Blame Game

In the last post's comments, someone brought up the subject of blame, so I thought I'd talk about it a bit.

There’s a big difference between blaming someone/something for a situation and examining it as a cause of that situation. Maybe this is just semantics, but I think the point is worth making. Since it’s hard to make this point without devolving into a vague set of undefined terms, I’ll start with the example.

Let’s say you stayed up too late last night doing something unproductive, like watching TV. Thus, you’re too tired to really work properly today, and everything feels like it takes twice as long as it should. Everyone has had days like that, right? Familiar situation.

Okay. Who’s to blame? You are. Not the TV. Still, the TV can be identified as a cause of the problem, which is your fatigue and inability to work to your full potential. It was your stupid decision to watch TV to all hours; it’s your fault. If you want to punish someone or something, you don’t take a hammer to the TV. You punish yourself, probably by creating some sort of TV ban for a while.

In the above example, we’ve identified blame, cause, problem, and punishment.

Let’s change the scenario, without changing the problem. You’re still too tired to do your work today. However, the reason is that you had a baby last month, and you had to wake up every hour to feed it. Now who’s to blame? The baby? You, for getting pregnant? G-d, for allowing the miracle of new life? No one’s to blame. Thus, there’s no need for punishment. There’s still a problem, and it still has a cause, though.

In neither case did we identify a solution to the problem. There are many possible solutions that we can think of: taking catnaps during the day, going to sleep earlier at night, imbibing large quantities of caffeine. Interestingly, all these solutions apply to both cases, since the problem is the same. These are generic solutions, independent of cause. Cause is not the same as blame; blame never has anything to do with solution. Cause does. Blame may serve as catharsis for feelings of guilt, but it never contributes to solving the problem. Identifying the cause, however, often suggests new solution possibilities. Some cause-specific solutions for our examples are getting rid of the TV so that you have one less thing distracting you from bed (although we all know you’ll just substitute something else), in the first case, or hiring a night nurse, in the second case. These solutions don’t apply to both cases, since they are cause-specific. Still, they are solutions, not catharsis. There are also drastic solutions that mentally ill people might consider, like killing the baby. This one is considered pretty extreme and not in keeping with the magnitude of the problem. It’s not a good solution, but it’s still a solution.

Coming back to my own situation, you may be right. I may be blaming all sorts of things other than myself (although I think I blame myself plenty) – and that might help me deal with all this by providing catharsis. That’s similar to the purpose of this blog, or seeing a therapist. I need to get the mental anguish out, or I’ll go crazy.

But I think that most of the time when I’m looking at things outside myself to explain my quandary, it’s about cause, because I’m looking for solutions. Saying that I am the cause of my problem is well and good – and true – but frankly, I don’t know how to extrapolate a solution from that. On the other hand, if I look at, for example, my living situation as a partial cause of the problem, I can find a solution: move. I’m looking for these partial causes because partial solutions would still improve the situation, even if they can’t completely fix it. This is one of those pieces of advice that actually makes sense to me: change as much as you can, do as many little things as you can, and maybe, just maybe, that will have an impact on your perception of the situation at large. And since my emotional commitment is largely a matter of my perception, and improving my emotional state would eventually contribute to a complete solution, I think it’s worthwhile to keep looking at the little things. Don’t worry, though – I still spend plenty of time in mental self-flagellation.