Ten years have passed since that fateful day when I succumbed to the temptation of shoplifting. The memory still lingers, a stain on my conscience despite the passage of time. It was during a cold and rainy July, as I was embarking on my journey to college, that I found myself in need of an umbrella. The local supermarket offered one for Ksh900, a seemingly exorbitant price considering my modest pocket money of Ksh2,000 for the entire semester. In a moment of weakness and misguided frugality, I made the ill-fated decision to shoplift the umbrella. The rush of adrenaline mixed with guilt as I concealed the item and walked out of the store, feeling a strange blend of fear and thrill. As I reflect on that impulsive act, I realize the gravity of my actions and the impact it had on my moral compass. The weight of my choice to steal still weighs heavy on my conscience, a reminder of a lapse in judgment that I deeply regret. The lesson learned from that experience has shaped my values and instilled in me a profound sense of integrity and accountability. Despite the passage of time, the memory serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of honesty and ethical behavior in all aspects of life.
I recently told this story to my friends and one of them told me to stop with the moral fanaticism. She argued, "The management expects such incidences and plans for them financially." It did not take too long to persuade me that there was no need for me to still feel guilty. I reasoned that if I had shoplifted from a local Kiosk instead, then I would have immediately reported the accident, but since this was a chain supermarket, and yadda yadda... it was okay. Before you judge me, I know we each draw our own moral lines and justify them. It's called self-justification. Let's talk about it!
There is lying, and then there is self-justification. Self-justification is not the same thing as lying, stealing or making excuses. Obviously, people will lie or invent lengthy stories to duck the fury of a lover, parent or employer, or to keep from being sued or sent to prison; to avoid losing face; to avoid losing a job, or even to stay in power. But there is a big difference between what a guilty person says to the public to convince them of something he or she knows is untrue (e.g. "I did not have sex with that woman"; "I am not a bad person"), and the process of persuading him or herself that they did a good thing.
In the former situation, they are lying and know that they are lying to save they own skin. In the latter, they are lying to themselves. That is why self-justification is more powerful and more dangerous than the explicit lie. It allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done. In fact, come to think of it, it was the right thing.
"There was nothing else I could have done."
"Actually, it was a brilliant solution to the problem."
"I was doing the best for the nation."
"Those bastards deserved what they got."
''I'm entitled."
The Deception of Self-Justification
Self-justification not only minimizes our mistakes and bad decisions; it is also the reason that everyone can see a hypocrite in action except the actual hypocrite.
It allows us to create a distinction between our moral lapses and someone else's, and to blur the discrepancy between our actions and our moral convictions.
But, you can argue, all those justifications are true! Big supermarkets do infact factor in the costs of the losses that they incur due to shoplifting! The government does waste money! Your distracted wife does deserve to be cheated on! Your company probably wouldn't mind if you spend a little time on social media as long as your work is done (eventually)!
Whether those claims are true or false is irrelevant. When we cross these lines, and we are justifying our behavior despite knowing it's wrong precisely so that we can continue to do that which is wrong, and we still want to see ourselves as honest people despite our wrong behavior...
Whether the behavior in question is a small thing like shoplifting an umbrella, or a big thing like embezzlement or cheating, the mechanism of self-justification is the same.
As fallible human beings, all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for any actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid. Most of us will never be in a position to make decisions affecting the lives and deaths of millions of people, but whether the consequences of our mistakes are trivial or tragic, on a small scale or a national canvas, most of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, "I was wrong; I made a terrible mistake." The higher the stakes-emotional. financial, moral-the greater the difficulty. It goes further than that: Most people, even when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.
Politicians are the most visible of self-justifiers, which is why they provide such juicy examples. They have refined the art of speaking in the passive voice; when their backs are to the wall they will reluctantly acknowledge error, bur not responsibility.
"Mistakes were made, but not by me; by someone else, who shall remain nameless".
We look at the behavior of politicians with amusement or alarm or horror, but, psychologically, 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 merely one that is 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 trust in the benefits of leaving. We buy a car because it looks gorgeous, spend thousands of Shillings to keep the damn thing running, and then we 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 pursuers of peace-if only the other side would apologize and make amends.
The Blindness of Self-Justification
Self-justification has it's benefits too. By itself, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It lets us sleep at night. Without it, we would prolong the awful pangs of embarrassment. We would torture ourselves with regret over the road not taken or over how badly we navigated the road we did take. We would agonize in the aftermath of almost every decision: Did we do the right thing, marry the right person, buy the right house, choose the best car, enter the right career? Yet mindless self-justification is like quicksand. It can draw us deeper into disaster. It blocks our ability to even see our errors, let alone correct them because 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 be harmful to the public.
The Clarity of Conviction
None of us can live without making blunders. But we do have the ability to say: "This is not working out here." Human is to error, but humans then have a choice between covering up or fessing up. The choice we make is crucial to what we do next. We are forever being told that we should learn from our mistakes, but how can we learn unless we never admit that we made any? To do that, we have to recognize when we are self-justifing.
How are you falling into the trap of self-justification??
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