Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)

Second reading. My first was in 2007, before I was on Goodreads. I remember thinking then, boy are we fucked; nine years later an orange cockroach made it into the White House and this book helped me understand why. Also why the vast majority of those who supported the cockroach still do and can never be cured. This book helped me understand antimaskers, antivaxxers, and the mind-boggling hypocrisy of many so-called “christians.” It helps me understand so much about people.

More importantly, this book has helped me understand myself. In the years since I first read it, knowing this material has helped me think better when faced with moral questions. Act better. Be better. It's much harder to self-justify yourself when you're aware that you're doing it.

This third edition (2019) has relevant timely updates, mostly in the examples but also one addition on resolving one's inner conflicts. I consider that a welcome and important addition. (There's also a whole chapter on the cockroach. I skimmed it and find it unnecessary. Maybe it was cathartic for them to write it.)

How I wish everyone would read this book and take it to heart. Because if we don't learn this, boy are we fucked.

Before reading this book, I had been aware of the ideas of cognitive dissonance and self-justification, having encountered them in some day-to-day personal interactions, mostly related to money. (“X is good, and I want it, but I don't want to spend so much money on X... therefore, X is no good and I don't want it!”)

This book studies dissonance in larger real-world situations where the stakes are much higher. Through examples about corrupt politicians, false memories, police interrogations, and others, we see how powerful a force cognitive dissonance can be. The more wrong you are about something, the harder you'll try to convince yourself that you're not wrong. This leads to decisions that can harm many people.

This was an enlightening read, but disturbing at the same time. I came away from it with a hopeless feeling. There don't seem to be any solutions for the problem other than people realizing and admitting to their mistakes, but if self-justification is so ingrained in our minds, how would this actually happen? I don't know.

Short review: This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in a while. A popularly focused leadership/psychology book that has some real practical suggestions as well as a lot of negative examples. I wrote one of the longest reviews I have ever written on my blog because I was captured by the idea that not only do we often self-justify our actions in spite of the fact that it usually makes us look worse in the long term, but we really can make changes to our behavior. Really recommend this book to anyone with any sort of leadership position. Learning how to really look at a situation and not just prejudge it and learning how to admit mistakes and learn from them are probably two of the most important leadership traits any leader can learn. Both are discussed extensively in this book.

Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/mistakes-were-made-but-not-by-me-why-we-justify-foolish-beliefs-bad-decisions-and-hurtful-acts/