“Logical” Self-Deception

We live in crazy times. Bizarre things are hap­pen­ing. We get trapped in all sorts of strange sce­nar­ios for one rea­son: We think we can make sense of them. There is a part of the mind ded­i­cated to think­ing things through and mak­ing sense of the non­sen­si­cal. What we do not real­ize is that this same part of the mind will actu­ally dis­tort the facts to make a crazy sit­u­a­tion look logical.

This is often noticed in “eye wit­ness” accounts of car acci­dents. The split-second event gets pieced together, over a period of time, into a step-at-a-time sequence that seems real to the per­son putting the pieces together. The process con­tin­ues until the mind is sat­is­fied that it has made per­fect sense out of the sit­u­a­tion. Secu­rity cam­eras catch­ing the event on tape see it for what it is — and very differently.

Our minds trick us fre­quently. We want some­thing to be right (like sup­port­ing an irra­tional polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy), so we ratio­nal­ize it. In other words, we force the wrong piece of the jig­saw puz­zle into place and then defend the action as rea­son­able. Sub­jec­tive crea­tures that we are, our egos are not likely to see them­selves as wrong. So, we dis­tort the facts to fit our pref­er­ences. This is done sub­con­sciously and with dis­as­trous results.

Peo­ple join cults this way. They pur­chase unnec­es­sary items. They sup­port destruc­tive causes in the name of com­mu­nity pref­er­ences. An addict will trade his or her win­ter coat for one last hit and then freeze to death. The trade made per­fect sense to the addic­tive mind. It appeared totally logical.

The sane thing to do is to state that some­thing irra­tional is crazy and stick with that per­cep­tion. Let­ting the mind “make sense of it” is a com­mon self-deception. Learn to admit that the irra­tional is there. Do not defend the inde­fen­si­ble. Be hon­est to God and your­self at the same time. The earth is not flat just because it appears that way when you are stand­ing in an open field. Look at the greater con­text. Do the research. Most of all, remind your­self that you trick your­self far more often than you are tricked by others.