Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

The brain is designed with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of it's cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting delusion that we, personally, do not have any.  In a sense, dissonance theory is a theory of blind spots--of how and why people unintentionally blind themselves so that they fail to notice vital events and information that might make them question their behavior or their convictions.  Along with the confirmation bias, the brain comes packaged with other self-serving habits that allow us to justify our own perceptions and beliefs as being accurate, realistic, and unbiased.  Social psychologist Lee Ross calls this phenomenon "naive realism," the inescapable conviction that we perceive objects and events clearly, "as they really are."  We assume that other reasonable people see things the same way we do.  If they disagree with us, they obviously aren't seeing things clearly.  Naive realism creates a logical labyrinth because it presupposes two things: One, people who are openminded and fair ought to agree with a reasonable opinion.  And two, any opinion I hold must be reasonable; if it weren't, I wouldn't hold it.  p. 42

Ross and his colleagues have found that we believe our own judgments are less biased and more independent than those of others partly because we rely on introspection to tell us what we are thinking and feeling, but we have no way of knowing what others are really thinking.  And when we introspect, looking into our souls and hearts, the need to avoid dissonance assures us that we have only the best and most honorable of motives.  p. 43

Of course, many of us intentionally avoid a painful memory by distracting ourselves or trying not to think about it; and many of us have had the experience of suddenly recalling a painful memory, one we thought long gone, when we are in a situation that evokes it.  The situation provides what memory scientists call retrieval cues, familiar signals that reawaken the memory.
     Psychodynamic therapists, however, complain that repression is entirely different from the normal mechanisms of forgetting and recall...Yet in his meticulous review of the experimental research and the clinical evidence, presented in his book Remembering Trauma, clinical psychologist Richard McNally concluded: The notion that the mind protects itself by repressing or dissociating memories of trauma, rendering them inaccessible to awareness, is a piece of psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support.  Overwhelmingly, the evidence shows just the opposite.  The problem for most people who have suffered traumatic experiences is not that they forget them but that they cannot forget them: the memories keep intruding.
     ...."Truly traumatic events--terrifying, life-threatening experiences--are never forgotten, let alone if they are repeated," says McNally.  "The basic principle is: if the abuse was traumatic at the time it occurred, it is unlikely to be forgotten.  If it was forgotten, then it was unlikely to have been traumatic.  And even if it was forgotten, there is no evidence that it was blocked, repressed, sealed behind a mental barrier, inaccessible."  p. 111-112

...happy couples know how to manage their conflicts.  If a problem is annoying them, they either talk and fix the problem, let it go, or learn to live with it."  p. 166

From our standpoint, therefore, misunderstandings, conflicts, personality differences, and even angry quarrels are not the assassins of love; self-justification is.
      We are not referring here to the garden-variety kind of self-justification that we are all inclined to use when we make a mistake or disagree about relatively trivial matters...in those circumstances, self-justification momentarily protects us from feeling clumsy, incompetent, or forgetful.  The kind that can erode a marriage, however, reflects a more serious effort to protect not what we did but who we are, and it comes in two versions:  "I'm right and you're wrong" and "Even if I'm wrong, too bad; that's the way I am."
     ....."I am the right kind of person and you are the wrong kind of person.  And because you are the wrong kind of person, you cannot appreciate my virtues; foolishly, you even think some of my virtues are flaws."
p. 166 & 167

...three possible ways out of the emotional impasse.  [in work with married couples in which one had deeply hurt or betrayed the other] In the first, the perpetrator unilaterally puts aside his or her own feelings and, realizing that the victim's anger masks enormous suffering, responds to that suffering with genuine remorse and apology.  In the second, the victim unilaterally lets go of his or her repeated, angry accusations--after all, the point has been made--and expresses pain rather than anger, a response that may make the perpetrator more empathic and caring rather than defensive.  Either one of these actions, if taken unilaterally, is difficult and for many people impossible.  The third way...is the hardest but most hopeful for a long-term resolution of the conflict: both sides drop their self-justifications and agree on steps they can take together to move forward.  p. 210

...For his part, [Nelson] Mandela could have allowed his anger to consume him; he could have emerged from that prison with a determination to take revenge that many would have found entirely legitimate.  Instead he relinquished anger for the sake of the goal to which he had devoted his life.  "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy," said Mandela.  "Then he becomes your partner."
     Virtually the first act of the new democracy was the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  The goal of the TRC was to give victims of brutality a forum where their accounts would be heard and vindicated, where their dignity and sense of justice would be restored, and where they could express their grievances in front of the perpetrators themselves.  In exchanged for amnesty the perpetrators had to drop their denials, evasions, and self-justifications and admit the harm that they had done, including torture and murder.  The commission emphasized the "need for understanding but not for vengence, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu [humanity towards others] but not for victimization." p. 211

A wise man once said "an error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."  p. 218

A great nation is like a great man:
  When he makes a mistake he realizes it.
  Having realized it, he admits it.
  Having admitted it, he corrects it.
  He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers.
                Lao Tzu  ~500BC