#rationalization

But the nature of the universe is such that the ends never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#rationalizations #unsourced #nature

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#capitalism #corruption #government #history #oppression

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate. ↗

— Lydia Maria Francis Child

#imperialism #injustice #oppression #racism #rationalization

Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit. ↗

— Freda Adler

#chooses #crime #ethical #group #philosophical

When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely: 1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws 2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues 3. Admire themselves for living up to it Brutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on. ↗

— John R. Perry

#happiness #human-nature #rationalization #self-love #the-secret-of-happiness

The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors. ↗

— Max Lerner

#lessons #most #part #rationalizations #so-called

Small wonder our national spirit is husk empty. We have more information but less knowledge. More communication but less community. More goods but less goodwill. More of virtually everything save that which the human spirit requires. So distracted have we become sating this new need or that material appetite, we hardly noticed the departure of happiness ↗

— Randall Robinson

#modernization #rationalization #communication

Not to be rude, but it was all pointless," I noted from across the room. Four eyes narrowed at me. "What? I said 'not to be rude'. That's like saying 'God bless them' right after you say bad things about someone. It means it doesn't count! ↗

— Molly Harper

#rationalizations #humor

People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations. ↗

— Barbara Deming

#doing #need #others #people #rationalizations

Proposals to forbid golf courses have about the same motivations as proposals to forbid skate boarding, although the rationalizations are different. ↗

— John McCarthy

#although #boarding #courses #different #forbid