Review: Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)

How many books unironically validate their own criticisms?

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) aims to illustrate how people often disavow their mistakes and increasingly justify their poor behavior. In doing so, though—and somehow making it to a 3rd edition—the book truly showcases the depth of blind spots, how the authors may well be committing the same sins, the same mistakes , that they're judging and criticizing others for their lack of conscientiousness. Whether this metacommentary is merely ironic or hypocritical is, I guess, an exercise for the reader.

But let's back up a few steps. The premise of the book is that people are prone to make initial judgments or decisions, and then experience "dissonance" as they receive new information that contradicts or disqualifies that earlier decision. But instead of a mea culpa and changing their opinions, people will instead choose to resolve said dissonance by roundabout ways of self-justification. The cause and effect are inverted; instead of logically reasoning from Point A → B → C, dissonance resolution assumes Point C is the answer and reasons out some versions of A and B in reverse, sometimes nonsensically. The author calls this "dissonance theory," but there are plenty of other terms that describe similar phenomena: post-hoc rationalization, motivated thinking, sunk cost fallacy, etc.

The chapters then go into various domains where this shows up: fuzzy memories twisted or implanted by zealous psychologists; interrogators forcing confessions from innocent suspects; spouses in marriages that are falling apart; heads of state scouring for reasons to act more aggressively against their neighbors. Some of these case studies are insightful, and take important lessons from history; the bias towards protecting children and women in the 80s and 90s, and its resulting aggressive prosecution, ruined the lives of many innocent people. It's infuriating to read about perpetrators not only creating falsehoods to fit their preconceived judgment, but also continuing to proclaim their righteousness after their narrative has been exposed—because walking it back would be personally embarrassing and professionally disqualifying.

Some of the examples above are painfully clear in retrospect, highlighting just how far professionals and experts go in retrofitting a judgment made a priori. The case of the psychologists in the 80s was particularly egregious: some were convinced that their patients' depression was due to Freudian sexual abuse when they were younger, likely by a close relative—like the father of a young daughter. Having made this diagnosis, these psychologists sought to "uncover the truth" via extensive therapy sessions; if they were right, this is an invaluable way to bring sexual abuse to light. But even if they were wrong, the sessions did enough to implant false memories into their patients' minds so they were convinced they remembered something that didn't happen. And if that didn't pass muster—the patient steadfastly refusing to acknowledge something they know didn't happen—then the psychologist claimed the incident was an instance of traumatic memory repression. That is, there was no way to falsify the claim.

The thick irony is that the authors seem to have committed the same sin. Convinced that dissonance theory is a universal and overriding hypothesis for human psychology, the book sees it everywhere. Marriage spats and divorces are due to spouses reconciling dissonance in their heads about who they think they married, versus who they actually married. Wars start and end because political leaders see a difference between what their country ought to be, and where it stands in the world today. Company executives. Celebrities. Police officers. Single people in their 50s. Christian Crusaders. People ^[1].

Of course, there is some truth to the notion that people justify their behaviors and their beliefs after the fact. But pinning every action and reaction as some type of dissonance reduction exercise kind of makes the theory pointless, the pan -explanation for all human behavior. Some of the later chapters go out of their way to praise those brave souls who overcome their dissonance by…changing course and thus resolving their mental tensions. Much like the psychologists, every possible outcome is an affirmation of the theory, which robs it of utility by neutering any sense of predictability.

And the book gives this away by how it makes its argument. Mistakes Were Made constantly and consistently commits the strawman fallacy by literally making up quotes about its scenarios and sometimes fictional, sometimes real characters. The idea is to present perhaps an inner monologue about what someone may be thinking, or a pretend dialogue from spurned partners about their broken relationships, but it comes off as hokey and fake and needlessly pubescent. Given complex people and situations, the book's answers are to dumb down the decision-making by flattening the context into thin caricatures.

In other words, the authors have already cast judgment on the whole of humanity and our collective guilt in engaging with self-justification, and spell it out for us in Netflix-exposition style. In doing so, it ends up in the same place as mountains of other pop science self-help books at the airport:

That you , dear reader, are the problem.

But you are also the solution.

Now that you know about this bad behavior, you can choose not to engage.

And think your way to a better you.