Malice or Incompetence

During the last few years’ perambulations through Internet message boards and comments sections, I’ve come to notice a not-uncommon accusation, typically originating from conservative quarters, regarding President Obama’s intent towards the nation. Many accuse him of nefarious and Machiavellian intent, overtly stating that he wants to destroy America. Some of these think he’s secretly working towards turning the nation Islamic, others think he simply wants to kill off what little capitalism is left and turn the US into a socialist paradise. There are more theories, but they all center on the premise that Obama is acting out of malice and animus towards traditional American values and principles.

My stock response to these folks, when I haven’t chosen to simply ignore their posts as fringe-nutbar stuff, is to quote Hanlon’s Razor, which states:

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

Similar sentiments have been expressed by Johann von Goethe:

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence,

and Robert Heinlein:

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity,

who calls this the “devil theory” of sociology.

That last bit is an interesting notion, suggesting that people would rather imagine evil actively working against them and society than accepting that bad stuff happens simply due to stupidity (or neglect, or incompetence, or indifference, or randomness). Perhaps it’s scarier to think that things are out of control than to presume they’re under control of a bad actor. Or, perhaps the former is such a mundane void that people try to fill it with whatever they can to organize and make sense of what’s going on around them.

I’ve also found people, oftentimes the same people who accuse Obama of being Machiavelli incarnate, calling Obama stupid. This, pun intended, is stupid. First, you can’t be both stupid and an evil genius. Second, Obama may have a lot of faults, but lack of intelligence certainly isn’t one of them. No one gets to where he is without being incredibly bright (yes, that includes George W. Bush). Bright, however, doesn’t mean correct, and some of the smartest people in the world have been stunningly wrong about things.

Given this reality, I haven’t and don’t actually quote Hanlon’s Razor in its original form. Instead, I use a common alternate where “stupidity” is replaced by “incompetence.” The two are by no means the same. An astrophysicist is demonstrably very, very smart, but that doesn’t mean he can perform even a simple surgery like an appendectomy. James Woods (the actor) reportedly has a 180 IQ and scored 1579 on his SATs, but that doesn’t mean he can wire a house (well, maybe he can, and it’s likely he can learn if he can’t, but you get the idea). So it goes with Obama. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn’t mean you’re the most competent, especially if you have neither the background/education/experience in a particular area nor the inclination to admit your relative incompetence and seek to educate yourself.

Still, it’s not necessarily a positive to judge him merely incompetent instead of nefarious. Alexandre Dumas (the son) opined:

I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because rogues sometimes rest.

Someone competent but malevolent would still be subject to things like boredom, disinterest and laziness. Someone competent but malevolent wouldn’t necessarily be malevolent in all things, and might actually be effective in accomplishing certain good things and solving problems for the better if they aren’t attached to his agenda. Incompetence, however, will manifest everywhere, at all times, in response to all problems and challenges. The law of averages suggests that from time to time he’d get some things right (a broken clock is right twice a day), but trusting success to blind luck and randomness is a bit frightening. Better to know that an adversary’s competent but with a malign agenda than to know he’s lacking any clue.

Generalization, however, is a double-edged sword, and relying on one blanket descriptor for Obama is a trap. He is certainly highly competent in a broad range of areas and on a host of topics (as I said, you don’t get to be President if you’re not very smart, and along the way you’re certain to develop a long list of skills). It’s likely that his competencies, his intelligence and his self-admittedly big ego have convinced him he’s competent in areas that he’s not, and this has the unfortunate effect of making him resistant to outside input as a result. It’s also highly likely a particular agenda motivates the actions that many deem as antithetical to American values, but that doesn’t make him malicious. It merely makes him the wrong guy to be President. Malice implies intent to do harm. Trying to reshape the nation with a liberal vision is wrong, ignorant of history, ignorant of human nature and at odds with the nation’s foundational principles, but it’s not per se malicious. For it to be malicious we’d have to presume his intent was to do harm, rather than to make things “better.” We can and should criticize him up and down for his skewed and incorrect opinion of what constitutes “better” and point out how wrong the things he wants to do in pursuit of that “betterness” are. In short, declaring his incompetence on certain matters is justified, but attributing malice without proof is not.