I came across an interesting concept this week and I want to share it with you…
This is Hanlon’s Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
No, it’s not rocket science, but it immediately resonated with me. Have you ever encountered a situation in your life where someone did something unfathomable? A situation where you ask yourself, “How could they have done such a thing?” When I look back in my life, I see plenty of these, and I also see something that immediately follows. In each of these situations, my default is to attribute malice. There’s no other way to say it. When people do fucked up things, my mind immediately categorizes them as evil. My thoughts sound something like, “They must’ve known how fucked up this was, but they did it anyway.” Call me judgmental, call me whatever you want, but this has been my experience.
Hanlon’s Razor offers a different way of approaching these situations. What if most people do fucked up things not out of malice, but out of stupidity? This is a huge shift in context, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. In my experience, most people (myself included) are ignorant, not evil. Come to think of it, this is starting to sound eerily familiar - I think we’ll be able to dive a little deeper with some help from my good friend, The Buddha.
The concept of ignorance in Buddhism is known as Avidyā. In Buddhist terms, this does not mean lack of information. It means a fundamental misunderstanding of reality, of confusing impermanence with permanence, suffering with bliss and self with non-self. To the Buddhists, this is the main cause of Dukkha, or suffering. A quote from Sonam Rinchen explains this:
Ignorance is the opposite of the understanding that the person or other phenomena lack intrinsic existence. Those who are affected by this ignorance create actions which precipitate them into further worldly existence.
Coming back to Hanlon’s Razor, it all makes sense a little more sense. All the fucked up, grotesque, “evil” shit people do comes from this fundamental ignorance. We cheat, we lie, and we steal because we can’t see our impermanence. This is the same principle that draws us to the taboo, as we confuse suffering with bliss. I could go on, but I think you get my point.
What’s most fascinating to me is how much this (and Buddhist thought in general) ties into a certain philosophy that has been at the forefront of my mind. I’ll leave you hanging - we’ll dive into that tomorrow. For today, think about how you can apply Hanlon’s Razor to your own life. All those people you call evil, monstrous, devils - maybe they’re just ignorant. Maybe they’re just stupid.
In a weird, fucked-up way, I find peace in that.
P.S. If you haven’t already, check out my weekly Poetry newsletter. It released today at the same time as this Reflection.