Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

by Carol Tavris

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. —George Orwell, 1946

It seems like eons since Republican nominee Bob Dole described Bill Clinton as “my opponent, not my enemy,” but in fact he made that civilized remark in 1996. How quaint it now seems in contrast to Donald Trump, who regards his opponents (or people who simply disagree with him) as treasonous, disloyal rats and foes. In our new concluding chapter, therefore, we closely examine the process by which Trump, his administration, and his supporters fostered that view, with devastating consequences for our democracy.

Mistakes were quite possibly made by the administrations in which I served. —Henry Kissinger, responding to charges that he committed war crimes in his role in the United States’ actions in Vietnam, Cambodia, and South America in the 1970s

If, in hindsight, we also discover that mistakes may have been made . . . I am deeply sorry. —Cardinal Edward Egan of New York (referring to the bishops who failed to deal with child molesters among the Catholic clergy)

We know mistakes were made. —Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (referring to enormous bonuses paid to the company’s executives after the government bailout had kept them from bankruptcy)

Mistakes were made in communicating to the public and customers about the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns. —McDonald’s (apologizing to vegetarians for failing to inform them that the “natural flavoring” in its potatoes contained beef byproducts)

Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or plan of action but justify it even more tenaciously.

When politicians’ backs are against the wall, they may reluctantly acknowledge error but not their responsibility for it. The phrase “Mistakes were made” is such a glaring effort to absolve oneself of culpability that it has become a national joke—what the political journalist Bill Schneider called the “past exonerative” tense. “Oh, all right, mistakes were made, but not by me, by someone else, someone who shall remain nameless.”

We look at the behavior of politicians with amusement or alarm or horror, but what they do is no different in kind, though certainly in consequence, from what most of us have done at one time or another in our private lives. We stay in an unhappy relationship or one that is merely going nowhere because, after all, we invested so much time in making it work. We stay in a deadening job way too long because we look for all the reasons to justify staying and are unable to clearly assess the benefits of leaving. We buy a lemon of a car because it looks gorgeous, spend thousands of dollars to keep the damn thing running, and then spend even more to justify that investment. We self-righteously create a rift with a friend or relative over some real or imagined slight yet see ourselves as the pursuers of peace—if only the other side would apologize and make amends.

Self-justification is not the same thing as lying or making excuses. Obviously, people will lie or invent fanciful stories to duck the fury of a lover, parent, or employer; to keep from being sued or sent to prison; to avoid losing face; to avoid losing a job; to stay in power. But there is a big difference between a guilty man telling the public something he knows is untrue (“I did not have sex with that woman”; “I am not a crook”) and that man persuading himself that he did a good thing. In the former situation, he is lying and knows he is lying to save his own skin. In the latter, he is lying to himself. That is why self-justification is more powerful and more dangerous than the explicit lie.

It seems unlikely that former Speaker of the House and Republican strategist Newt Gingrich said to himself, “My, what a hypocrite I am. There I was, all riled up about Bill Clinton’s sexual affair, while I was having an extramarital affair of my own right here in town.”

Similarly, the prominent evangelist Ted Haggard seemed oblivious to the hypocrisy of publicly fulminating against homosexuality while enjoying his own sexual relationship with a male prostitute.

Over time, as the self-serving distortions of memory kick in and we forget or misremember past events, we may come to believe our own lies, little by little. We know we did something wrong, but gradually we begin to think it wasn’t all our fault, and after all, the situation was complex. We start underestimating our own responsibility, whittling away at it until it is a mere shadow of its former hulking self. Before long, we have persuaded ourselves to believe privately what we said publicly.

By understanding the inner workings of self-justification, we can answer these questions and make sense of dozens of other things people do that otherwise seem unfathomable or crazy. We can answer the question so many people ask when they look at ruthless dictators, greedy corporate CEOs, religious zealots who murder in the name of God, priests who molest children, or family members who cheat their relatives out of inheritances: How in the world can they live with themselves? The answer is: exactly the way the rest of us do. Self-justification has costs and benefits.

Yet mindless self-justification, like quicksand, can draw us deeper into disaster. It blocks our ability to even see our errors, let alone correct them. It distorts reality, keeping us from getting all the information we need and assessing issues clearly. It prolongs and widens rifts between lovers, friends, and nations. It keeps us from letting go of unhealthy habits. It permits the guilty to avoid taking responsibility for their deeds. And it keeps many professionals from changing outdated attitudes and procedures that can harm the public.

In the next chapter, we will discuss cognitive dissonance, the hardwired psychological mechanism that creates self-justification and protects our certainties, self-esteem, and tribal affiliations.

Dissonance is disquieting because to hold two ideas that contradict each other is to flirt with absurdity, and, as Albert Camus observed, we are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd.

Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression.

Our convictions about who we are carry us through the day, and we are constantly interpreting the things that happen to us through the filter of those core beliefs. When those beliefs are violated, even by a good experience, it causes us discomfort.

An appreciation of the power of self-justification helps us understand why people who have low self-esteem or who simply believe that they are incompetent in some domain are not totally overjoyed when they do something well; on the contrary, they often feel like frauds.

Self-justification, therefore, will protect high self-esteem to avoid dissonance, but it will also protect low self-esteem if that is a default self-perception.

How do you get an honest man to lose his ethical compass? You get him to take one step at a time, and self-justification will do the rest.

To preserve our belief that we are smart, all of us will occasionally do dumb things. We can’t help it. We are wired that way.

An acquired prejudice is hard to dislodge. As the great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, “Trying to educate a bigot is like shining light into the pupil of an eye—it constricts.”

The daily, dissonance-reducing distortions of memory help us make sense of the world and our place in it, protecting our decisions and beliefs.

Understanding without vengeance, reparation without retaliation, are possible only if we are willing to stop justifying our own position.

Understanding how the mind yearns for consonance and rejects information that questions our beliefs, decisions, or preferences not only teaches us to be open to the possibility of error but also helps us let go of the need to be right.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

The overwhelming majority of Trump’s supporters, having made this initial commitment to him with their votes, remain loyal to him in spite of the dissonance generated by his increasingly outrageous and erratic behavior, his litany of lies, and his inflammatory, divisive rhetoric. In this chapter, therefore, we will focus not only on Trump but also on his unwavering followers; we will show you how their escalating self-justifications can erode the soul of a nation and its fundamental institutions.

Demagogues thrive and flourish on the reasoning and self-justifications of those willing to push aside their moral objections in exchange for political advantage. And, above all, demagogues exploit public prejudices and ignorance, fomenting anger and hatred at the expense of reasoned argument.