Rational? Or rationalizing?
A while back, my colleague Russ Somers made the point that people have a small talent for rationality, but nearly infinite talent for rationalizing.
This put me in mind of a story from one of my favorite books, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography:
I was almost ready to give up the attempt [at self-improvement], and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge.
The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he turn’d, while the smith press’d the broad face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without farther grinding.
“No,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled.”
“Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled ax best.”
Franklin was a canny student of human behavior, and he saw clearly how we tend to rationalize our appetites and weaknesses. We take the easy way out, all the while supplying ourselves with endless reasons — rationalizations — for why the easy way is, in fact, the the best way.
Look around you:
What are you rationalizing? What’s your “speckled ax”?
What would it take to uproot that rationalization?
How much would you benefit?
~
(Photo by Torpe.)
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Here, let me upend my life, spill everything on the floor, cut all the threads that bind them together, and rebuild it, all in the space of one response on a blog post comment. The transformation shall be of great value to me, will it not?
Well, my friend, show me the log you have pulled from your own eye, and I shall fish around for mine.
Franklin has another story from that bok with a similar theme about when he abdicated his resolution to eat no meat, the impetus being, “when this [fish] came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well.”
He continues:
“I balanc’d some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
His final line is one of my favorite as a description of the unique dangers of being human, even though there’s a bit of irony in his use of it there. I use it as a reminder to try and counteract that tendency in myself.
Unfortunately, by trying to regulate this tendency myself, I think I fall into a trap, as, by nature of the disease, we are limited in our ability to regulate it without outside help. This is one of the main reasons why each of us needs their own “board of directors”.
Nobilis - I’d never ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself. Look around here a bit, and you’ll find that many of the entries in this blog touch on my own foibles, including my rationalizations about work.
Chris - Yes, yes. This is what friends and mentors are for - to call us out when we’re being too easy on ourselves. Thanks for digging up that other quote, the last line of which is priceless.