Whose Fault Is It? — By John Reed

Whose Fault Is It?
It’s all my fault. The current months-long drought happened because I planted pine trees last year. It must be true because ten years ago, the last drought happened right after I planted pine trees.
This got me to thinking about how blame gets assigned elsewhere. It seems like many times folks wind up blaming the wrong people for what happens to them. Psychologists call this transference or projection, but sane people just call it silliness.
For example when a kid does poorly or acts up in school, who gets the blame? Of course it’s the teacher’s fault for not “meeting the child’s needs.” Let’s not talk about the child’s laziness or insubordination…or the parents for failing to instill respect and work ethic…or the school administrators for not enforcing discipline or honest grading.
When someone of an ever-increasing number of racial/sexual/cultural identities fails to succeed it’s either because of something someone else’s triple-great grandparent did (or didn’t do), or modern-day society is stacked against them. Never mind the examples of people just like them who are excelling through honesty and hard work.
There are plenty of things I should take the blame for, people I’ve hurt or disappointed. Many I sincerely regret, a few I defiantly don’t. But until we as a society are more honest with ourselves about causes and blame for the challenges we face, we have no hope of fixing them.
Meanwhile, I promise not to plant more trees until we’ve have more rain.