Some Hazards of Rationalization – Sunday, February 09, 1947
Truth and facts can be very stubborn and inconvenient at times. And with all of us, there are perhaps some things we wish were true and some things we wish were not true. And so, by a process of rationalization, so-called, we often talk ourselves into or out of many things, admitting all the evidence that would take us where we want to go, and excluding all the evidence that would not. In other words, we sometimes first decide what we would like the answers to be, and then work back to make them seem to be what we would like.
This type of reasoning has many forms and many purposes, sometimes superficial and sometimes serious. Sometimes we merely let it serve as a salve to our conscience for some small indulgence of our own comfort or convenience. But sometimes it is used to gloss over things more grave than this. For example, a man who takes money that doesn’t belong to him can almost always explain to himself that he was entitled to it, that he was worth more than he was getting, that he needed it worse than those from whom he took it, and so on; by which means he may rationalize himself into thinking that dishonesty is not dishonesty in his particular case, but merely a means of acquiring what ought to be his anyway.
Needless to say, such thinking is but the prelude to tragedy. By similar means we can justify, to ourselves at least, every defect of character or conduct and every bad habit, sometimes merely by pointing to others who have worse ones. Also, it has not been uncommon for men to rationalize as to life and all its obligations, according to their convenience, and even to rationalize God out of being. Thus on almost any issue, in every neglect of duty, every commission of error, everything we do that we shouldn’t, everything we don’t do that we should, and everything we choose to believe or not to believe, we may mislead ourselves by a form of false rationalizing. But this kind of reasoning neither changes the facts nor alters the ultimate consequences. And so perhaps an antidote to the hazards of rationalization could well be suggested: Don’t jump at plausible and prejudiced conclusions and try to justify them; rather jump at the truth, and stay with it wherever it goes.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, .Salt Lake City, Sunday,, February, 9, 1947. 11.30 a.m. to 12.00 noon, EST. Copyright 1947.
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February 09, 1947
Program Number 0,912