The Blame Game

The urge to blame is a human impulse, which has existed from a million years ago. The frenzied finger pointing continues to exist in all aspects and fields even now.The Bible talks about this blame-game and has an example of finger-pointer in it. When God created Adam and Eve, He had forbidden them to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A serpent, which was God's another creation, tempted Eve who in turn made Adam eat the fruit too.

God knew what they had done and then the man blamed the woman for tempting him, and the woman blamed the serpent. They got endless curses as a result.The politicians are famous for their finger-pointers. After the Hurricane Katrina, the politicians did not miss the opportunity of shifting the blame. The shameless exploitation of the catastrophe for promoting themselves was obvious. They had even gone to the extent of blaming the victims themselves saying that they should have fled their homes not even understanding how the elder people can escape from the storm.

It is funny that traditionally, when catastrophes occurred, the supernatural forces were blamed and people shifted the blame on God's wrath and fury. But now due to advancement in science and technology, we all know that it is the act of nature but still we tend to shift the blame on politicians, or human irresponsibility. The blame-game is the result of increased expectations.It shows blame ruins everything, and creates hostilities. In reality, most of us do great mistakes. But most of us tend to cover it up by easily shifting the blame on to others like a routine problem as if we cannot be at fault at all and it ought to be someone else's fault.

At home, even in families, the husband blames the wife by saying that it was because of her tantrums in the earlier part of the day that made him concentrate less in his workplace. He says the whole day is spoilt because of his wife. The wife in turn blames her husband for whatever sulky mood she is in, during the day. They in turn show their anger on the children who do not even know what is happening.

In a joint family, it is very common to hear people shifting the blame on one another and eventually leading to breaking up of relationships. This happens more in the case of a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in a family because this happens to be the most sensitive relationship.We are schooled right from childhood to shift the blame on others. "He only pinched me, so I bit him." 'She broke my pencil, I took her ruler and broke it". The teachers blame the students, the students blame the parents, and the parents blame each other.

Sometime we blame even an inanimate object when we hurt our fingers or toes when we accidentally hit on it and get hurt. The immediate reaction is anger and we behave irrational and go to the extent of kicking the object.How many of us remember this old adage? "When you point a finger at someone else, your other fingers point toward you.".

By: HPriya Sivan