The Blame Game...

I have always been fascinated with America's love of casting blame, especially in such a Christian society. This week's Bagehot column in The Economist tells us that Britain has a similar finger-pointing complex. I could devolve into my own thoughts on the matter, but honestly, Bagehot couldn't really be more right on: at length:

As well as vengeful and primitive, the kind of blame swirling around Britain is also, in its way, naively optimistic. It contains a fairy-tale idea of the future: if the guilty are identified and punished, it (whatever it is) will never happen again. Delicate judgments about risk—such as the risks of taking a child into care versus the risk of leaving him with his parents—will never again be miscalibrated; emergencies will never yield mistakes; criminals will never outwit the authorities; the tastes of editors will never lapse. There will be no accidents and no human error. (In a way, blame is an inverted form of deference: it implies a faith that the authorities and experts and leaders could be impeccable.)

There is even, perhaps, a faint trace of magic in the blame syndrome. Somehow, subliminally, blame may seem to mend not only the future but the past too. Finding and removing an offender can sometimes make it feel that his crime has been not only avenged, but undone; that time has been expunged.

None of which is to deny that blame can be useful. Indeed, it is morally vital: to excuse individuals of blame, to separate actions from consequences, is to deny their autonomy. Blame is a key component of progress. If it is not attributed and accepted where it is due (as it may well be for some of those well-meaning outsiders involved in the Baby P case), failings go uncorrected. Blame is one of democracy’s gifts and virtues; a society without blame and accountability is doomed to stagnation and misrule.

But an excess of blame—blind and unthinking as it often seems—can be as dangerous as a deficit of it. Vitriolic blame can wreck morale in institutions such as hospitals (or, indeed, in social services). It can inhibit decision-making and worthwhile risk-taking. And it can be both intellectually lazy and delusional. The wrong kind of blame reflects a false, dangerous simplification—and a false, childish hope.