I wanted to check if you where really saying what I thought you where saying so I rephrased it in my own words to match how I understood your statement.

That part is of course a good habit. I think the confusion happened because I was asking "how did malice ever seem like a good explanation [for this phenomenon] in the first place?", not "how did malice ever seem like a good explanation [for anything ever in the history of the universe] in the first place?".