A question of blame

[Anita Kilgour]

> Well, the problem with that is, it means there is *nothing*
> we can do, so why
> should we even try? Trying to figure out what went wrong
> (which is subtly
> different from assigning Blame) sometimes does lead to a
> change for the
> better. Assigning the acts to Chaos, while strictly true,
> removes the hope (and the incentive) to try to make things better.

The problem is, Harald, is that they're looking for someone to blame, not
for ways to avoid the problem.  Sending kids home because they wore
trenchcoats or suspending them because they say, "Yah, I can see how someone
might get frustrated over being treated like slime all the time" isn't
avoiding the problem.  Hell, it's reinforcing this.  I've said this to Paul
a few times, but it's like the popular/normal kids just got a license to
pick on the weirdos...

(Guess which group I used to belong to?)

There's bunches of things that could be done to help prevent this from
happening again, but *even* if they were all done, shy of living in a
Orwellian nightmare, you don't know when the person next to you is going to
go bananas.  You can't.  Yes, we should try to make things better.  Yes, we
should try to avoid this sort of thing happening.  But just because we have
the illusion of control, we shouldn't think that means we have complete
control of the universe around us.  Sometimes bad stuff happens.

Why is that such a tough concept for folks to swallow?  I'm not saying "oh,
it's not worth trying to fight for a better world"...just that sometimes,
regardless of how hard you do try, it still comes down to a random chance of
the universe crapping on you.

--
Anita