Jane Lake and Blame!
From early childhood, the natural instinct to blame others emerges. Ask a child who broke the vase and he/she will immediately look around to see who else could be fingered.
Our litigious society continues this process for any and every accident that occurs. Slip on a broken egg in a supermarket and watch out! The list starts with the supermarket, the egg company, and the employee who dropped the egg, and continues on all the way to the farmer whose chicken produced eggs with shells to thin to withstand the fall.
There are two issues here:
First, people need to take responsibility for their own actions. One should not depend upon the color of a traffic light to cross the street. You must also look around and use good judgement
Secondly and most importantly, the more productive results occur when blame is put aside and people work together to improve the overall situation. Make things safer. Avoid the urge for revenge. Resist the temptation of monetary compensation. Move forward with positive intent, and I believe we all will prosper.
I entered this in the Philosophy Blog War. Pleases vote for my entry here:
VOTE FOR JANE!
My boss just yelled at me for reading your blog on company time. It's all your fault!
Posted by
Tim Trowbridge |
10:22 AM
Very clever comment. Unfortunately, I can't come up with such a clever quip, so I will just say how interesting it is to read something so refreshingly direct.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:48 AM
If we (collectively) didn't have scape-goats, the majority of our reigning regime would be unemployed.
And we all know that would be society's fault...
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:45 PM
Sadist me still enjoys blaming my boyfriend for my MISERY in PMS..... anyways good blog!
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:07 PM
great message of the day :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:34 AM
The linchpin of personal accountability is one's capacity for admitting wrongdoing or stupid/oblivious behavior. It's a good thing we don't need such a capacity in our modern society since we're all perfect.
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:39 PM
unfortunately some of us do take responsiblity for our actions.
Then when somebody bumps into us on the street because they're straddling the block while talking on their cells, we go into "it's my fault mode," say "sorry" and they put their conversation on hold to yell at us.
Point of that being sometimes when we say we take responsbility for our actions, we inadvertenly take responsiblity for everybody elses also--and it's fine with them
Am trying to learn not to take responsiblity for the mistakes and rudeness of others and it's hard
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:57 PM
Pia:
When they bump into you, try smiling and say "Have a terrific day!" When they yell at you, say "I hope things improve for you!"
Sometimes it is best to ignore a negative event such as your example. It is not necessary for someone to take responsibility for every action or reaction.
Posted by
L.I.D |
4:13 PM
Well said! I am also sick and tired of what we've become as a society. One thing that came to mind as I read your blog was an old saying that my mom use to use on us (as kids) was: "Ever since excuses where invented; no one is ever wrong" of course she was being sacastic, due to the fact that she would say this right after she was interegating us about something someone had done, now that I'm a mom, I now use that same saying on my children. LOL
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:48 PM
That is right on the money! We need to quit pointing fingers and work together. I know it's easy to say, but could you imagine?
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:46 PM