Pages

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Mein Freund Hanlon

Baffling.

I could never figure out if it's because of the media glorifying self-serving sensationalism or if the world is just filled with asshats nowadays (which is surprisingly something I just cannot subscribe to), but there is something very wrong about seeing people embrace the 'guilty until proven innocent' culture that society seems to hold in such high regard these days.

Quite frankly, it's disappointing.

They say things mellow out with age - which may explain why I often grew disproportionately angry when this norm manifested itself when I was younger. These days, it's just discouraging.

Sadly, things aren't really as black and white as my more idealistic younger self was led to believe. As Gladstone points out:

"The past abuse colors everything until decisions don't make sense anymore. The specifics almost don't matter: lose too many games of Monopoly to your older brother who always stole from the bank and you might stop trusting board games; lose out on trophies in rigged competitions and you might become blind to any competitor's value; or get betrayed by a man or woman you loved and the credibility of an entire gender can go out the window."

I can't say I'm immune. After all, I am but human. But at the very least, I try to find comfort in an adage called Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to malice that which could be explained by simplicity.

Baseless rhetoric, I know.

But life is already hard enough. Let the good people win for once.

No comments:

Post a Comment