Maliciousness vs. Negligence

Potentially 2 Sides of The Same Coin

Maliciousness vs. Negligence: Potentially 2 Sides of The Same Coin

Something I’ve thought about for a long time is the distinction between maliciousness and negligence. I’ve talked about this concept before, and I think it may have been one of the first things I insisted on differentiating publicly. Forgive me if I am stating nothing new here, but lately it has been on my mind.

Defining the Two

Maliciousness first: it’s an action or actions with the intention of harm. A malicious person may go out of their way to break trust, cause destruction, or betray others with purpose and intent. Negligence, on the other hand, often has the same results as maliciousness, but without intent. The negligent person isn’t necessarily trying to hurt anyone; they just fail to meet the expectations or responsibilities willingly accepted.

The observation here is that, despite the difference in intent, the outcomes are often near identical. If a malicious person betrays your trust, the damage is done. If a negligent person asks for your trust but fails to uphold it—not out of malice, but out of incompetence or irresponsibility—the result is still the same: trust has been broken.

How People React to Each

The general framework I see in how people respond to these two behaviors is this:

• The malicious person is condemned. Rightly so. If someone makes it their prioritized intention to inflict upon you unnecessary pain, it’s generally good practice to create distance, cut your losses and move forward with your life.

• The negligent person is often excused. There’s a pressure to say, “Oh, they didn’t mean it,” or “They’re just weak in this scenario,” or “They had too much on their plate.” There’s often an implicit infantilization of the negligent person, as if their failure was inevitable and excusable simply because they lacked the strength or competence to do as they said they would.

In a single instance, this framework works well enough. Someone screws up without malicious intent, and it is excused. Fine, everybody makes mistakes. But what happens when this is repeated over time? What happens when negligence is not incidental, but is a way of being.

The Issue with Chronic Negligence

If you look at someone who consistently embodies negligence over time, generally one of two things will be observed:

1. They are sincerely remorseful and eventually learn and correct the behavior. This is what is hoped for, and in these cases, allowing room for grace makes sense.

2. They remain chronically negligent despite the outward appearance of “remorse”. The same “mistakes” are made, the same excuses are made, and the same promises are made and broken. “They didn’t mean it,” becomes less and less justifiable over time. Like the saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice… shame on me.

At a certain point, chronic negligence stops being a seemingly innocent mistake and starts looking a lot more like passive malice. It becomes a kind of malice by omission rather than commission.

Take an overweight person who insists on a job as a mail courier. The job requires them to carry heavy parcels by foot every day. They struggle. They can’t complete their deliveries. And now people aren’t getting their mail.

Someone might say, “Well, it’s not their fault they’re overweight. They’re trying their best.” But… were they trying when they ate that tenth pizza? Were they trying when they sat on the couch instead of exercising? Were they trying when they guzzled their 10th litre of mountain dew? If their current state is a result of years of poor decision-making, then their struggle today isn’t just some random accident—it’s a manifestation of repeated and maladaptive choices.

This applies to more than just physical fitness. It applies to cowardice, irresponsibility, flakiness—anything that a person could work on but consistently looks away from.

Everytime a negligent person is excused on the basis of fragility, a feedback loop effect is reinforced. An individual who fails to show up out of cowardice and is excused is, in effect, rewarded for it. They are taught that avoiding responsibility is both easier and acceptable. The next time said individual is confronted with a similar decision, it will be that much harder to embody virtue, as they will not only be confronting the current situation but all the situations prior that they failed to confront.

When Negligence Becomes Worse Than Maliciousness

This next part is generally not acknowledged: from the perspective of the person who is affected, negligence can often be worse than maliciousness.

Let’s say you rely on someone to give you a ride to work. If they’re malicious, they might intentionally not show up for whatever reason of their choosing. If they’re negligent, they might “just” oversleep. Either way, you lose your job.

The malicious person is easy to deal with. “My mistake, it was my choice to trust you, let us go our separate ways.”

But the negligent person… an excuse will almost always be made either by them or by you yourself. Example: “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was up late, I couldn’t sleep, I was taking care of my 19 chimeric and diabetic kids.” Or, “Oh man I dont know what happened my phone literally exploded and blew off my knee caps.” There is a pressure, whether it be internal or external to let it slide.

That’s why negligence is often worse—it creates a gray area, an uncertainty on ascertaining the proper way forward. Do I forgive, give the benefit of the doubt and work to continue to lean on and trust this individual? Or do I regard them as they currently seem to be, someone that is guided by their momentary whims rather than their word. Either way you are out of the job, good luck providing for your 21 chimeric and super diabetic kids.

A Generally Better Framework

The original framework most people use is:

• Condemn the malicious person.

• Forgive the negligent person.

I would adjust it to:

• Condemn the malicious person.

• Only forgive the negligent person if they demonstrate that this was a truly regrettable and remorseful failure—not part of an ongoing chronic pattern.

There’s an old saying: If you break a person’s china cabinet filled with silver, you are to replace it with gold. I feel this idea has largely been abandoned. Maybe it’s a consequence of modern technology shifting communication to digital spaces. Without face-to-face interaction, the social mechanisms that once reinforced accountability—subtle facial expressions, tone shifts, the tangible weight of someone’s disappointment—are now diluted. The result… Flakiness is easier, integrity is not celebrated, and in many cases, is almost routinely punished.

This has created a feedback loop where people behave as if the word “sorry” is in itself, absolution. More often than not, “sorry” no longer means “I recognize my failure and will do everything in my power to correct it.” Instead, it more colloquially means something closer to, “I feel bad, and that feeling alone should be enough for you to stop ‘making’ me feel bad about this.”

So to close this out, I think that chronic negligence is unfortunately prevalent, I think it is easy to overlook and excuse. The term “Chronic Negligence” itself is almost too forgiving. I think a more suitable term is “Maliciousness by omission” or “Malintent a few degrees removed.” I believe these re-terms are more accurate ways to frame the behavior when determining the best course of action forward.