Part of the Casswiki article series Psychology
The words “yes, but” are often a tell-tale sign of self-justification and rationalization. In itself, there’s nothing wrong with using these words in discussion; but when applied to oneself, repeated use of “yes, but” will create a self-tranquillizing mechanism which is esoterically harmful. Lying to oneself dulls one’s ability to discern truth, which is the very thing esoteric work seeks to develop.
Simple examples of “yes, but” are:
- “Yes, I was used and then abandoned, but I was in love."
- "Yes, I sinned, but doesn’t one need to know sin in order to better avoid it?”
The possible variations of “yes, but” are endless. What these have in common is diffusing a shock by attaching some agreeable or seemingly reasonable explanation to something that would normally shock one. It is one example of what is called self-calming.
A more fruitful way of describing the situations in the above examples would be to say:
- “I preferred basking in the subjective feeling of being in love to acting on the objective fact of being taken advantage of."
- "I put my conscience to sleep with the pretext of gaining knowledge when in fact I was interested in indulging in whatever for my subjective pleasure.”
At least, these latter formulations acknowledge that the inner “predator”, or self-serving or subjective part of the self was running the show. In real situations, however, lies to the self can be much more complex.