The Game of Blame

I was watching television the other day when a commercial for a personal injury law firm came on the screen. The spokesperson, for whom the law firm was named, expounded on how his team of lawyers were vastly experienced in getting their clients the best financial judgements possible. His exact words were “We will get you what your accident is worth”. It struck me as a curious way of describing the process of being compensated for an injury. The suggestion being that an accident creates a financial opportunity for the injured person. Implied in the pitch was that the lawyers in this particular firm could bring the greatest amount of blame to the case and thus create a superior windfall for their client. 

Blame is a word that adds an element of moral reprehensibility to an act which has produced a harmful or unwanted result. In most instances resolution could be achieved by the apportionment of culpability and the weighing of contributing factors. These are relatively benign concepts that, void of a moral element, have a real potential to bring about actionable change and future success. But these practical approaches to figuring out what went wrong don’t produce the same level of connotational shame as blame and that seems to be what most people need to feel satisfactorily compensated or exonerated from fault. We all exist in a societal frame work in which it is common practice to blame others when things within their purview do not workout. In the case of our own mistakes we rely on blame as a vehicle of rationalization to distance ourselves away from personal responsibility. Blame distracts us all from the real illuminating course alterations that could prevent future problems and steals the energy that could otherwise be used to create constructive change. Sure there are actions taken intentionally; there are truly innocent victims of those who are completely irresponsible or evil but there are also accidents and mistakes that are blameless. They are just the product of the high speed movement of life.

When something unfortunate happens in terms of an accident involving injury there is a very strong possibility that blame should not be dispensed. There are reasons that do not involve malicious intent or purposeful action that can be the causation of physical and emotional pain. Without the forethought of intention the assignation of blame is rarely applicable. There are times when miscues could have been avoided if more time had been put into planning or more attention to care had been paid but even those circumstances do not automatically bring blame into the equation. Life comes at us all pretty fast sometimes and we are asked to do many things concurrently. We are forced by the pace of life to make decisions without all the facts at our disposal. In other words, we are tasked with taking calculated risks on a daily basis. With risk there is reward but there is also the possibility of failure. The reasons for things not being successful or for going completely wrong usually reveal themselves in the clarity of hindsight. The absence of blame provides a greater focus on the tangible aspects of the incident and can bring a much greater understanding of reasons for its occurrence. In other words most people make mistakes without any intention at all and therefore the attachment of blame denies an irrefutable and universal truth; we are all human.

When I look at my bank account I can see that my retirement is far away. In fact, I will probably do some form of work till the day I die. But after seeing this law firm’s commercial I now realize that I do have an option. I guess I could not avoid a car that veers into my lane, let the our cars collide, and hope for an injury.  Or I could walk through my day without paying attention to my surroundings, accidentally trip on a crack in the sidewalk, and then cash in my fall for some money. If I got hurt badly enough I guess I could retire. All depends on how much compensatory value my lawyer can squeeze out of the blame he or she spreads around. Some insurance company who is responsible for the financial burden of my accident’s worth will have to cut me a big check. They will then alleviate that burden by raising the premiums for all their clients. After all the clients are to blame; they just make too many claims. So in the end, we humans who are all connected in this game of blame will pay for my retirement. Luckily for me, “There is plenty of blame to go around”.