Self-deception grows easier through communal loyalty

Evidence

The factors that open and close minds to one belief or another, and, in particular, that formulate opinion about what other people believe, are obscure and complex. Self-deception is so easy in private motive that it may be taken to be easier still in acts of communal loyalty. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1389

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A quietly wise observation about how group affiliation amplifies a private tendency to self-deceive.
• XREF: connects to: Media loyalty regimes achieve trust by inducing hypnotic indifference — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 129; Unaddressed root causes of sin produce self-built defenses that enable further deception — Chuck Missler, The Kingdom, Power and Glory: The…, 1394