suliqyre:

When something goes wrong, one of the first things we do is figure out who is to blame. We do this to hold people accountable, so that they’ll take responsibility for what they’ve done and work towards improving their conduct. But often what we’re also doing when we cast blame is redirecting attention away from ourselves.

We do this because we want to feel absolved of responsibility. We want to feel certain there wasn’t anything we could have done to prevent the wrong from happening. We want to affirm our own righteousness over the wrongdoers who are not like us. We want to assert that we could never do anything so terrible.

But in truth, we’re always responsible. We might not have directly caused these particular wrongs, but we are still responsible. We are responsible because wrongdoing ultimately happens because of suffering, and everyone is responsible for all of the suffering that exists.

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