When she was six, my daughter Carissa asked, “Do dumb people think they’re smart?” Answering her own question, she added, “They probably do because they’re dumb.” This made me think: “Do bad people think they’re good?” I wouldn’t be surprised if most do. In fact, I think all of us are ethical in our own eyes. The human tendency to rationalize, to …
COMMENTARY: We Are What We Think 746.4
In the early 1900s, a little-known philosopher named James Allen wrote a powerful essay called “As a Man Thinketh” in which he argued that we are what we think, that a person’s character is the sum of his thoughts. He declared that the power to control our thoughts (whether we use that power or not) is the ability to mold …