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Activism was neither vengeful nor self-justifying; saving other people’s children was simply the best means of surviving one’s own loss.—Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2024 Goldman is like a wily, self-justifying Philip Roth invention that asserts a new kind of J’accuse by shaming the court and invoking the pressure of Jewish history.—Armond White, National Review, 6 Sep. 2024 Seen in light of Putin’s evolving style of rule at home, however, the assault on Ukraine fits into an emerging pattern—one that features anti-Western nationalism; angry, self-justifying speeches; and increasingly open uses of force.—Daniel Treisman, Foreign Affairs, 6 Apr. 2022 The fiction was a flimsy dramatic framework for his voice, which, in his recent movies, has become strained, vain, confined as if to an official self-promotional, self-justifying role.—Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 3 Apr. 2024 Traditionalists don’t bother; the study of Torah is self-justifying.—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2024 The Chinese Communists were outraged that Tojo and other defendants had been allowed to make self-justifying speeches in court and to be defended by able U.S. lawyers.—Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2023 And so climate-minded consumers and the mining industry are locked in a self-justifying embrace.—Seyward Darby, Longreads, 11 July 2023
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