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Comment by eevilspock

What's interesting is the speaker in the poem is predicting their own inevitable ("with a sigh") reality distortion field, i.e. is being cynical about themself. So it is a poem about self-serving bias, despite the fact that we are perfectly capable of checking ourselves. Our biases aren't entirely subconscious. We can be willful about it, willfully look the other way so our biases remain "subconscious" and thus not our responsibility, making it easier for our conscious side to convince itself that its self-esteem is legit.

And then there is a meta-confirmation of this bias: The way people commonly interpret this poem. If Frost had that in mind all along, then he/the poem is genius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_attribution_error

parent eevilspock 1 year ago

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