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Quote by Joy Bergman

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Our Perspective: A Short Story

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Joy Bergman

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“People are always talking about it being their duty to find their way to their fellow men — to their neighbour, as they are forever saying with all the baseness of false sentiment — when in fact it is purely and simply a question of finding their way to themselves. Let each first find his way to himself! And since hardly anyone has yet found his way to himself, it is inconceivable that any of these unfortunate millions has ever found his way to another human being — or to his neighbour, as they say, dripping with self-deception.”

“The point is, our minds aren't as private as we like to imagine. Other people have partial visibility into what we're thinking. Faced with the translucency of our own minds, then, self-deception is often the most robust way to mislead others. It's not technically a lie (because it's not conscious or deliberate), but it has a similar effect. "We hide reality from our conscious minds," says Trivers, "the better to hide it from onlookers.”

“[W]henever we heard an unflattering portrait of our own side our first question to ourselves was not “Is this true?” but “What are they trying to hide about themselves by accusing us of this?” Once this mental defense system had been perfected, few criticisms could hit home.”

“We do not have to do with others as "they really are" but with our idea of them. This means that the experience of loss occurs both when we really lose someone and when this someone, for whatever reason, no longer corresponds to the idea we had of him. It is an inner grief just as strong and from which we often defend ourselves, as long as we can, through denial. Denial ends when the energy needed to deny becomes superior to what it takes to process the loss and move on.”