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We will return to "The Saga of the Web-Surfing Squatter" in a few moments.  But first, this word from our sponsor...

Paula Deen today made good on her commitment to an interview on The Today Show with Matt Lauer. It was tearful and a bit rambling.  It ended with a repeated plea to her accusers as she paraphrased Jesus in John 8--"Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone."  Her invitation was to her sinless accusers, that they would pick up that stone (or boulder, as she noted late in the interview) and throw it hard enough at her head to kill her.

I am in no position to pick up a pebble and flick it at anyone.  The twists and turns, the dips and flips, the ins and outs of this situation are far beyond my information or insight.  However, it is worth remembering some cautions as we watch yet another celebrity flop around in public like a fish in the bottom of a boat, gasping for breath.

Human memory is not a static recording device.  Each time Paula Deen revisits the events in question, she rewrites them a bit in her brain.  She is in no way exceptional in this regard.  That is the norm for all of us.  As we retell our stories, we will become more and more the hero (most of the time) or the villain (once in a while).  

Details of the story may shift and change.  Stock phrases may show up over and over as the story becomes more fully rehearsed.  And as we rewrite these memories, we are not fabricating something that we know to be less truthful.  In fact, we will cling to the revised memories and reports all the more tenaciously as they grow and develop.  The revised memories will become the truth for the teller.

Self-justification is standard operating procedure for human beings, not merely the practice of professional liars.  No matter how hard I try to be "objective" about my own flaws and failings, I will almost always shave the truth in some way.  I will almost always cast myself in a more positive light than the facts would allow.  I will always have some explanation that underwrites the legitimacy of my actions.  

There are no guilty people in prison--because of our tendencies toward self-justification.  If you were in my position, you do exactly as I did, we say to others.  I know my motives and feelings and goals.  So what I did makes perfect sense--if you understand all of that.  

If I talk to myself long enough about what I did, I can transform it from a disaster into a quite positive event.  And I won't be lying to myself when that happens.  I may come to truly believe this to be the case.

We evaluate one another largely in terms of how we feel toward one another.  Deen is receiving support from many people in her life and in the public eye.  There are those who know and love her personally.  They cannot and will not see her as a terrible person.  There are those who have benefitted from her generosity and support.  They will reciprocate that support.  There are those who have much to lose economically if they continue a relationship with her.  Those organizations are in full retreat and damage-control mode.  There are those who suspect the worst about everyone.  They are pointing out how right they are once again.

We all suffer from confirmation bias.  We sort information to suit our existing worldviews, our self-interests, our emotional commitments and our wishes for the future.  We embrace the information that enhances what we think and want and value.  We reject information that challenges how we see the world.  It takes real work to overcome this bias moment by moment.

And finally, people of privilege are insulated from much of the world.  This is why people value their privileged status.  Self-delusion is not only possible but often required for those of us who live in positions of privilege and power.  Money and power purchase insulation, isolation and illusion.

For Deen or anyone else to say that we cannot know what offends another person is simply to claim that we aren't required to care about what offends another person.  That is a statement of insulated privilege.  That is the one statement in Deen's current body of work that I cannot take seriously.

Anyone in a position of public leadership or power can take the opportunity to observe, learn from, and respond with humility to Deen's predicament.  Anyone in such a position is subject to precisely the same frailties.  

Is there anyone left to pick up that first stone?