We’re blamers. It’s what we do. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent. Cain blamed Abel and committed the first murder. The smallest child, when asked, “did you do this?” will shake his or her head and point at a sibling or the dog or the notorious “Nobody.”
Ask anyone who is to blame for the woes of society and you’ll hear:
It’s the government’s fault.
It’s the media’s fault.
It’s the left. It’s the right. It’s the Democrats. It’s the Republicans.
Blame the protesters, blame the looters.
Blame the cops, blame the criminals, blame the victims.
Blame the president. Blame Congress. Blame the IRS.
Blame the coronavirus. Blame China.
Blame the rich, blame the poor.
It’s religion. It’s a lack of religion.
Blame whatever crazy conspiracy theory has taken over the internet this week.
Blame generations of terrible voter participation and political propaganda.
Blame is the fallback of the immature.
It really doesn’t matter where we point the finger, there are three fingers pointing back at us, and while we’re all arguing our case for who is at fault, guess what gets accomplished? Absolutely nothing. The messes don’t get cleaned up. The problems don’t get fixed. And we repeat the cycle again and again and again.
I want all the negative things I see going on to be someone else’s fault, too. That’s human nature. It’s easy to believe that we’re right all the time, that everyone else is wrong, and that if “they” would just do something different, things would get better. It’s growing more and more obvious that way of thinking is a path to destruction.
Between a pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans, the subsequent economic meltdown, and now riots and civil unrest in the streets, it’s easy to feel alternately angry, afraid, and helpless.
Logically we know we can’t fix the world’s woes by ourselves, and that leads to frustration and the desire to find a culprit, a target, an enemy. Unfortunately, there are no winners in the blame game, only losers.
Perhaps this generation will be the one that realizes we’re all trapped here on the same planet, breathing the same air, drinking the same water, and that if we want to survive and thrive we have to work together, not against each other.
We can only hope.
By Niki Turner | [email protected]
