How to Appropriately Blame People (Including Ourselves)

Did the person make a reasonable judgment, in good faith, given the information they had?

When something bad happens, we look for someone to blame. Regardless of whether we succeed or not, it’s an understandable impulse.

The problem with blaming, that is attributing responsibility or accountability to someone’s choices or behavior, is that we tend to do it poorly.

We spill our water at a restaurant and we blame the waiter for filling it too full. Or, a traffic accident makes us late for an appointment and we are unrelenting in our self-blame.

We assign blame when we shouldn’t. And we also fail to assign appropriate blame when we should.

Moreover, we tend to act like assholes in the process. Either being too judgmental or too detached. This harshness damages our self-esteem, our relationships, and generally contributes to confused cultural narratives (e.g. “Who’s to Blame for X?”), because when we misdiagnose the cause of a problem, we’ll inevitably employ the wrong solutions.

Example: A Social Media Controversy

Imagine you’re a recent hire in the social media department, still not fully familiar with the company’s tone and policies, and you post a message that is slightly off-brand. Unfortunately, the post coincidentally aligns with a major social controversy at the time, causing an unexpected backlash against the company. You are singled out and fired over the incident. In the following months you bounce between confusing feelings of deep shame and self-righteous anger. You’re not perfect, but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

How might you understand what happened in a more healthy and accurate way? (Here’s a hint: you were screwed and you should be glad that you no longer work there…and with that firmly established, consider whether there is, and there may not be, anything for you to learn).

Who is Responsible for What Happened?

When we reflect on an incident, whether we were involved or not, we have to ask ourselves an important question:

• “Did the person make a reasonable judgment, in good faith, given the information they had?”

If the answer is, “yes,” then we should consider that individual exempt for the purposes of assigning blame. At least until there are further revelations or data that require us to revisit the question.

So, if you’re the recent hire in the example, did you make a reasonable judgment, in good faith, given the information you had? Yes, you did. Maybe there were things you could have done better, but as we’ll discuss at length in a moment, this is no way makes you responsible for the outcome.

In this case, maybe there is no one party to blame for the social media faux pas. Maybe the mistake resulted from a combination of factors, and when we apply the same question about one’s reasonable judgment, we find that each person involved in the complex matrix of cause and effect did the best they could.

Conclusion

Could you, or should you, have done something differently? Maybe. But before you go around assigning blame to others (or yourself), first ask, “Did the person make a reasonable judgment, in good faith, given the information they had?” And if the answer is, “no,” blame away.