NoNameProf

why do people do this? many people say terrible things once in a while and then deny such “slip of tongue” represent their true self. well, we do not believe them, even if we do this ourselves.

I think the problem here is to think there is a consistent true self for every individual. let’s your mind contains two things, A and B. A is a biased opinion (which could be acquired simply through hearing it second hand), and B is the one that have judged A is incorrect. In normal situations, B will supress A and the individual will come out as an unbiased person. If in situations where B is inhibited by various reason itself, then A will dominant and the individual will appear to be biased. Now can we say this person is biased at his/her heart? and he/she has simply been pretending he/she is a good person all along! clearly this is an over simflication of the problem.

this actually goes beyond slip of tongue, and applies to all kinds of behavior we exhibit. we do things we regret later all the time. treating an individual as a consistent and uniform self is a dangerous thing.