“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal..” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
The human being is capable of justifying the commission of tremendous evil and wrongdoing if provided sufficient time and mental gymnastics. Unlike animals, the human has been burdened with this annoying thing we call a conscience. From the time we’re small it tells us (except in unusual cases where something in the system is broken or disrupted, like sociopathy and psychopathy, and some personality disorders) we have a conscience that alerts us to what’s OK and what’s not OK, particularly in the way we interact with other humans.
When I was about four I was being bullied by a slightly older kid. I don’t recall exactly what he was doing that prompted me to go whine to my mother, but I clearly remember her instructions. “The next time he does that, you punch him in the nose.” When he crossed the line again, I hauled back my little fist and socked him in the face, prompting him to run home wailing. I was glad he was gone, but I was also swamped with guilt. Punching him hadn’t made me feel better at all, it just made me feel like I was a bully, too.
It’s the first time I felt like a hypocrite, and it stung.
Was it necessary to punch the kid to make him correct his behavior or did it just make him meaner? I don’t know.
Since then, I’ve faced that dilemma repeatedly. As a parent, it was figuring out the best way to discipline my own children (I don’t think anyone gets this right, no matter how hard we try). As a journalist it’s how to seek and speak truth while minimizing harm. As a citizen it’s how to hold fast to my rights without trampling on someone else’s. The list goes on, and it’s always messy and complicated. The more people involved the more complicated it gets.
Because our fragile human egos have a desperate need to be “right” about everything, even when we are most egregiously wrong, we’re perfectly positioned to start the justification process, which leads us right into the stinky swamp of hypocrisy.
Humankind has spent centuries justifying man’s inhumanity to man using cherry-picked religious texts, civil law, and every logical fallacy we can pull out of the hat. The Crusaders justified genocide, slave owners justified slavery, Germans justified the holocaust.
On a smaller scale (most of the time), we’re guilty of this, too. We tell white lies to ourselves and each other in the interest of “being nice.” We decide it’s OK to speed, or to drive home after one too many beers, fudge on our taxes, or cheat on a test—all while we lambaste those other lawbreakers, the ones who break the law or sin differently than we do, and cheer the harshest possible punishments for them.
I’d like to think we can do better—be better—but that requires something we seem increasingly unwilling to do: stop justifying ourselves. Not our history, not our politics, not our personal indulgences. If conscience is what separates us from animals, then ignoring it isn’t evolution—it’s regression. The real danger isn’t that evil exists. It’s how easily we learn to excuse our own.