By: Garry L. Hamilton
There are various quotes from a variety of sources that say essentially the same thing.
Possibly the best recognized is Hanlon’s razor:
“Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
(Also written as: “Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.”)
We seem, as a society, to have a strong bias toward finding in favor of stupidity and incompetence rather than malice and villainy.
A parade of famous historical figures support this view: Goethe[1], Napoleon Bonaparte[2], Robert Heinlein[3], Sir Bernard Ingham[4], Friedrich von Schiller[5], Porter Clark[6], and (proclaiming stupidity supreme) Elbert Hubbard[7] and Albert Einstein[8].
However…
Evaluating current events using dismissive quips and cute comfortable aphorisms can be a serious mistake. Only seventy years ago, an Austrian madman rose to power and took over a large swathe of Europe, embroiling the world in chaos and misery, and murdering whole segments of populations.
He was smart. He had charisma. He was as evil as they come.
And what of the civilized peoples of that time? Chamberlain met with him and negotiated “peace in our time.” Was Chamberlain evil? Of course not, remember, “Never ascribe to malice…”
Time Magazine, seventy years ago, proclaimed him “Man of the Year” for 1938. Was Time Magazine evil? Of course not, merely useful. Remember, “Never ascribe to malice…”
Of course, there is little argument today, in light of years of armed conflict and millions of deaths that the Austrian madman was, in fact, truly evil.
So much so, in fact, that when a politically motivated group wants to denigrate someone, say, a president, it’s easy to compare him to the Austrian madman – to mangle his name so as to combine their names – as was done with President Bush and Time’s 1938 Man of the Year.
Today, we see unbelievably stupid manipulations of the economy, the President directly meddling in corporate affairs, and an executive who made more than $100 million for his company (while on a one dollar salary) being run out of town on a rail for accepting a retention bonus amounting to a fraction of what he earned for them.
No way is this malicious. It could only be stupidity and incompetence. Remember, “Never ascribe to malice…”
Remember 9/11? Jets? Tall buildings? Nearly 3,000 lives lost?
Once the airlines were allowed to resume flights, a new agency, the TSA, was to “keep us safe” from “terrorists” and ever having that bad thing happen to us again.
The stories of little old ladies having their knitting needles confiscated, shampoo becoming carry-on contraband and anti-profiling carried to the extremes of harassing ethnically WASP passengers while allowing surly, aggressive Middle-Eastern activists to fly became commonplace.
Malicious government enforcement? Never. Remember, you must “Never ascribe to malice…”
Lately, however, we’ve witnessed yet another sublime example of, uh, incompetence. Not malice. A young man, unfortunately a young white male working for a political organization that’s currently out of favor with the ruling caste, found himself in Saint Louis, being questioned by the TSA Capering Crusaders themselves, as they wanted to know just why he was carrying cash. Not an illegal quantity of cash (huh?) just under $5,000 in book sales receipts and such. You should watch the video. Look at the guy. Clearly an undesirable. I mean, would you associate with a guy like that?
Terrorist? What? Oh, I may have neglected to mention that supporting candidates who are politically unpopular (with the current ruling caste), espousing the principles of liberty and freedom, and having certain bumper stickers on your car means you are likely a member of a militia and probably a “domestic terrorist.”
So, surly Middle-Eastern activists are okay, and vocal white liberty lovers who support freedom in America… those are terrorists.
Well, at least we’re finally profiling. Inverted profiling, but at least it’s profiling.
Oh, and it’s not malicious. Because you “Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
A man I worked with several years ago observed that the hardest thing for people to confront is evil. He pointed out that people, in their effort to not have that confrontation, are willing to substitute all manner of motive rather than conclude that evil and malice are at work.
Do I need to state the obvious?
Sometimes it IS malice. Sometimes it IS evil.
And it would behoove the population of this country to brush the sand from its collective cranium and look directly at what wickedness this way comes.
Our freedom is at stake. Laughing, sneering and deriding the current government incursions into our liberties as “incompetence” is the ostrich approach.
I don’t recommend it.
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Notes:
[1]Goethe: “Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.”
[2]Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
[3]Robert Heinlein (Logic of Empire): “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.”
[4]Sir Bernard Ingham (“Cock-up before conspiracy”): “Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory.”
[5]Friedrich von Schiller: “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain,”
[6]Porter Clark (Clark’s Law): “Any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.”
[7]Elbert Hubbard: “Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”
[8]Albert Einstein: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
