Hanlon's Dull Razor

With an Aside on Midwit Sociopathy

Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanlon committed no small error when he set malice against stupidity. In so doing, he handed the world a false dichotomy that has since dulled the minds of those who wield it. He saw stupidity as an alternative to evil, never realizing that fools and villains are often the same people. He did not account for the incompetence of the wicked or the recklessness of the simple. He assumed that if stupidity could explain an action, then malice had no place in the equation. In reality, the two do not exclude each other. They feed each other, strengthen each other, and, in many cases, become indistinguishable.

His mistake was not in the words themselves but in his failure to anticipate how they would be misused—how the vermin would strip them of nuance and wield them like scripture. He did not predict that his phrase would be repeated, mindlessly and mechanically, by those desperate to believe that evil is rarer than it is. He did not foresee that it would become a tool of deception, a reflexive excuse offered to the undeserving. He gave the world a simple principle to cut through confusion. Instead, the world made it a shield, protecting the guilty and silencing the skeptical.

You have heard it said, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Others heard it, too. Some are sociopaths. Many are dullards. Both abuse it in their own way.

The sociopath sees in it an opportunity. He recognizes that as long as his actions appear foolish enough, he will never be held accountable. He learns to stumble strategically, to feign ignorance at precisely the right moment, to make his crimes look like blunders instead of choices. He studies the limits of human gullibility and finds them boundless.

The dullard, on the other hand, benefits from the charity encouraged by Hanlon’s Razor. He does malevolent deeds and is protected by those who attribute his sociopathy to his dullness. In their sentimentality, they deter punishment and encourage bad behavior by rewarding it with defense. Thus, the malicious simpleton is trained to be evil.

Therefore, Hanlon’s Razor has become rather dull. It is time to buy a new one.

Sociopaths Pretending to be Stupid

Some wield stupidity as a weapon. They know the world is filled with people who will extend the benefit of the doubt indefinitely. They know that if they feign incompetence, their cruelty will be excused as an accident, their treachery dismissed as a mistake. They hide behind Hanlon’s Razor like a shield, counting on the goodwill of those too naïve to believe in deliberate harm.

The corrupt politician blames oversight, never intent. His lies were misunderstandings, and his violations were procedural errors. He pockets fortunes and ruins lives but insists that none was done in bad faith. The bureaucrat does the same, signing off on policies that crush the ordinary man under their weight. When the damage is done, he shrugs and says the system is complicated, that mistakes happen, and that no one is truly at fault.

The fraudulent CEO follows the same script. He misleads investors, siphons funds, lays off thousands and then insists that he had no choice. The market changed. The projections were off. The numbers were miscalculated. No one questions how the miscalculations always seemed to favor him.

The abuser is the most brazen of all. He lashes out, wounds those closest to him, then pleads ignorance. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know any better. I was confused, emotional, and overwhelmed. He gropes for an excuse, and the world, eager to believe him, supplies one. He receives sympathy instead of consequence. He is granted a fresh start while his victims are left to salvage what remains.

They are not stupid, but they know that the world prefers to believe in incompetence over evil. They understand that a man can get away with anything if he makes it look like an accident. They thrive in an environment where intentions are treated as unknowable, suspicion is ridiculed, and people would instead assume blunders rather than betrayals.

A foolish man may destroy without meaning to, but an intelligent villain learns how to kill without appearing to. Hanlon’s Razor is his greatest ally. It blinds his victims before he even strikes.

Genuinely Stupid Sociopaths

Not all malicious people are clever. Stupid douchebags exist. Some blunder into destruction with no understanding of what they have done. Their malice is actual, but their intellect is lacking. They are not cunning enough to feign stupidity as a cover. They are simply too foolish to execute their cruelty with any level of precision.

History is littered with such men—petty tyrants, incompetent ideologues, bureaucrats who enforce ruinous policies with blank expressions. They do not create through careful planning. They smash, they burn, they trample, and when the dust settles, they are as confused as everyone else. Yet their confusion does not make them innocent. It only makes them reckless.

The mid-level functionary enforces a rule that destroys a family’s livelihood, yet he feels no guilt. He is not capable of processing what he has done. He only understands that he followed the procedure correctly, that his signature landed in the right place, and that no one can blame him for the consequences. He is not a mastermind, but his stupidity does not absolve him. It makes him dangerous.

The zealot operates the same way. He marches forward with righteous fury, too consumed by ideology to notice the destruction in his wake. He believes himself to be good, yet his goodness produces nothing but suffering. He cannot recognize contradictions, cannot see his own hypocrisy, and cannot understand that his crusade has turned him into the very thing he swore to destroy. He is both a fool and a villain, and Hanlon’s Razor ensures that no one calls him what he is.

Then there are those in power—leaders who command nations, corporations, and institutions. Some are cunning, but many are simply out of their depth. They implement foolish policies, make disastrous decisions, and when confronted with their failures, they stumble through their justifications. They did not mean for things to collapse, they insist. They only wanted to help.

Their stupidity does not make them less dangerous. It makes them more so. An intelligent villain must at least plan his destruction and must at least think carefully about the risks. The fool has no such burden. He moves blindly, breaking things as he goes, and when confronted with the wreckage, he does not even understand how it happened.

Malice and stupidity are not opposites. Often, they are two sides of the same coin. The fool’s malice is more erratic than the schemer’s but no less real. He destroys not because he intends to but because he does not care enough to avoid it. Hanlon’s Razor tells the world to assume good faith where none exists. It tells men to let their guard down. It tells them that evil is rare when, in reality, it is everywhere, worn as often by fools as by masterminds.

The False Virtue of Kindhearted Simpletons

Some men cannot bear to see malice. They have built their identity on the belief that people, at their core, mean well. They believe that the world is misguided, not wicked—that harm is the result of ignorance, not intention. To assume otherwise would be, in their minds, a moral failure.

These men repeat Hanlon’s Razor as if it were a holy commandment. They use it to wave away corruption, to excuse incompetence, to comfort themselves with the idea that no one truly wishes to do harm. They believe that assuming good intentions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, makes them virtuous. They do not realize that this is not kindness, but cowardice.

The kindhearted simpleton looks at a government official who profits from disaster and says, he is only misguided. He sees a businessman exploiting a crisis and insists, he simply didn’t understand the consequences. He watches as institutions betray those they claim to serve, and he tells himself that it must be some grand mistake, a series of unfortunate miscalculations.

He does not do this because he has considered all possibilities. He does it because he is afraid. If he allows himself to recognize malice, he will have to respond to it. He will have to take a stance, to admit that there are men who wish to do harm, to acknowledge that some things are beyond excuses. It is far easier to remain blind.

Hanlon’s Razor provides him with an excuse. It allows him to ignore what he would rather not see. He can look at an abuser and call him confused. He can witness outright sabotage and call it incompetence. He can watch the same people make the same destructive choices again and again and convince himself that they just don’t know any better.

This is not virtue. This is surrender.

The world does not suffer because too many men assume the worst. It suffers because too many assume the best in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. It suffers because too many prefer comforting lies to difficult truths.

Evil does not need to hide when men refuse to see it. It does not need to justify itself when its defenders do so for it. It only needs people willing to make excuses, to soothe themselves with the idea that no one means to do harm, that no one ever acts with wicked intent. Hanlon’s Razor is the perfect tool for this. It allows men to pretend they are wise while remaining blind. It allows them to mistake passivity for moral superiority.

They tell themselves they are choosing compassion. In reality, they are choosing to be complicit.

How Midwits Exacerbate the Razor

A man of mediocre intelligence is the most dangerous kind. He knows enough to grasp concepts but not enough to use them. He discovers a tool like Hanlon’s Razor and believes he has unlocked an esoteric truth. He wields it not as a heuristic, but as a cudgel, dismissing anyone who challenges him as paranoid, irrational, or conspiratorial.

He does not recognize the flaw in his reasoning. He does not stop to ask whether stupidity and malice can coexist. He does not study history, where fools and villains so often work side by side. Instead, he treats Hanlon’s Razor as gospel. If someone suggests that corruption may be intentional, he laughs. If someone points out a pattern of malevolent incompetence, he scoffs. If an entire system collapses under suspicious circumstances, he shrugs and mutters, Never attribute to malice...

He believes he is cutting through confusion, but his blade is dull. He believes he is wise, but he is merely obedient. He has not used Hanlon’s Razor to think more clearly—he has used it to avoid thinking at all.

Midwits create an intellectual culture where the accusation of malice is treated as a failure of reasoning. They encourage others to downplay evil, to assume that everything is an accident, to see even the most deliberate destruction as the result of incompetence alone. They scoff at those who warn of corruption. They dismiss those who point out obvious deception. They mock those who see what they refuse to acknowledge.

They are fools. The truly intelligent do not wield Hanlon’s Razor as a universal truth. They see its limits. They know that some people hide behind stupidity, that some people destroy without regard for the consequences, that some people are both fools and villains. But the midwit cannot grasp this. He is too proud of his knowledge, too convinced of his own intelligence to consider that he has misunderstood the very principle he claims to master.

He is worse than the simpleton because he believes himself above the simpleton. He is worse than the fool because he believes himself wise.

Hanlon’s Razor was never meant to be a shield for corruption. It was never meant to blind men to obvious malevolence. But the midwits, in their eagerness to sound intelligent, have turned it into precisely that. They believe they are the rational ones. In reality, they are the easiest to manipulate. They are the ones who will defend the indefensible, excuse the inexcusable, and sneer at those who see the truth for what it is.

They have dulled the blade beyond repair. It is time for something sharper.

A New Razor is Needed

Hanlon’s Razor has outlived its usefulness. It was never meant to be an absolute rule, yet it has been treated as one. It was never meant to erase the reality of malice, yet it has been used to do exactly that. It was a heuristic, a suggestion, a reminder not to assume conspiracy where stupidity could suffice. But it has become something else entirely—a weapon against those who see too clearly.

It is too easily misused. Too easily repeated by those who would rather dismiss evil than confront it. Too easily wielded by those who wish to excuse themselves from responsibility. It blinds men who should be vigilant. It softens those who should be sharp. It tells the world to assume good faith in the face of unmistakable wickedness.

A sharper principle is needed. One that accounts for both stupidity and malice, not as opposing forces, but as frequent allies. One that does not allow evil to hide behind the mask of incompetence. One that does not give cover to those who destroy with reckless abandon.

Never assume that incompetence excuses evil. Never believe that stupidity precludes malice. The two do not cancel each other out—they reinforce each other.

The world does not suffer from an excess of suspicion. It suffers from a lack of discernment. It suffers because too many assume the best in those who have given every reason to expect the worst. It suffers because too many would rather believe in coincidence than in intent.

Clarity is not cynicism. Recognizing patterns is not paranoia. And refusing to be deceived is not a failure of reasoning. The failure lies with those who insist on dulling their own minds, who repeat the same comforting lie, who wield a broken razor and call it wisdom.

Let them keep it. Let them hold onto their dull blade, their empty phrase, their refusal to see.

The rest of us have no use for it.