Self-Deception

I was talking to a psychologist friend today about self-deception. Here is an example from my counselling. I had a session with a man who got ABC Computers into XYZ Schools. He took a large payment from ABC Computers, and split it 50-50 with a Member of the Executive Council (an MEC, a provincial Minister), to connect ABC with the MEC, who got ABC into the schools. ABC Computers also gave them a whiz-bang computer each, as gifts. Then ABC told him that they wanted to gift him with an upgrade. He took the computer for an upgrade, and ABC confiscated it. He told me all this without any understanding that he was involved in corruption -- a striking example of blindness to one's own self. OBSERVATION: What he was worried about -- and why he came to see me -- was that ABC had confiscated his computer, which had all his data on it. This badly impacted his business.