Malice or Stupidity?

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Hanlon's Razor is an eponymous adage that allows the elimination of unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. It reads:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

This particular form is attributed to a Robert J. Hanlon. However, earlier utterances that convey the same basic idea are known.

A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story "Logic of Empire":

"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."

Yet another similar epigram has been widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte:

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

My personal take on this is:

"Get over it - they're too stupid to be mean."

...

So, which do you think is the primary motivation when someone does or says something that injures you emotionally or physically? Are they malicious or stupid? Both? Neither? Something else?

The end result is the same. The fact that it may have been done inadvertently doesn't lessen the impact.

To better understand hurt in this case it would help to define it.

Hurt as in;
-physical harm to one's person
-attacking one's assets
-damaging one's personal or professional reputation

Or,
-hurting ones little feelings.

I am a very mind-my-own-business, live-and-let-live person. There's no good reason for anyone to want to harm me. Also, I hold a grudge longer than anyone I know. So, if someone harms me with malicious intent, that person has done something stupid.

stupid and malicious - possible
just stupid - possible
just malicious - not possible

Depends on the situation. More often than not I would pick stupidity or ignorance. I don't consider stupidity to be the same thing as ignorance. Sometimes the person in question couldn't possibly know something no matter how smart s/he is.

The three most common explanations I think of are:

1. Ignorance
2. Stupidity
3. Malice

Malice is the least common. I rarely assume anything is said or done with malice. Maybe there are sometimes when I should assume malicious intent and I don't because I'm too far on the other extreme.

Stubborn and unyielding stupid is worse than open malice.

I meant hurting their feelings alone without real damage.

Yeah well you know what they say about stix-n-stones.
Learn it and live by it.

I place meanies in the same category as my yahoo neighbor's barking slavering dogs- they don't really know any better than to be the stinky meanies they are. if they did know better, chances are they would not bother with me at all.

Both stupidity and malice might be too strong words to describe what I perceive to be the motivation of people who hurt me. Unless we're talking about actual sociopaths or their ilk then I tend to think it's more likely that people are simply not thinking (not the same thing as stupidity IMO) or don't care enough about how their actions will affect me. I could buy into a modified version of the statement: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity or thoughtlessness". Generally I find that most people are too tied up thinking about themselves to consider how their actions will affect others or to actively seek to hurt others.

I think you know the answer to this: we've been bullyied in school, so that was with malicious intent. However, we also have hurt someone else's feelings because of things we say that we don't realise that are going to hurt other people, because of being aspie. So the answer is: it depends.