The psychological components of war have not gone away—dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception


Steven Pinker

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Avoidance of self deception is a matter of integrity not comfort.
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All war is deception.
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War is based on deception.
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War is based on deception.
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Self-deception helps us deceive,
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The faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for anyone wanting to guide others
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Capitalism needs to function like a game of tug-of-war. Two opposing sides need to continually strug...
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Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
, FROM ROBERT HEINLEIN'S "TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE"
He himself felt defeated because he was fighting against something he did not hate, because he did n...
CARLOS FUENTES
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
GEORGE ORWELL
A ''just war'' is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than ...
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
A just war is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the ...
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Self-realization or self-awareness is not a destination - it is a relentless experience - it is a ps...
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It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of self-deception.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
Those claims have not gone away. He should not duck the issue.
HALLYE JORDAN
Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is i...
PAUL A. SAMUELSON
Of what use was memory anyway than as a template for one's most reassuring self-deceptions!
ASHIM SHANKER
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our f...
SUN TZU
Ben Adaephon Delat," Pearl said plaintively, "see the last who comes. You send me to my death."
STEVEN ERIKSON
The specter of war, at least until the 19th of April, seems to have gone away. Until then, the cease...
IQBAL ATHAS
Our covetousness for miracles and wonders leads into self-deception
SUNDAY ADELAJA
Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change ...
PAUL SAMUELSON
The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shad...
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
This is a psychological war. This nation is not a nation to yield to such pressures.
AHMAD KHATAMI
People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to...
JAMES BALDWIN
When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day, Fancy restores what vengeance snatch'd away.
ALEXANDER POPE
I'm someone who does not like a bunker mentality and does not like groupthink.
BILL DE BLASIO
We do not recognize that we are addicted to some negative psychological habit, some terribly self-de...
ABHYSHEQ SHUKLA
You still have only one self and one identity. However, self, identity and personality are not thing...
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War always reaches the depths of horror because of idiots who perpetuate terror from generation to g...
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I lost my own son (Steven) at 18, five years ago, in a car accident, so I can really sympathize with...
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At the most basic level, self-deception is fooling ourselves into believing something that is false ...
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Steven is extremely committed to DreamWorks, ... He doesn't want it to go away.
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Just as television didn't put an end to radio or the movies (to say nothing of books), I don't think...
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Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. B...
JONATHAN HAIDT
So many times peace was offered and war was chosen. I have no vengeance against the company. I am ha...
ROSIE O'DONNELL
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
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If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial f...
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You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thin...
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They knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excite...
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Psychological and spiritual components are as important or more important for you . Thoughts and fee...
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Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a...
TODD SOLONDZ
We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do...
KEVIN COSTNER
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a sh...
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
My dear Excellency! I have not gone to war to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.
MANFRED VON RICHTHOFEN
Deception follows on the heels of deception.
LORD ALFRED TENNYSON
Fame or perceived success - it all comes from groupthink.
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It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who c...
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It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who c...
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It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who c...
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When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.
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Women have an encircling wall of deceit around them; therefore, they are not aware of deception, it ...
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Who was this girl who thumbed her nose at two kingdoms and did as she pleased?
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It is shocking but not a surprise. The components of these things have been seen before.
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The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.
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The worst lies are the ones you tell yourself.
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I would desire every divine to beware that he tell not the unsanctified, that whoever hath the least...
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When you lie to others, you lie to yourself.
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There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth th...
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One major cost of self-deception is that we use painful life experiences to justify being non-ideal ...
CORTNEY S. WARREN
Steven Spielberg and I have tremendous amounts of money.
DAVID GEFFEN
Denial is a swift and deep current beneath the mental landscape.
RAIN BOJANGLES
Amind of tribalism is a pillar for injustice and corruption
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If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that ...
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There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom ...
MORTIMER J. ADLER
I want to be indifferent to vengeance. It's degrading. Not having a spirit of vengeance protects...
SEGOLENE ROYAL
We have had a lot of young people who have gone away to university.
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This business is atrophying. When you look at Microsoft's dominance in the software industry, it's t...
JOSEPH FARLEY
All those jobs have simply gone away, disappeared.
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Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-d...
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Encyclopedias are finished. All encyclopedias combined, including the redoubtable Britannica, have a...
JAMES GLEICK
If you don’t want to deceive yourself in this new year, don’t be a miracle chaser
SUNDAY ADELAJA
The point of painting is not really deception or imitation.
A. S. BYATT
The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.
JOHN RUSKIN
What do you mean, Phib?" asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us...
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He feared no challenger face-to-face, but war was deception, as Khevat had taught him, and not all m...
PETER V. BRETT
Can it be that there is not enough space for man in this beautiful world, under those immeasurable, ...
LEO TOLSTOY
He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Love is not cold and what is cold is not love.
MARTY RUBIN
Extremism stifles true progression in all fields of human advancement; it is a detriment to everythi...
DANIEL S. FLETCHER
Our oceans have been the victims of a giant Ponzi scheme, waged with Bernie Madoff-like callousness ...
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You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and fru...
ALEXANDER HAIG
(The New York City Fire Department is) going to have a lot of explaining to do. These issues have no...
MAUREEN MCFADDEN
You have to think his dominance is back,
JEFF SLUMAN
Bradshaw especially didn't like the use of the word "experiment" in regard to social conditions. Exp...
BERNADETTE PAJER
Don't run away.
Im not running away. Im already gone.
-Lena and Ethan
KAMI GARCIA
The strategy to embrace, extend, and extinguish has not necessarily gone away,
SIMON PHIPPS
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
It's not warm when she's away
Ain't no sunshine when she's...
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Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.
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If crime is going down, you shouldn't be increasing resources for crime prevention. Or you shoul...
STEVEN PINKER
The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to o...
STEVEN PINKER
When it comes to correct English, there's no one in charge; the lunatics are running the asylum.
STEVEN PINKER
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical cla...
STEVEN PINKER
The main reason that violence correlates with low socioeconomic status today is that the elites and ...
STEVEN PINKER
The dominant theories of elite art and criticism in the 20th century grew out of a militant denial o...
STEVEN PINKER
In their book Warrior Lovers, an analysis of erotic fiction by women, the psychologist Cather...
STEVEN PINKER
Organisms are selected to deploy violence only in circumstances where the expected benefits outweigh...
STEVEN PINKER
Violence and religion have often gone together, but it's not a perfect correlation, and it doesn...
STEVEN PINKER
When people have different ideas about which of these four modes of interacting applies to a current...
STEVEN PINKER
cademics and intellectuals are culture vultures. In a gathering of today’s elite, it is perfectly ...
STEVEN PINKER
Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx...
STEVEN PINKER
The imposition of stigma is the commonest form of violence used in democratic societies.
R. A. PINKER
We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negati...
STEVEN BIKO
Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands ...
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
I'm very fond of the British cinema. I'm a big fan of Martin Campbell and Daniel Craig. I ac...
STEVEN BAUER
The world is poised on the cusp of an economic and cultural shift as dramatic as that of the Industr...
STEVEN LEVY
I think I look really weird with short hair. So I figured if I've got a mustache, I think it loo...
STEVEN ADAMS
The gift that has been given to me says much about our capacity for great compassion and generosity,...
STEVEN COJOCARU
Most of the kids that I meet in the street are serious hardened criminals that I meet in the street,...
STEVEN SEAGAL
No industry is immune and no occupation is safe. All of us need to begin to think in terms of our ow...
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by ...
STEVEN SINOFSKY
Courtney Love is a loose cannon. She says what she thinks. She's wild on the red carpet. You get...
STEVEN COJOCARU
Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their ...
STEVEN BIKO
When I was on TV in the '80s, I wasn't thinking, 'There's a 10-year-old kid watching...
STEVEN WRIGHT
Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare...
STEVEN RATTNER
I have an existential map; it has you are here written all over it.
STEVEN WRIGHT
Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. ...
STEVEN WRIGHT
'The Color Purple' is the kind of character piece that a director like Sidney Lumet could do...
STEVEN SPIELBERG
Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is...
STEVEN SODERBERGH
I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure.
STEVEN CHU
Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies o...
STEVEN SPIELBERG
The entertainment world, television, movies, social media, YouTube stuff, we're so bombarded wit...
STEVEN BOCHCO
I was born with this. It's a hereditary genetic condition. This is something you can go your who...
STEVEN COJOCARU
I think there is a way to be formal and elegant and classy, but more modern. Brad Pitt has been chan...
STEVEN COJOCARU
I mean, as long as it doesn't have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things ...
STEVEN TYLER
Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. ...
STEVEN WRIGHT
If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you str...
STEVEN WRIGHT
A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space...
STEVEN WRIGHT