The just-world hypothesis is an unfortunately legion cognitive bias. Simply put, it is the tendency of people to assume that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Thus, bad things do not happen to good people. Yet this does not reflect reality as it is. Injustice and unfairness happen every day. Innocent people suffer immensely for the most inane and petty reasons. It’s simply much easier to assume the victim had it coming or just avert your eyes rather than confront the miserable truth.

During his discussion of the state of American Indian affairs, Professor Eric Cheyfitz mentioned that one of the most resilient myths about Native Americans is that they no longer exist. As he listed crime after crime committed by the United States and its precursors against its original inhabitants, it is in some ways surprising that a people could survive so many forms of genocide. Add in the relatively more recent atrocities, such as abducting children in order to educate them in the Western way or keeping reservations as “domestic dependent nations” rather than granting them proper sovereignty, and the United States’ desire to obscure the cultures, histories, and existences of the peoples it stole becomes frightfully apparent. So many atrocities are clearly unjust, so if you want to maintain your mistaken belief in a righteous world, why not sweep the evidence away into a corner. It’s hard to think about what you can’t see after all. Talks such as this hinder that scheme, hopefully keeping the just-world hypothesis six feet under.