Everyone is an idiot, but me

Cruel Reality

We humans, each and every single one of us, are just lonely souls on a temporary ride called Life. We didn’t choose to get on this ride, and for the most part, we can’t choose to get off, either. We’re strapped in for the endless ride as this little bit of rock—a speck on the cosmic scale—spins us around a great ball of flame. Day after day, we are hoping, praying, and searching endlessly for connection, warmth, happiness, satiety, belonging, and love.

It is a ride that we can learn to love and enjoy, absolutely. But it can also be crushing, suffocating, and paralysing. It is exactly because of these features, alongside our maladaptive evolutionary behaviours, that we often forget everyone else is on this ride too. We forget that, ultimately, everyone—whether consciously or subconsciously—is just trying to muddle through this quagmire we call life. They are trying to avoid pain, loneliness, and unhappiness, and simply make the most of what they have been given.

Why is this important? Much of the suffering we experience is at the hands of—or related to—the actions and behaviours of other people. They may be known to us, close or loved, even; or they may be strangers. However, often the distinction is irrelevant. Objectively speaking, much of the suffering we experience is not due to the activity or the person themselves. Rather, it is our perception of what has happened. It is the story we tell ourselves. In social psychology, this is known as Attribution Theory. I’ll try not to overcomplicate it, so bear with me here.

They’re All Idiots

H.G. Wells, in his 1896 novel The Wheels of Chance, wrote: “There is very little deliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it shows a different nature.” This idea was not original to him. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his 1774 novel, wrote: “Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice.”

Wells was not the last to say such a thing, either. In one of the more modern and popular adages, we have Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

What are all these authors trying to say? That most of the ill behaviours we witness or feel are not intended to be harmful. They are rarely intentionally directed towards us. Rather, they are simply the unintended result of a human trying to exist in the best—or often, the only—way they know how. At some stage, we are all broken by the world in one way or another. Life happens to us, and unfortunately, not everyone has the tools, the resources, or the help necessary to be rebuilt correctly. Such is the ‘luck of the draw’.

This is not to say that malicious behaviour does not exist; of course it does. But most of the time, it is just another soul trying to muddle their way through.

We return again to why this is important: our perception. Let’s take an example. If someone cuts me up on the road, once the initial reactive feeling passes, I make a choice about how I respond. I could choose to see this as a slight, an obvious insult to me: ‘they did that on purpose’. I can assign a malicious intent to their actions, not knowing if this is true. With this judgement, I can begin to seethe with anger, curse them, decide they are reckless, and tell the winds how stupid they are. Or, I can take a breath and choose to see it for what it most likely is: a mistake. A misreading of a situation, an accident with no intent—something I, and almost everyone on the road, has probably done at some point.

In this scenario, I can forgive and forget quickly, wasting neither time nor energy on something that benefits no one. It’s not hard to see the utility in this, yet it isn’t something that is commonly practiced. Why is that?

Designed to Fail

To answer this question, it is helpful to consider our evolutionary roots. Humans belong to the biological family of apes; our last ape ancestor, as far as we know, is the chimpanzee. Humans are thought to have been nomadic hunter-gatherers living in small mobile groups, only showing signs of ‘modern behaviour’ (such as agricultural practice and settlements) for around 60,000 years. Evidence of ‘civilisation’ only goes back around 14,000 years. This may seem like a long time, but on the grand scale of biology and evolution, it really isn’t. Consider that the evolutionary split from chimpanzees is thought to have occurred up to 8 million years ago, and suddenly this timeframe seems much shorter.

In this early world, our ancestors would have faced constant dangers and scarcity. A lone ape or human is unlikely to survive in a hostile world, so social cohesion—understanding one another and the rules of the group—would have been paramount to survival. From this milieu, it is not hard to see why certain psychological mechanisms that drive us to seek and assign blame emerged.

The issue is that some of these mechanisms can lead us to false assumptions and biases. These biases lead to errors in judgement, which in turn lead to detrimental feelings and outcomes.

A well-known but often misunderstood bias is Confirmation Bias: the unconscious tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that fits our current worldview. This leads us to dismiss views that contradict our own. Given the predilection of media and social media to prey on and exploit this, it frequently gives rise to our very own personalised echo chambers. Combined with the False Consensus Effect—the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs—polarised opinions and the fading of critical thinking skills are just a short skip away.

Other attribution biases serve to protect our sense of self, such as the Self-Serving Bias and the Actor-Observer Bias. The latter is a mechanism used to explain other people’s behaviour, usually with far less grace than we would give ourselves. It describes the tendency to overestimate ‘internal factors’ (like personality or intent) whilst underestimating situational factors.

To take my previous example: in the first scenario, this bias led me to the conclusion that the driver was ‘reckless’, ignoring the fact they may have been rushing to the hospital for the birth of their child! The Self-Serving Bias flips this tendency: we assign success to internal factors (I passed the test because I am smart) but failure to external factors (I failed because the teacher is bad). Finally, the Actor-Observer Bias compares explanations for our own behaviour versus others’. If I cut someone up in traffic, it is because the lights turned red too quickly. But if someone else does it? They are a bad driver—unlike me.

Knowledge is Power

There are many more cognitive distortions, but let us return to our modern world. Many people spend their days connecting to others, but mostly in a superficial, fleeting way. We interact with more humans than our ancestors would have ever dreamt of, both online and ‘IRL’. As a result, our ‘tribe’ is becoming difficult to define. Ironically, where we do have defined groups, there is seemingly no time to spend with them.

Life is simply too hectic. Our foundational needs (warmth, shelter, food) are largely met, yet they are replaced by an omnipresent feeling of pressure. Notifications, texts, calls, emails, and endless tasks are required simply to exist in this new world. Amongst this chaos, many find themselves searching for purpose. Where it is not found, or where there is no energy to search, distraction looms around every corner.

It is, in many ways, a much better world. But in some ways, it is far more difficult, for life and society both intentionally and unintentionally prey on our vulnerabilities.

I paint this bleak picture to give context to the world in which we fragile, imperfect humans operate. It’s not hard to see that, much of the time, the dice are loaded. However, by acknowledging all of this, we can be better positioned to overcome our nature and give others grace when they fall short. As I mentioned, this is good for the individual, but it is also good for society at large. By becoming aware, we can learn from mistakes, let go without holding on, and give ourselves grace when we inevitably fall short.