The Social Corollary to Hanlon's Razor

A lot of women were jealous of Gloria.  Gloria understood business management requirements, and the direct communications that men prefer.  A lot of women, who were in positions that they considered to be superior to that of a mere secretary, and who worked primarily through indirection and manipulation, would often try and impede Gloria through passive aggressive behavior.  Gloria was also a rather unique soloist.  Women who considered that they had some vocal talent, but didn't get all of the soloist parts, would actually try and sabotage Gloria when she did get solo parts.

Because of these and other types of attacks, it is possible that Gloria sometimes saw malice or unfriendliness in people who really were simply self-centered, and didn't care about Gloria, or anybody else, at all.  Often I would quote Hanlon's Razor to Gloria: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.  The world is full of stupid and self-centered people.  Not all of them dislike you.  Most of them don't even know you exist.  Nor do they care.

I hadn't formulated the Social Corollary to Hanlon's Razor before Gloria died.  I wish that I had.

The Social Corollary to Hanlon's Razor is that you should never attribute to unfriendliness that which can be adequately explained by social incompetence.  There are many many people in the world who do not have social skills.  They don't mean to offend you: they just don't know they're doing it.

Recently I saw a rather glaring example of this.  Two acquaintances, fellow parishioners of the same church, in fact, were party to a conversation.  At one point one of them proposed what he thought was an interesting idea.  The person proposing the idea is an intelligent, and thoughtful person.  But he never had the opportunity for any kind of higher education.  He's rather touchy on the subject.  The other person is one who has had the advantages of higher education.  And he manages to work references to his academic work into pretty much every conversation.  And so, when the first person raised this idea, the second person felt it necessary to challenge the idea, on the basis of a minor quibble.  This resulted in a bit of a tiff, and the first person left in a huff.  (Actually, he didn't need to use Uber to summon a huff, he had come in his own car and left in that.)

They've subsequently patched up the relationship, and I'm glad.  I know that the second person felt badly that he had upset the first, although he had no idea why how he had upset the originator of the idea.  He's got a lot less social competence then he thinks he has.  His academic work is primarily in the soft sciences relating to psychology, and I'm sure he'd be offended at any suggestion that, in personal conversation, he's not very skilled at actually getting his ideas across, or ensuring that they are well received by the listeners.