How many times have you heard someone who said something that is mean, vindictive and hurtful, or committed a violent and/or destructive act , justify it by saying the recipient had 'made' the perpetrator mad?
That's an example of using blame to excuse your own bad behavior.
Unfortunately, blame is like anger in that it dulls one sense of empathy. It allows a person to act in a hurtful way to another human being. It isn't the act itself, but it often clears the road. This is a small, but important point. Ordinary humans have inhibitions that serve as a buffer against what we know is bad behavior. Blame is not the act itself, but it either erodes or outright removes these inhibitions, often both . It develops a thought pattern that allows the person's emotions to override his/her self-control in order to achieve an often selfish end -- including sustaining dysfunctional patterns.
While this may seem like an overly harsh statement, also realize the kind of mindset that so quickly adopts blame as a defensive posture for emotional/ego protection is exactly the same one that will put you in front of, otherwise avoidable, physical danger.
I know that since the beginning of time people have been sloughing blame, but do you think it's getting more and more prevalent? That people don't want to accept responsibility for their own action by placing the blame on someone else?
ReplyDeleteDennis