Protective Rationalization

The Chaplin had sinned and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand everyone knew that sin was evil, and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mustard, in a moment of divine intuition, the technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue, and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.

Anybody could do it, it required no brains at all, it merely required no character.

- Catch-22