Hanlon’s Razor: Improve Your Social IQ

“Faced with a bad result, one all too often loses perspective on what has happened.” 

-Frederick Nietzsche

There are these small misfortunes in life where a little mistreatment thrusts itself upon us.

If you’ve ever been left off an important e-mail, not saved a seat, criticized unfairly, or struck by a passive-aggressive comment, you’ve experienced this. These unfairnesses can raise the question: Maybe it wasn’t on accident?…

We’ve all had thoughts like these like “they did that with me in mind”, but more often than you might think, these social mishaps merely have an innocent explanation. Maybe they just cc’d the wrong “Taylor”, miscounted seats, were hangry, or merely felt insecure.

When someone else’s actions negatively impact us, we’re sometimes too quick to connect bad intent. But this is a failure of imagination, and it often gets it wrong. This can spell trouble for you and your relationships.

Luckily, there’s Hanlon’s Razor to help you sort through these mishaps, which will take you and your relationships in a better direction.

Hanlon’s Razor: Origins Story

Hanlon’s Razor (a play on Occam’s Razor) is an aphorism which gets its name from science fiction writer, Robert A. Henlein. While various forms of this wisdom have been around for millennia, Henlein’s prescription sits near the top.

In the 1941 novella, Logic of Empire, one of Henlein’s characters (“Doc”) originally stated: “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."

Today the common phrasing is a bit different, but Henlein’s wisdom (aka Hanlon’s Razor) remains the same:

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

-Hanlon’s Razor

Hanlon’s Razor: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

“There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

- Hamlet

Hanlon’s Razor—perhaps a puddle-deep philosophy—gets at the same basic truth as Hamlet, when lamenting on dungeons and Denmark. 

Events don’t really upset you. They’re neutral happenings. It’s thoughts that make it so. And taking to heart this perspective makes a world of difference.

For example, imagine you just gave a speech or presentation, and afterwards, an audience member (Karen) approached you and said, “Next time, you should use ‘um’ less often, spend more time practicing and make better eye contact. The jazz hands were a bit distracting too.”

Upset? Likely. And perhaps they’re not wrong. But, the chutzpah.

Now, same situation, but let’s say a second audience member came behind Karen and said, “Don’t worry about Karen. That’s just how she is. She says things like that to every presenter.” Karen’s still the same person. But now it’s revealed there’s a character flaw, which is more about Karen than you. It’s not so much a personal attack now, and you weren’t the first to experience Karen’s wrath. Apparently she just says what she thinks, but without malicious intent. And this event becomes almost funny. Events don’t upset you. It’s the beliefs.

Reinterpreting events in a more favorable light is story arbitrage, which is how Hanlon’s Razor works. So instead dwelling on half-baked stories—like they did “X”, with you in mind—you can instead opt for a better interpretation.

Next Time: How Thinking Shapes the Future

Your thoughts—misguided or not—become encoded in how you operate, influencing actions and interactions down the road.

How so? Thoughts influence your body language, attitude, word choice, willingness to disclose information, etc., so you need to be careful with thinking, which seeds action (or inaction).

Like how dreams can become reality, certain misguided thoughts may take on a life of their own. (A basic example being the thinking: “I’ll never be good at this.”)

In the extreme cases, certain thoughts—like vilifying/demonizing someone or something as a bad person, bad friend or even a bad dog—can actually nudge your counterpart towards a version of the imagined “bad actor”, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For example, if:

• You received passive aggressive comments from a relative (they’re just insecure) at a family get together. You avoid them. They take note. Next time you get together, it’s even more of the same ankle-biting…

• Someone decides a dog is a “bad” dog (the dog needs training). They spend less time working w/the “bad” dog. The dog fails to learn. The cycle perpetuates…

• You were passed up for a project, for an unknown reason (an unlucky “rounding error”). The negative thoughts impact your work ethic. Over time, you observe that even less opportunities come your way…

Beliefs->Actions->Beliefs->Actions, etc. 

Thus, not all wrong guesses you make about why somebody did something are equal. Some wrong guesses will play out worse than others, like the vilifying/demonizing ones. And that is the point. So if you wish to steer clear of spiraling outcomes, from which everyone loses, Hanlon’s Razor can help.

And besides, tall tales of villainous behavior tend to be both statistically overdone and unhelpful anyways. Although…Why might beliefs about villainous intent, if so often wrong and misleading, be so prevalent?

While reflexively attributing malice is misguiding, perhaps there’s a stealthy pleasure given in lobbing moral condemnations at the source of one’s misfortune, like vilifying someone or something as bad. Temping as this might be, one must be careful relying on these bad little crutches that explain all too much, lest one stay hobbled!

Conclusion: It’s Probably Nothing

When you’re faced with bad outcomes, like being left out, treated unfairly, or passed up, Hanlon’s Razor is a useful tool that helps you avoid jumping to haphazard conclusions. They’re probably not out to get you. Remembering this will help prevent relationship barriers from forming, making you more successful in life.

And for a puddle-deep philosophy, this is just as well. Maybe there’s nothing new under the sun as millennia ago “turn the other cheek” (perhaps the best social diffuser in the genre, that sought to put an end to the socially problematic “An eye for an eye”) got the idea right.

Nonetheless, do your well-being and future self a favor. Keep in mind Hanlon’s Razor and shrug off misunderstandings. They’re probably nothing. 

Author’s Note

Ascribing intent is really a guessing game that we kind of have to play. At their root, these judgements, which are seemingly about intent, are really about who we can trust.

Many of these kinds of events aren’t best thought of as caused, but instead as happened. And this little distinction makes a world of interpretative difference.

“Never attribute malice to that which can be easily explained by stupidity, Daniel Kahneman, diet, sleep, or a lack of running shoes.” - Author’s Version of Hanlon’s Razor