Spring Reading: "Perlmann's Silence" and Self-Justification
Self-justification is an important element in ethical misconduct,
cover-ups, and officials' public denials and explanations of conduct. It aids and abets our blind spots. It is a
sign of weakness, anxiety, and fear more than of poor character<br>
<br>
Self-justification is something each of us engages in. Sometimes we fight
it, sometimes we effectively compromise with it, and sometimes we give in to it.
The one thing most of us rarely do is think or talk openly about
it.<br>
<br>
Swiss writer Pascal Mercier's novel <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=b1RMGo1p2OQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pe…; target="”_blank”"><i>Perlmann's
Silence</i></a>, translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside
(Atlantic, 2005, 2011), has some incredible passages about the
self-justification process. They make great food for thought.<br>
<br>
<i>Remembering as Self-Justification</i>: "Narrative memory
[is] also a justification, a piece of inventive apologia." (p. 99)
and "Narrative memory was unscrupulous when it came to defending the
moral integrity of the past self." (156)<br>
<br>
<i>The Usefulness of Clichés</i>: "The parroted sentences {in
government ethics, these include "I am a person of integrity" or "I cannot
be bought"} ... which, in their treacherous inconspicuousness,
[keep] experiences from being made, and, by being experienced, from
changing anything." (176)<br>
<br>
<i>A 3D-printer metaphor of self-justification</i>: "It was a
matter of laying one thin layer of self-persuasion on the other
until a new, solid conviction came about, whose blind firmness he no
longer needed to worry about on a daily basis." (308)<br>
<br>
"He wanted to look forward to the point in the future when the world,
as far as his integrity was concerned, would be exactly as it had
been before his deception." (283)<br>
<br>
"All that remained was the dull, rather abstract conviction that
there was no going back." (306)<br>
<br>
<i>Clinging to one's self-exculpation</i>: "He felt that this was a piece
of sophistry, an outrageous false conclusion, but he didn't have the
will to disentangle it, and clung to the truth that those two
sentences bore on their surface." (312)<br>
<br>
<i>Public vs. private</i>: "Why, then, should it not be
possible to withdraw entirely from his professional role, his public
identity, into his private, authentic person, the identity that was
the only thing that counted?" (413)<br>
<br>
"From the very outset, his anxiety had reduced the others to
one-dimensional, schematic figures. They were adversaries first and
foremost." (465)<br>
<br>
"He constantly had to fight against his tendency to confess the
truth, and only defeated it when he gave it free reign and then
threw the text away with revulsion." (614)<br>
<br>
This is not a novel I recommend for everyone. It is long and brutal. It walks the reader through an emotional hell. But it has some great virtues. The author's musing about self-justification is just one of its virtues.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
---