With the benefit of hindsight, Charles Saatchi would probably not have choked his wife Nigella Lawson in a public place

Here’s a tip: The next time you hear someone use  the words ‘in hindsight’ or ‘with the benefit of hindsight’, assume they are about to try to excuse or at least mitigate some unacceptable or reprehensible previous behaviour.

I’ve come to this conclusion because of  the increasing frequency with which wrongdoers, particularly those in the public eye, tell us that ‘in hindsight’ or ‘with the benefit of hindsight’ they would have done things differently.

‘In hindsight’, for example, the owners and management of Pike River Coal would have had safety protocols and practices in place which would have avoided the deaths of 29 men. The ‘hindsight’ in this particular case resides in the subsequent deaths of those 29 men. ‘Now that 29 men have died, we can see that we were wrong not to implement those protocols and practices. We’re only human after all. We don’t have second sight.’

The truth is that greed for profit and a lack of care about the safety of their employees was the real reason for the unnecessary deaths of those 29 men, not an inability to reasonably predict the outcome of inadequate safety protocols and practices. The mine managers had that ability but found it convenient not to exercise it. They did not require ‘the benefit of hindsight’ to alert them to those dangers. They had that knowledge at the time.

This is almost invariably the case when people use ‘hindsight’ or the lack of it to justify or excuse their previous behaviour. It is the commonest rationale for having failed to take reasonable care, failed to consider the likely consequences of their actions, failed to invest the time and energy necessary to minimise risk and harm  to others. It applies with equal force to the directors of finance companies now facing the judgement of the courts as it does to the owners and management of Pike River Coal.

You cannot have hindsight on your current behaviour. That is a contradiction in terms. The hindsight excusers nonetheless invite us to forgive or at least understand their  previous actions on the grounds that they lacked an ability which none of us have – the ability to predict the future. ‘I’m not Superman. Don’t judge me.’

No one expects those whose decision-making impacts on others to be ‘Supermen’, nor to have second sight. But we are entitled to expect them to have the capacity to anticipate the consequences for themselves and others of a particular course of action.

So the next time you hear someone say, ‘In hindsight…’ or  ‘With the benefit of hindsight…’  in order to explain, excuse or minimise the impact of some  previous course of action, I suggest you ask yourself whether  their explanation rings true. My guess is you won’t have to wait long. You’ll have plenty of opportunities.

Media trainer and commentator Dr Brian Edwards has retired from posting blogs at Brian Edwards Media.