Whether you realize it or not, your brain believes in something called the “Just-World Hypothesis”, and it’s a big part of the reason that we’re all so horrible to each other.
On the surface, you know that the world isn’t fair. You might say those exact words out loud to yourself every day. But deep down, somewhere in the back of your mind, your brain secretly believes that we do live in a fair and just world, where everyone gets exactly what they deserve. Our brains can’t handle chaos. We had to evolve believing that our actions always had rational consequences - if you go out and hunt for food, you get to live. If you don’t hunt, you die. That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning, and lets us muster up the motivation to chase after our goals. We can’t really handle the idea that terrible things can happen to us at any time, for absolutely no reason. So our brains pretend that’s not true.
When something bad happens, we need to know the reason why it happened. We need to know that there was a way to prevent it, and if there isn’t one, our brains will make something up. He got cancer because he didn’t eat well enough. She got assaulted because she wore a short skirt. He lost his job because he didn’t work hard enough. We can’t accept that cancer just happens. We can’t accept that assaults can happen to anyone. We can’t accept that our lives are at the whims of large economic forces beyond our control. Finding reasons to blame others for their own misfortunes lets us pretend that misfortunes can always be avoided. It lets us pretend that if we just eat our vegetables, wear long dresses and stay a little late at work every day, nothing bad will ever happen to us.
This is still true, by the way, after something does happen to us, even if it was truly outside our control. No matter how clearly “not our fault” it was, we will still look for ways to blame ourselves for what happened. That’s how strong this instinct is. This is why victims of abuse and assault will bend over backwards to blame themselves, even if they were toddlers at the time of the incident. Because at the end of the day, it’s still much, much less terrifying to believe that “I fucked up” than it is to accept that “I live in an indifferent universe where bad and good things happen to undeserving people, and there’s nothing I can do about it”. We’re willing to throw ourselves under the bus if it means that we can hang on to that comforting illusion.
The problem is, that comforting illusion has real-life consequences for a whole lot of people.
The just-world hypothesis is the reason that wealthy people struggle to feel any empathy for the poor. They don’t want to accept that being rich or poor is largely due to luck and circumstance - it would be hard to live with the guilt that comes with having so much more than other people. Instead, they have to believe that everyone “earns” their lot in life, and that everyone has a fair chance to succeed. They have to believe that the poor are lazy, or stupid, or incompetent, because the alternative is unthinkable. It’s the same reason people struggle to find empathy for criminals, or abuse survivors, or the mentally ill. We need to believe that those people somehow “deserve” their misfortune - otherwise, we would have to accept that we are no better than they are, and that at any time, we could end up just like them.
Believing in the Just-Wold Hypothesis isn’t your fault. It’s always going to be lurking somewhere in your mind, pushing you to blame others and whispering unkind thoughts into your ear. You can’t get rid of it. But you don’t have to listen to it. We’re lucky enough to be able to think and rationalize, and once you know why you have these unkind thoughts, you can ignore them and choose empathy instead.
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