Everyday Canvas

Why the Need for Someone to Blame

Prompt: They say when a computer does something wrong, it blames another computer. Isn’t it the same with people? Do animals blame others, too? Isn’t blaming someone else an act of refusing to take responsibility? What are your thoughts on the subject?

===========

Computers work in conjunction with one another, so it is natural for them to look for blame in other computers. As to animals, I am not an expert on animal behavior and I wouldn’t know if they blame one another, although as an animal lover, I think they may have some of our inherited traits. The only example I have about animals blaming others is our dog Joe’s (RIP) acting hurt with me and sitting with his butt turned at me after I’ve taken him to his vet. Thus, I conclude, animal blaming does exist.

As to us, biped homo sapiens, we love the blame game especially when something goes wrong or misfortunes take place. There are reasons for doing that, in addition to our refusal of taking responsibility.

We use blaming as a defense mechanism to protect our self-esteem. Our own flaws should be avoided at all costs so we can go on being our perfect, haughty selves. After all, who wants to see herself or himself as foolish, irresponsible, or inept? This even goes on not only in individual instances but also in politics between parties, but I digress…

Blaming is also a tool to be used when attacking, especially if we haven’t learned how to resolve conflicts constructively. Also projecting the bad feelings about ourselves unto someone else may make us feel better, working as a kind of self-defense.

Then, it is easy to blame someone known to be bad or someone who steps on society’s values time and time again. This type of blaming can be the result of a warped idea of social status or the caste system. Some unsavory police work comes to mind, where the police first check the known criminals before concentrating on the evidence.

Another reason for blaming can be because we don’t know much about human behavior; we even distort the way we look at our very own actions because it may take less effort to blame someone else than see our own flaws.

Then, there’s the opposite of the blame game, too. Some people blame themselves for everything, even the World Wars that happened before their time. Believe it or not, such people do exist. I am not exactly sure why this happens, but I think overpowering, controlling parents or guardians might have instilled such a guilty feeling or low self-esteem inside children that, if not always but at least from time to time, it shows up in adulthood as self-blaming.