Looking for explanations makes sense. The urge to find out powers science, religion, research, invention, curiosity . . . and polling. This urge sometimes detours into the great dysfunctional explanation: Blame.
Blame provides a convenient escape. Once I make someone blameworthy, I no longer need to take responsibility to solve, or even examine, problems. Blame gives me a comforting illusion of superiority. Blame feeds the codependency of otherness: I blame to make others responsible for my fear. Scapegoats—goats sent into the wilderness for the sins of others—turn me away from looking (and thinking) any further.
Blame is seductive. Ex-wives, former bosses, members of bygone bands, reviewers, politicians, neighbors, condo associations, mortgage lenders, cable companies—the list self-propagates. If I let myself off the hook, blame beckons. Blame is the partner of resentment, hate lite. We often blame and call it accountability.
But blame and accountability are more different than alike. Blame focuses on people, accountability on behavior. Blame makes people wrong, accountability clarifies boundaries. Blame reveals fear and weakness. Accountability is the hallmark of courage. Blame obfuscates; accountability clarifies.
When I adopt blame as my perspective, I surrender empathy. And if I am unable to acknowledge my connection to others' humanity, including their errors, poor judgment, and wrong-headedness, I insulate myself from working with them to solve problems. Worse, I insulate myself from introspection. Since it's all about them, and they're not me, I'm above that kind of behavior.
Blame is a hammer that crushes other possibilities:
Cluelessness: Someone else's poor performance is due to what they didn't understand rather than to their character flaws. The answer to this problem is feedback, not blame.
Different dictionaries: Someone else's definition of, for example, punctuality is different from mine. Always means different things to different people and in different settings.
Systemic solutions: Something about the way we're operating is contributing to misunderstanding, fear, isolation and tribalism. Blame feeds, never solves, dysfunction.
Finally, the price I pay for deciding someone is blameworthy is to diminish my own humanity and connection. As the poet Dean Young suggests (in "Bright Window"):
You start with a darkness to move through
but sometimes the darkness moves through you
