Chuck Pickl

“His identity as a naval officer is the essential balancing factor. It’s the key to his personal security and therefore he’s excessively zealous to protect his standing. That would account for the harshness and ill temper I spoke about before.” “Would he be disinclined to admit to mistakes?” “Well, there’s a tendency that way. The commander has a fixed anxiety about protecting his standing. Of course there’s nothing unbalanced in that.” “Would he be a perfectionist?” “Such a personality would be.” “Inclined to hound subordinates about small details?” “He prides himself on meticulousness. Any mistake of a subordinate is intolerable because it might endanger him.” “Is such a personality, with such a zeal for perfection, likely to avoid all mistakes?” “Well, we all know that reality is beyond the hundred-per-cent control of any human being—” “Yet he will not admit mistakes when made. Is he lying?” “Definitely not! He—you might say he revises reality in his own mind so that he comes out blameless. There’s a tendency to blame others—”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny