It has long been noticed that a characteristic feature of many outstanding people is the ability to justify the negative actions of others. Of course, within certain limits, that is, we are not talking about justifying malicious criminals, etc. of things.
I'm talking about what we face every day. For example, someone's categorical judgment, an emotional outburst, or an unjustified harshness.
The idea to write this article came about when I noticed one interesting feature. I must say right away that there are tens of thousands of comments on our IFO channel, which is dedicated to personal development. Of course, there is no way to read them all. However, I was surprised by a characteristic pattern.
More than 90% of people who write offensive comments almost immediately delete them on their own and, either do not write anything at all, or express their point of view correctly, removing obscenities, insults and other similar things that they wrote initially.
If it happened several times, one could consider it an accident. However, when this happens regularly, we are dealing with a pattern. What conclusion can be drawn from this? I would venture to suggest that people are much kinder than it seems at first glance.
Another thing is that sometimes this kindness (which is sometimes hidden deep in the soul) needs to be able to find. She is like a ball of thread, which, if you pull, can reveal to you a completely different side of a person - kind, simple, and almost childishly trusting.
What is Hanlon's Razor
It is appropriate here to talk about such a concept as Hanlon's Razor. But first, we must remember what a presumption is. A presumption is an assumption that is held to be true until proven otherwise.
So, Hanlon's Razor - this is the presumption according to which, when looking for the causes of unpleasant events, first of all, human errors should be assumed, and only then - someone's deliberate malicious actions.
Usually Hanlon's Razor is explained by the phrase: "Never attribute to human malice what can be explained by simple stupidity." This principle will help you combat the fundamental attribution error.
For the first time the wording "Hanlon's Razor" was used by Robert Hanlon in the late 70s of the last century, getting its name by analogy with Occam's Razor.
It is also worth noting that a phrase is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte expressing this principle:
Never attribute to malice that which is fully explained by incompetence.
Stanislaw Lem, an outstanding philosopher and writer, uses an even more elegant formulation in his science fiction novel "Inspection on Site":
I suppose the error is not caused by malice, but your artfulness ...
In a word, the Hanlon Razor principle has been known for a long time, another thing is that it is much more difficult to implement it than just talk about it.
What do you think about this? Why do most people who write offensive comments delete them almost immediately and then formulate their thoughts perfectly correctly? And is it worth attributing to human malice what is explained by simple stupidity? Write about it in the comments.
