better than would have been the case just before he made them.

 

Man’s excess of self-regard typically makes him strongly prefer people like

himself. Psychology professors have had much fun demonstrating this effect in

“lost-wallet” experiments. Their experiments all show that the finder of a lost

wallet containing identity clues will be most likely to return the wallet when

the owner most closely resembles the finder. Given this quality in psycho-

logical nature, cliquish groups of similar persons will always be a very

influential part of human culture, even after we wisely try to dampen the worst

effects.

 

Some of the worst consequences in modern life come when dysfunctional groups of

cliquish persons, dominated by Excessive Self-Regard Tendency, select as new

members of their organizations persons who are very much like themselves. Thus

if the English department at an elite university becomes mentally dysfunctional

or the sales department of a brokerage firm slips into routine fraud, the

problem will have a natural tendency to get worse and to be quite resistant to

change for the better. So also with a police department or prison-guard unit or

political group gone sour and countless other places mired in evil and folly,

such as the worst of our big-city teachers’ unions that harm our children by

preventing discharge of ineffective teachers. Therefore, some of the most useful

members of our civilization are those who are willing to “clean house” when they

find a mess under their ambit of control.

 

Well, naturally, all forms of excess of self-regard cause much error. How could