Money is just one of the forces that blind us to information and issues which we could pay attention to - but don't. It exacerbates and often rewards all the other drivers of willful blindness; our preference for the familiar, our love for individuals and for big ideas, a love of busyness and our dislike of conflict and change, the human instinct to obey and conform and our skill at displacing and diffusing responsibility. All of these operate and collaborate with varying intensities at different moments in our lives. The common denominator is that they all make us protect our sense of self-worth, reducing dissonance and conferring a sense of security, however illusory. In some ways, they all act like money; making us feel good at first, with consequences we don't see. We wouldn't be so blind if our blindness didn't deliver rewards; the benefit of comfort and ease. Margaret Heffernan
About This Quote

As human beings we are naturally inclined to forgive our transgressors. We are wired to ignore someone who has wronged us in the past. The problem is that this blindness lets people do more wrong. Forgiveness is a very powerful thing, but it is also limited in its effects.

When we forgive someone and then they continue to hurt us, we should not be surprised when we feel hurt and angry at their actions. The reason that forgiveness can do so little good is because we don't see the world as the transgression sinner sees it; we don't see them as separate from us and we don't see the pain they cause as something separate from ourselves. By forgiving transgression sinner s, we reduce our ability to see them as separate entities and this leads to pain and anger on our part.

Source: Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore The Obvious At Our Peril

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  3. I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me. - Hunter S. Thompson
  4. God, how impossible life is without money. Nothing can ever overcome it, it's everything when it's anything. How can I write in peace with endless worries of money, money, money? (“Disappearing Act”) - Richard Matheson
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More Quotes By Margaret Heffernan
  1. When we care about people, we care less about money, and when we care about money, we care less about people.
  2. Money is just one of the forces that blind us to information and issues which we could pay attention to - but don't. It exacerbates and often rewards all the other drivers of willful blindness; our preference for the familiar, our love for individuals and...
  3. In treating people as less important than things, work becomes both demoralised and demoralising and we become blind to the moral content of our decisions.. Money and wilfful blindness make us act in ways incompatible wiht what believe our ethics to be, and often even...
  4. You cannot fix a problem that you refuse to acknowledge.
  5. According to the psychologist irving Janis, is that our sense of belonging (which makes us feel safe) blinds us to dangers and encourages greater risk-taking.
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