Virtue. Doesn't that word just get you pumped?!
Unfortunately many ethical thinkers have realized that virtue is an
"impoverished word" in that is has been robbed of much of it's
original meaning and potency. Instead of rambling on about virtue, I want to talk about how rationalizations
are such a real danger for all of us in our relationships, work, school, faith,
and our vocation in life. Then, I will explain how the virtue of Prudence
is the key to be conquering this fearsome beast of rationalization (see how I
tied it back in to virtue).
Prudence in general is a freaking awesome virtue,
but it is the first step of making a prudent decision that is the key to
overcoming rationalizations. This first step is called Deliberation.
Deliberation is where one analyzes the circumstances and gathers information
about a situation in as objective a way as possible. Seems simple enough,
right? Easy to understand, but very hard to apply to one's life, especially
with our fearsome foe of rationalization ready to squash our efforts to
deliberate. Alexandre Havard defines rationalization as, “to twist objective
data, consciously or unconsciously, to make them fit pre-conceived notions.”
This is a very good definition and, upon reflection, is clear that
rationalization is a serious problem for all of us. It is simply easier, more convenient, and less scary to categorize a
situation into a “pre-conceived notion” of reality than face the unique
challenges of each of the situations that life presents us with.
Rationalizations can take many forms: clichés, cultural or social expectations,
stereotypes, past experiences, and well-worn patterns of thought.
I would like to show examples how
rationalizations affect our vocation as college students to demonstrate the
destructive effect that rationalizations can have on our ability to live the
virtue of prudence, and more importantly, to live our vocation. Obviously there are the obvious dangers of
alcohol abuse, partying, and immorality in college, but I want to focus on the
more subtle rationalizations that keep up in mediocrity. As a college
student, we often sacrifice sleep by staying up too late because of the
stereotype of college students staying up late. We also could easily stay up
too late because of social expectations to do so for socializing. As students,
we also often procrastinate studying and writing papers because of deeply
engrained thought patterns and habits that have formed our self-image as being
a procrastinator and a “last-minute” person. Often we tend to complain and
focus on the negative of our college experience because of stereotypes and
social expectations to complain. Instead of appreciating the hard work of our
professors, the administration, and even cafeteria workers, we tend to give in
to complaining and thus rationalizing our own mediocrity, negativity, and lack
of commitment. How do we overcome these crippling rationalizations?
You guessed it: Prudence! I mean Deliberation
(which is part of Prudence)! Instead of following our rationalizations, we must take a step back from our well-worn
thought pattern, and examine the objective facts of the situation. Let's
use the "staying-up-late-to-socialize" example. Do we have a test
tomorrow? Do we have an early commitment or can we sleep in? How are we doing
physically right now: are we already tired or sick? Conversely, we should
consider the objective positives of staying up late. Is this social time
something valuable to me? Is the activity we are doing worth sacrificing sleep
(are you watching YouTube or having a deep, life transforming conversation)?
These are the type of “deliberating” questions we must ask in order to make
prudent decisions and avoid the poison of rationalizations.
Deliberation is only the first step. It
will take the next two steps of prudence: judgement (where we evaluate
the data we have collected while deliberating), and actually deciding to
get us where we want to be. Oh, and we better throw in the virtue of courage
because it will take courage to go against our deep-seated and habitual
rationalizations. However, even if we aren't yet ready to break free from our
rationalizations, if we begin to truly
deliberate decisions it will open our eyes to the truth and break the most
powerful bondage of rationalizations which is it trap us in
"rational-lies".
Isn’t Virtue looking cooler already?
NOTE: I am reading Alexandre Havard's book Virtuous
Leadership for my Center for Leadership class at Franciscan University and
his chapter on the virtue of Prudence was the inspiration and primary source of
this post.
What
do you think are the most dangerous rationalizations that we make in our
lives?
James Lohrmann
