Mistakes were made (but not by me)

Trust thoughts for today - On a long drive to collect my son from Uni I finally listened to Mistakes were made (but not by me) a great book about self-justification and confirmation bias.

We all know this, but it is fascinating to reflect on how often it happens. How we all justify our mistakes and bad decisions to square off with ourselves that we are good people, this was a bad thing we did, so a good person like me can't possibly have done a bad thing like that, so therefore there must be another reason.

My jaw physically dropped three times in the chapter on Law and disorder describing the shocking implications of self justification when police have already decided who is guilty, use bad interrogation techniques to get false confessions, look only at confirming evidence and even when proven wrong find ways to convict, or resist retrial.

This is Donald Trump and his supporters right now. Only a stupid person would believe they won the election when they didn't, I am not a stupid person, therefore there is a conspiracy against me.

Another cyclist undertook me and knocked me off my bike a couple of weeks ago, and I broke my collarbone. I recalled the interaction after, (which was mainly me swearing and calling him all names possible for spoiling my sporty summer) and his face and voice as he clearly couldn't bring himself to admit he had done a really dumb thing, scouring his brain frantically to find a way that it was my fault and failing, but still not stopping trying ever lamer ideas!

Book can be found here