We wish people were different. We wish that our partners were more sensitive to our insecurities. We wish that our siblings would take on more household responsibility. We wish our friends would check in with us more often. We wish our ex had= treated us better.
We think that if people cared, they would try to ensure we did not hurt. But we hurt. So we deduce that other people willed that into existence.
âEveryoneâs out to get me,â we think. But maybe not.
Philosophical razors are tools used to shave off hypotheticals and provide clarity. Occamâs Razor, the idea that the simplest explanation is most likely to be true, is the most popular of these. My favourite, however, is Hanlonâs Razor:
âNever attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.â
Hanlon urges us to remember that it is most often not spiteful intention but a lack of experience, poise, and wit that fuels othersâ inability to tactfully navigate complexity, inevitably hurting us.
The beauty of the aphorism is that it makes the world feel a lot less dangerous. It reminds us that people grow old long before they grow up, and that empathy is a skill most never learn. It reminds us that itâs much more likely that it simply did not occur to the offender how their behaviour could have realistically affected us. They had the best intentions, but they fell short.
Itâs so natural for us to assume negligence and a lack of concern when we feel hurt by othersâ actions. Weâre socialized to feel competitive, weâre taught life is a zero-sum game, and that if we feel pain, itâs because someone has cruelly and intentionally planted that emotion there. We feel devastated by how little they care for us. We feel shocked it took so long for their true nature to show. A little voice in our head tells us that we always knew this would happen. Resentment builds.
We can get lost in resentment, trapped in our heads.
Hanlonâs Razor defangs this resentment and makes room for a much less corrosive emotion â pity. We look with pity onto those that so clearly struggle with sensitively handling complexity. We feel as though they should know better, but our frustration is now not angled squarely at them, per se, but slightly to the left. We want their past to have taught them how to behave in this moment, of course, but we cannot bring ourselves to blame them for not having learned.
Itâs like being stuck in traffic and urgently needing to use the bathroom, and blaming the cars ahead of us for our discomfort. Sitting behind the steering wheel, leg bobbing up and down, cursing under your breath, other driversâ behaviours no longer feel like foolishness, but cluelessness instead.
Generally speaking, Hanlonâs Razor helps us realize that itâs not that others see the best solution and then choose not to take it. Instead, the best solution does not occur to them in the first place. This declaws our hurtful memories and we see the situation for what it really is: our pain as unintentional collateral damage.
Hanlonâs Razor shines a light onto the inherent childishness in us all. The offenderâs obliviousness inspires a protectiveness that we never thought we would feel for someone who had just hurt us, and that might be Hanlonâs Razorâs grand finale. For the first time, we oddly feel inklings of compassion and warmth for the offender.
We get the feeling that, by no fault of their own, theyâre perhaps unsuited for the worldâs complexities. That perhaps theyâve been prematurely thrust into challenging situations and theyâre simply failing at managing them well.
If we remember that the vast majority of pain caused in the world is the result of unintentional collateral damage, maybe we can more easily extend forgiveness and leave anger and all its destructive potential behind us. Although perhaps not deserving of it, those that hurt us mostly require patient coaching on how to treat and love us, not vengeful record-straightening.
So letâs remember Hanlonâs Razor when we feel the familiar bubbling of anger and resentment in our gut. Most people are trying their best. And cutting others some slack might miraculously help heal some of our own wounds, too.
Maliciously,
VandanđĄ
@vandan_jhaveri
Tool I Found:
Album I'm Obsessed With: I'm a huge hip-hop fan, and this newsletter wouldn't be me if I didn't try to put you onto someone new.
Apollo & Che Noir - As God Intended (2020) (Apple link)
Apollo & Che Noir - As God Intended (2020) (Spotify Link)
Apollo & Che Noir - As God Intended (2020) (YouTube Link)
Creator Highlight:
Quote:
"First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are." - Tara Westover in Educated
One Last thing
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