When you pay attention to how someone excuses bad behavior, you can learn volumes about their character from their favorite rationalizations.
When cruelty feels justified
“They deserved it”
It’s an excuse for abusing another human being and feeling absolutely no remorse about it. After all, if the victim is such an annoying, foolish, dishonest, or bad person, they deserve what happened to them. It erases all compassion as it allows the perpetrator to believe that the other person was punished, not victimized.
When empathy becomes optional
“That’s not my problem”
It’s perfectly healthy to want boundaries and not shoulder other people’s burdens. Weaponizing that statement when someone just needs some basic assistance shows utter contempt for human beings. It gives someone permission to see suffering, injustice, or an easily remedied error and feel absolved of any responsibility to help fix the problem.
What happens behind closed doors
“No one will ever know”
This mentality reframes the question from “Is this right?” to “Will I get caught?” When a person operates by this mentality, secrecy allows them to do something they would never do publicly. How other people will be affected becomes secondary to not getting caught themselves. Generally speaking, a strong moral compass doesn’t disappear just because nobody’s around to judge.
Cruelty disguised as humor
“I was only joking”
Humor can legitimately be taken wrongly, but this expression is also used following a comment that is purposefully cruel or insulting that did not get a favorable response. Rather than apologizing, they make the victim seem oversensitive for taking offense.
When used habitually, “just joking” becomes a handy dodge so someone can insult others and not take responsibility for their words.
The ultimate blame shift
“You made me do it”
It’s a highly aggressive way of deflecting full responsibility for a rage explosion, poor choice, or injurious action away from oneself.
Rather than admitting their own lack of discipline, the offender tries to construct an imaginary scenario in which their behavior was inevitable; that it was forced out of them by actions of someone else. The speaker victimizes themselves while victimizing someone else.
When everything becomes transactional
“What do I get out of it?”
Self-interest isn’t bad in itself, especially when it comes to work or money. The problem comes when every interaction and every good deed has to be bought and sold. Once you won’t help someone unless you get something immediately in return, you start seeing people as either useful or not useful.
Real connections typically take giving when the other person can’t give right back.
Safety in the crowd
“Everyone does it”
This is a convenient excuse for rationalizing cheating or being selfish. It attempts to normalize bad behavior by implying everyone else is doing the same thing.
The speaker tricks themselves into believing that everyone cuts corners, lies on their taxes, cheats on tests, etc., thereby absolving themselves of guilt and responsibility.
Betrayal as self-defense
“They would do the same thing to me”
This excuse takes massive doses of cynicism and uses it as rationale for treating others badly first. Pretending that everyone else is completely selfish, greedy, and untrustworthy allows the speaker to lie, cheat, or betray others as self-defense.
It lets them go first and feel clever instead of guilty. It allows them to betray others and feel like they’re making a tactical move.
Dodging accountability
“I don’t owe anyone an explanation”
Of course, you don’t have to justify your personal life to strangers. But to family, friends, or coworkers, this is a brush-off phrase. It lets someone make decisions that will negatively impact or inconvenience others, then refuse to respond to the consequences of those decisions.
They create a wall by saying they do not have to explain themselves. They believe that courtesy, respect, and decency towards those around them are inconveniences.
When rules are for everyone else
“Rules are meant to be broken”
To break an unjust rule can be brave. People of low character use this excuse to cover their tracks when they lie, cheat, or disrespect boundaries for their own benefit. It’s a proclamation of entitlement. Everyone else should follow common courtesy, ethical agreements, and rules of society, but not them.
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