Can We Avoid Mistakes? In Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson’s book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) they claim that we can defeat the demon of self-justification by understanding how it works. “When politicians’ backs are against the wall, they will reluctantly acknowledge error but not their responsibility for it” (Tavris/Aronson 4). How many of us use self-justification in relationships, jobs and purchases we make? We stay in unhealthy relationships, dead-end jobs, and buy items we don’t need. Tavris and Aronson convinced me that we can avoid many mistakes if we understand how self-justification really works. Several years ago, in America there was a terrible family war over the life and death of Terri Schiavo, in which her parents, Robert
