Back in 1964, in his book Games People Play, psychiatrist Eric Berne described a pattern of conversation he called “Why Don’t You—Yes But”, which remains one of the most irritating aspects of everyday social life. The person adopting the strategy is usually a chronic complainer. Something is terrible about their relationship, job, or other situation, and they moan about it ceaselessly, but find some excuse to dismiss any solution that’s proposed. The reason, of course, is that on some level they don’t want a solution; they want to be validated in their position that the world is out to get them. If they can “win” the game—dismissing every suggestion until their interlocutor (对话者) gives up in annoyance—they get to feel pleasurably righteous (正当的) in their resentments and excused from any obligation to change.

        Part of the trouble here is the so-called responsibility/fault fallacy (谬误). When you’re feeling hard done by—taken for granted by your partner, say, or obliged to work for a half-witted boss—it’s easy to become attached to the position that it’s not your job to address the matter, and that doing so would be an admission of fault. But there’s a confusion here. For example, if I were to discover a newborn at my front door, it wouldn’t be my fault, but it most certainly would be my responsibility. There would be choices to make, and no possibility of avoiding them, since trying to ignore the matter would be a choice. The point is that what goes for the baby on the doorstep is true in all cases: even if the other person is 100% in the wrong, there’s nothing to be gained, long-term, from using this as a justification to evade responsibility.

        Should you find yourself on the receiving end of this kind of complaining, there’s an ingenious way to shut it down—which is to agree with it, ardently. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb describes this as “over-validation”. For one thing, you’ll be spared further moaning, since the other person’s motivation was to confirm her beliefs, and now you’re confirming them. But for another, as Gottlieb notes, people confronted with over-validation often hear their complaints afresh and start arguing back. The notion that they’re utterly powerless suddenly seems unrealistic —not to mention rather annoying—so they’re prompted instead to generate ideas about how they might change things.

        “And then, sometimes, something magical might happen,” Gottlieb writes. The other person “might realise she’s not as trapped as you are saying she is, or as she feels.” Which illustrates the irony of the responsibility/fault fallacy: evading responsibility feels comfortable, but turns out to be a prison; whereas assuming responsibility fees unpleasant, but ends up being freeing.

解析：D。由题干中的illustrate with the example可知本题为例证题，根据the newborn on one’s doorstep可定位至原文第二段。根据例证的原则，例子的出现是为了证明论点，而论点通常出现在例子之前，因此解题的关键在于找到例子前面的观点句。原文第二段第一句指出，这件事的部分问题在于所谓的“责任/过错谬误”。该段第三句接着说到，其实这其中存在概念的混淆（confusion），如果我在家门口发现了一个新生儿，这不是我的过错，但这一定有我的责任。作者是要用这个例子来帮助人们区分“责任”与“过错”，从而避免混淆。故正确答案为D。

错项排除：A项对应的是原文第二段第二句中的假设，也就是当一个人觉得自己受了委屈，就很容易会认为这是别人的错，不应该由自己负责解决，但这并不是“家门口的新生儿”这个例子所想要阐明的观点，故排除A项。B项利用原文第二段第二句中的become attached to the position和该段中的fault设置干扰，但在提出“家门口的新生儿”这个例子时，作者明确指出，这不是我的过错（it wouldn’t be my fault），所以并不存在忽视自己过错的情况，故排除B项。C项利用原文第二段第五句中的choices设置干扰，但这里作者强调的是在这种情况下要承担起作选择的责任，C项偏离了例证的重点，故排除。