September 16th, 2003
I am sure that this thought is far from original, but I gathered the words together all by myself:
Never attribute to malevolence what can be explained as incompetence.
Think about it: The conspiracy theorists use little random splotches of incompetence to support theories of dark evil subversive intent. It seems to me that the conspiracy theorists are over-explaining; they see the stupidity and they see the waste and inefficiency ... but they should just stop right there and not try to make up elaborate theories to explain it all.
Naw, it's just that people are so caught up in how they appear to others, over whom they exert control (and resentment of those with control over them), and people are so obsessed with going out of their way to impose some sort of moralistic theory of "how the world should work" onto others that the end result is the typical mess we've all come to more-or-less accept as SOP. We are a whole bunch of individuals pulling at the fabric in our own little directions, and the real miracle is that anything gets done at all in this life.
Bureaucracies are a prime example ... the people in such a system are not concerned with efficiency, or serving a system or the people subjected to it. They are interested in their own small-time petty grievances and minutiae. The result is incompetence, and that's about it. Trying to ascribe anything more, such as an overall malevolence or a conspiracy, is giving more credit than is deserved.
In a way, the conspiracy theorists are courageous optimists. They believe that humans can pull together to pull off a large-scale operation. I disagree: I think that people are suspicious, petty, small, and so bent out of shape about their unresolved grievances and seething memories of conflicts that they are incapable of rising above the level of morons.