The paradox of self-deceit

Have always been rather intrigued by Gary Hayden's columns in Mind Your Body =D

Here's an except of today's column:

How does the battered wife convince herself that her husband is, at heart, a decent guy? How does the tone-deaf talent-show contestant convince himself that he is the next Elvis?

These are puzzling questions and there are no definitive answers yet.

But Neil Van Leeuwen, a philosopher of Johannesburg, has an interesting theory which he illustrates using the metaphor of “the teaspoon and the mountain”.

On one hand, you have a mountain of evidence that your husband is an abuser or that your singing is bad.

On the other hand, you have a teaspoon of evidence that your husband is a good guy or that you have musical talent.

“What happens in self-deception is that because of the desires within you, you focus all your attention on the teaspoon of evidence and you ignore the mountain,” says Leeuwen.

You have all the evidence that a rational person could need in order to make a correct judgement.

Indeed, if you were using the same evidence to evaluate someone else’s partner or singing, you would come to a sensible conclusion.

But you refuse to attend to evidence that conflicts with your desires.

If Leeuwen’s theory is right, then the severe self-deceiver employs essentially the same strategy as the mild self-deceiver: selective scrunity of the evidence.

An important difference, though, is that at some level, sever self-deceivers know precisely what they are doing.

There is a tension within them because they are uncomfortably aware of the evidence they work so hard to suppress.

- Gary Hayden

Interesting huh? =D And I found his blog!! =D =D Hahaha go take a look! http://garyhaydenspopularphilosophyblog.blogspot.com =D

On a sidenote, I realised I haven't said happy new year here yet!! Hahaha so here it is! HAPPY 2011!! =D =D Had a really, really superb start to this year! Haha the insane first few hours of 2011..seriouslyyyy hahaha thank God for the lovely and awesome people around me! =D And thank God I'm not working until the 25th so I have time to rest and recharge! =D And do all the stuff I planned to do at home! Haha pray for me! =D

Okay that's all! God bless, take care & byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! =D =D