palin campaigning.

So I hoped we would hold prominent torture prosecutions or even a Truth & Reconciliation Commission right at the beginning of President Obama's term, to point out deeply to the American public how far off track The Republican Party's appointed presidential gang had pushed our country. I thought we would begin by exposing the lies, moral and practical failures of the GOP policies since the 1980's. I hoped exposing the moral failures of justifying torture would have set the scene for a more honest appraisal of the failures of deregulation and privatization.

Our economy had become so unbalanced in favor of the Top 5% that I really thought we would have an intelligent move toward more practical solutions. Re-regulation and good government for the 21st Century's unique challenges.

Instead, it has been painful to try to understand why we "have to be bipartisan" with ideals the Republican party abandoned decades ago-- they haven't been either "fiscally conservative" or "smart on national defense" for a very long time.

At least we could have called a "time out" on the GOP. Noting that our new president and our party wanted to be bipartisan but the Republican Party had lost its way. But instead of holding their party responsible for losing its bearings in such major ways that it drove our country off ethical and economic cliffs, we were supposed to pretend it wasn't as bad as it looked and felt to the majority of us. Many of us voted in Democratic majorities because we were deeply disturbed about what GOP gang rule had done to our country.

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," has been troubling too. Because I don't want "the perfect" to win, just to expand the most efficient model we already have up and running-- Medicare. "The perfect" might be having national health security and free medical care for all be as important and untouchable as our giant "defense" budgets.

Thanks for posting another thought-provoking essay.

[Time for change]

21. I had all those same hopes

What a disappointment this administration has been. I acknowledge that it's difficult for me to understand all the pressures that the President has had to confront... but still, it is maddening to watch his absurd attempts at "bipartisanship", his apparent lack of any interest whatsoever in holding the Bush admininstration accountable for their crimes, his throwing the public option under the bus without even acknowledging that he was doing so, and so many other things.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Time for change.:thumbsup:

[Time for change]

25. Thank you Unclie Joe

[Blue_Tires]

17. kick for later...

[sulphurdunn]

18. Empathy

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949)
I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trails

[Time for change]

22. That makes a lot of sense to me

I have often thought that, and I've written about it too:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3540781

That must have been a fascinating job you had. I've always been very interested in that.

[bluestateboomer]

19. K&R

I have often wondered why it is easier to accomplish an evil goal than to implement a good idea. This piece helps to answer that. Thanks!:thumbsup:

[TygrBright]

20. Kudos, plaudits, applause, and every kind of positive feedback...

...thank you so very much for writing this insightful analysis of the book, and applying it so pertinently to the ongoing discussion of politics, economics, sociology, and everything else here on DU.

You've made me want to read the book, and discuss it in detail with others who have similar insight.

appreciatively,
Bright

[Time for change]

24. Thank you -- It is an excellent book, and very readable.

You should enjoy it.

Another of my favorites by Carol Tavris is "Anger -- The Misunderstood Emotion". Written decades ago, it is a classic.

[PA Democrat]

23. Another great read, Time for Change.

My least favorite and most abused line in politics today: "Mistakes were made."

And who says we no longer manufacture anything here in the US? Because there is, somewhere out there, a very large factory where those anonymous mistakes are manufactured.

[Time for change]

26. Thank you -- My least favorite is

"Some people say (Insert talking point that speaker want to push but doesn't want to admit pushing it)" -- which is very similar to "Mistakes were made."

[BrklynLiberal]

27. EXCELLENT! Sorry to be too late to rec, but I can still kick and appreciate.

[Blue_Tires]

28. ttt

[Tansy_Gold]

29. Kicked again for the week-end crowd

I still haven't digested all of this, but I did click on the link to Peck's full definition of evil.

What struck me was that the definition seemed to mesh with many of my own criticisms of Obama. Oh, I know I'm opening myself for a flamefest by even suggesting that, but goodness knows I've been flamed for my opinions before.

But ever since the health insurance bill started it's tortured path through the legislative process, I kept asking, privately and here on DU, why the hell Obama didn't get out and make his case for the kind of reform we (some of us anyway) believed he had promised in the campaign.

The usual responses came back. It's not the president's job to strong-arm congress. He's doing it behind the scenes. The bill will get changed/improved/fixed after it's passed. Blah. Blah. Blah.

But then there's the inaction on DADT.

Oh, yes, we have a Latina on the Supreme Court, and to some people that's supposed to distract us from the gross injustice of DADT.

The wars rage on, human beings are blowing themselves to bits and blowing others along with them, but nothign is done because it would be, in the words of our recent farce of a leader, "hard work."

Haiti did not become Obama's N'Orleans because Haitians aren't Americans, and we all know that only Americans count. And based on the record of the current administration, it seems more and more clear that only rich American males really count.

Obama would rather see poor women forced to become the tormented abused bitches of puppy mills, would rather see millions of Americans lose their homes, would rather see uninsured parents die and leave their insured children orphans, would rather make speeches filled with carefully parsed almost-promises than actually get out there and fight for what he knows to be best for the American people.

A psychopath or sociopath, at least by my understanding, doesn't believe that what he or she does is evil. The ability to distinguish right from wrong has been disabled, disconnected.

But a self-justifier, if I've read the OP correctly, is someone who knows that what they're doing is wrong but is so afraid to admit it that they figure out a way to avoid hurting themselves (themself???) by admitting it.

I've lived with individuals like this, men who aren't evil on any grand scale, not violent or abusive, but who have a monumental core sense of insecurity so strong that they cannot admit to any shortcomings.

TG: Did you forget to close the gate?

HIM: No, I meant to leave it open.

TG: The dogs will get out if you don't close it.

HIM: No they won't. I'm watching them.

TG: Then I'll close it because you're going to forget again if I don't.

HIM: I will NOT forget!

TG: (five minutes later) The gate is still open.

HIM: I know it's open! I'll get it in a minute! I did not forget to close it!

How much easier would it have been to admit yeah, he forgot to close the gate, then go close it, and be done with it. Isn't that what most of us would have done?

I'm reading Ted Kennedy's "True Compass," and he writes of JFK's admission of blame for the Bay of Pigs disaster as "one of the best things" of his presidency because it taught him a lesson (don't trust the military and the CIA) and because he owned up to what he had done. We know that GWB was never able to admit to a mistake, and now I think we're seeing the same thing with Obama.

We know there are potentially good things in the health insurance bill. We know that many of our friends right here on DU are fiercely protective of their president and of his signature legislation. But it seems to me that the bad things in the bill, and the compromises that have been made in order to get something, anything, passed in the name of health care reform, have all been done to make Barack Obama look good, to save his presidency, to allow him a victory -- however hollow -- over his enemies the congressional republicans.

It seems as if it's much more about Obama and his image and his re-electability than it is about real reform of a catastrophically flawed health care delivery system.

If I've hijacked this thread for a discussion on health care, I didn't really mean to. I will shut up now, go out to my studio and work on my quilt.



Tansy Gold

[KittyWampus]

30. Self-Justification can be applied to Ideologues as well. An honest assessment of Obama

and his Administration would acknowledge the huge leaps forward he's made in the right direction.

IMO, there's a hell of a lot of "self-justification" on DU coming from those on the Left who refuse to move forward on HCR and the fact some are dragging crap from FDL ratfuckers helps prove that.

[Tansy_Gold]

31. In the right direction. Exactly.

Thank you so much for the civilized response. So, an honest assessment of Obama can only focus on the "good" he's done? There can be no examination of possible shortcomings? Mistakes? Errors? Slips? :sarcasm:

"ratfuckers" indeed. You didn't score points, at least with me, with that comment.

I will not post in this topic again. I will not enable the deterioration of a serious discussion.



My apologies to the OP.



TG.