Posted by Benjamin on: 09.05.2007 /
I was reading this last week about the great fire of London, which began September 2, 1666, and burned for three days, destroying most of the City of London, inside the old Roman wall. What really intrigued me about the story was the way in which people were so eager to find someone to blame for the fire. Victims of the fire blamed immigrant groups and Roman Catholics for starting it, and there were lynchings and violence against them in the streets.
I couldn’t help but note the similar way in which we as a nation have reacted to 9-11. Gotta have someone to blame, and then use violence against them. I grew up seeing the United States as a Separate and Different nation than the England from which we sprang. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve had a kind of re-education, and I’ve realized how very much we are culturally descended from England.
Justin asked me a provocative question. He said
Yes — Do you think that the same thing is at play when Hawk’s blame Osama Bin Laden, as when Dove’s blame President Bush? Do you think that this blame thing is also a thing liberals do as well as conservatives?
It seems to me upon very brief reflection that while “liberals” and “conservatives” both play the blame game–liberals may be more into blaming “the system”, or “the insiders”, whereas conservatives may be more into blaming individuals, or the “outsiders”. Perhaps liberals are less “western” in this sense. I love this grammatical thing in Spanish called “no fault construction”. It’s kind of built into the language–a lack of assigning blame–so that they say, in a sense “how did it happen?” rather than “who did it”? I’ve been told the same thing is more true in Eastern cultures, where one might say “the towers were attacked” rather than “_________ attacked the towers”.
If this is true about liberals and conservatives, then I guess I’m a little of both, but I am desirous of being more liberal. I’m not so good at doing this on a day to day basis even, with my lovely wife and children. But it strikes me as an enormously appealing way to be–to treat other people as part of myself–to assume they are among the insiders, and that whatever blame I assign them I am also assigning to me, and thus, ideally, to have more compassion on us.
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Comment by: April Terry
1 09/5/07 1:12 PM | Comment Link |I don’t know, I think part of this is just comparing apples and oranges. For instance, in the case of 9-11, there certainly WAS a very clear cause and they were the Al Quaeda organization. There was never a dispute about that. However, how we translated that into going after Saddam Hussein, I don’t know…
I also don’t think you can compare the blame of Osama Bin Laden, who clearly took responsibility for the acts on video, with the blame that is placed on Bush, who, in my opinion, still hasn’t taken responsibility that it was even a mistake to go into Iraq….Apples and Oranges…
Disagreeing with the policies of our President shouldn’t be considered as bad as blaming a known terrorist for something he planned and carried out, should it?
Comment by: benjamin ady
2 09/6/07 4:16 AM | Comment Link |april
the thing is, I have to ask myself–doesn’t the blame thing just go back forever? I mean Osama and co do what they do because they blame Americans for certain things, which pretty much shake out to previous violence agains “them” on “our” part. So “they” blame “us”, commit violence, after which “we” blame “them”, and commit more violence. There’s a vicious cycle, described by a certain writer as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and Tevye got it right somehow when he said “Great, so pretty soon the whole world is blind and toothless.”
All of which is to say, someone’s gotta choose to work toward breaking the cycle by paying the price themselves and choosing forgiveness and reconcilation. As in “Sorry about the violence and injuste “we” perpetrated against you, which led to your perpetration of violence against us. How can we make this right between us?” and then listening.
You said “In the case of 9-11, there certainly *was* a very clear cause”, but perhaps that was not the first cause? Perhaps there was a cause which led to that cause?
With Bush it’s a bit simpler, methinks, to see that to blame him is blame ourselves.
Comment by: joe
3 09/6/07 7:11 AM | Comment Link |As the site Brit, I’ve no problem taking responsibility for many of the problems in the world today!
It strikes me that it is far simpler to treat ‘the other’ as the aggressor than face up to your own responsibility in the world and your own national history. Yes, Islam is particularly violent in some parts of the world, but is that really much different to our own religious history?
In my own town, the last public execution was in the 1850’s - shockingly in view of the city cathedral. Can we really blame anyone else for not reaching our own standard of perfection when we only got there a while ago?
On the other hand, I’m not sure how useful blame is. I can take the blame for the faults of my forefathers and the concious and unconscious ways I perpectuate poverty and violence, but ultimately what do I do with that guilt?
Comment by: David H
4 09/6/07 9:56 AM | Comment Link |Being that the US is a Democracy, to blame Bush is literally to blame ourselves. His message resonated with slightly more than half of all Americans the second time around. I frequently irritate my liberal friends by saying with Bush America got the president it deserves, he not only represents us, in many ugly respects he reflects us.
Comment by: Staci
5 09/6/07 1:55 PM | Comment Link |It’s a funny paradox that while people always want someone to blame, they also don’t want to conceed that someone is better or could get the better of them.
Comment by: Meg
6 09/7/07 12:21 AM | Comment Link |very interesting discussion here. Corporate responsibility (corporate meaning large group, rather than greedy, capitalist company!!) is complex, because “I” the individual didn’t do the horror perpetuated by the larger societal group - the hating, the judging, the killing, the lynching, the gassing, the bombing… I always find it a difficult leap, from little ol’ me to the hideous things humans do to each other throughout history. If I ignore something am I somehow contributing to its continuing? I wish this connection between the small and the big could be clearer. Wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to SEE the webs of consequences our thoughts and inactions and words create?
Comment by: Meg
7 09/7/07 9:53 AM | Comment Link |Joe
what to do with the guilt?
Isn’t the christian answer to that “Let Jesus take it away”?
or perhaps, let it motivate me to work toward better things? but gently.
Comment by: Rachel
8 09/8/07 12:12 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I think that part of the reason we love to blame is that it gives us a feeling of control. If we can identify who or what is at fault, then we can prevent the bad thing from happening again. For example, when a women is raped, people will sometimes blame the victim - she shouldn’t have been dressed like that, she shouldn’t have gotten drunk, she should have known better than to be out alone at night. The blaming the victim isn’t so much about excusing the perpetrator as it is about regaining a sense of control. If that woman did something foolish that “got her raped” then that means that all I have to do is NOT do that something and then I am safe from a similar fate. But if I accept that she did nothing whatsoever to cause it, then I must live with the reality that something just as horrific could happen to me also and that there is nothing I can do that will 100% prevent it.
Comment by: joe
9 09/10/07 3:24 AM | Comment Link |Megs, that is a good point, though it strikes at the heart of my ambivilence to Christianity.
I am forced to consider what exactly Jesus meant when he told people that ‘their sins were forgiven’ and how I should behave.
We are constantly told the lie that christianity is like a judge who condemns a prisoner then pays the fine levied. To me, that is not justice but corruption. I don’t know about anywhere else, but in the UK a judge cannot even try someone he knows, let alone pay the fine.
Yancey tells a much better story. A judge sits before an old woman who has been caught stealing bread to feed her family. Sighing, he realises she has broken then law and fines her $10. Taking off his hat, he then puts in $10 from his own pocket and announces that he is fining everyone in the room $1 for living in a world where an old woman must steal bread to feed her family. The women left the trial with more money than when she went in.
If I claim to be a person of faith, love, justice and compassion, how can I not be guilty in the face of a world where a child dies of an illness which can be treated with a few small coins?
If fact, I suspect that Gandhi was correct when he interpreted Jesus’ statements in a different way. Rather than cowering and throwing our lives away because we believe we are already on the road to hell, Jesus was giving people license to move beyond self-flagulation and into action. Taking onboard the responsibility without allowing the enormity to overwealm and weaken us.
Comment by: Benjamin ady
10 09/11/07 7:49 PM | Comment Link |Joe
I love this <blockquote> taking onboard the responsibility without allowing the enormity to overwhelm and weaken us </blockquote>
that’s perfect. It sounds like maturity, or perhaps what jesus was talking about when he said “Be perfect, like your father in heaven was perfect”
thankyou for that! I see that I’ve made a lot of progress, because I’ve accepted more of the responsibility, and also gotten better at being gracious and gentle enough to myself not to let it overwhelm me. not to say that I don’t still have enormous room to get better at that!
Comment by: David H
11 09/12/07 12:14 AM | Comment Link |Well said Joe.