Let’s face it, explaining a sequence of events without laying blame is not only profoundly unsatisfying to many people, it’s just not a conspiracy theory. Let’s consider the siphoning off of local city water supplies by large corporations who sell bottled water. This is only a conspiracy theory if you hand the corporations a goal and a reason.

http://www.blogherald.com/2007/11/27/three-steps-to-building-your-own-conspiracy-theory/


There are ways to approach responsibility that work and ways that don’t. Let’s start with the latter. When our focus is on blame, it is all about finding someone to get. It turns focus away from what went wrong and how to keep it from going wrong again. It is judgmental and vindictive.

Blame is often used to divert attention away from ourselves. After all, we don’t want the blame—who ever wants to be “at fault”? But the blame game shows a lack of understanding of what responsibility fundamentally is. Responsibility cannot be assigned after the fact even though many attempt to do so. Responsibility was always present, even if it was not acknowledged. When you start to realize this, you stop blaming others. You begin focusing on your own role, whether in action or in abdication.


http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/recognizing-the-distinction-between-blame-and-responsibility.html




I discovered this lifehack at a younger age,,the first time I was assaulted,,,it of course was not my 'fault' and I never 'blamed' myself,, but I did take responsibility for ignoring red flags before it happened

responsibility has a higher likelihood of leading to solutions,, than blame ever will

A VERY important, and very commonly confused concern indeed.

The way I see it, discovering RESPONSIBILITY is a basic step towards crafting a long term SOLUTION to a problem. Whereas, assigning BLAME, rarely contributes anything whatsoever, to solving the problem.

Rather like finding a broken vase on the floor, and deciding to get into a shouting match over whether the dog did it, or one of the children did it...and all the while, the broken shards remain on the floor, and any other vases in the house remain in danger. Finding what was RESPONSIBLE for the broken vase, can be done after cleaning up the mess, and if done right, will result in the other vases being better protected, and whoever did actually break it (unless it was the dog) learning how to avoid doing it again.

There seem to be two forms of wealth, that are driving our society in the wrong direction about this. One is financial wealth of course, with all the blame-based lawsuits, designed to make first lawyers, and then insurance companies, and finally an occasional victim rich. The other is political wealth, wherein the successful attachment of BLAME to some segment of society or other individual or group, results in the people assigning blame, gaining political power over everyone else.

It's a very nasty game we have become mired in, and it will require some far better leadership at the top, to get us back out of it again, than we seem to have available to us here in the US.

Tell that to Hillary Clinton.

thanx Dodo,, for contributing such a great example of blame before responsibility

This doesn't make much sense.
The basics to storytelling or reporting or insurance claims and most of life are "who, what, where, when, why, and how."


Oh...it's bloggers on a click bait site.
So basically like a dating site forum section without the dating and minimum responses.


Okay. What are the other ways and reasons it's used?


Great!
I guess we can just get rid of the court system and police investigators then.


Taking personal responsibility has a higher likelihood of leading to solutions.
Blame is used to determine who should take personal responsibility.

You will never ever ever ever ever get everyone to accept personal responsibility for everything they have even the most marginal indirect impact on.

Other than that, responsibility has a higher likelihood of leading to solutions only because as a kid you were blamed for something and forced to take responsibility.


That's just rationalizing and playing semantic and mental gymnastic games.



"was not my 'fault' and I never 'blamed' myself for my hand being burned by the stove, but I did take responsibility for ignoring red hot burners before it happened."

I blame msharmony for creating this thread and will take on a portion of the responsibility of replying to it at a latter time

I accept the responsibility

This thread has inspired me to answer a question I often had pondered myself which is.
Whats the difference between an excuse and a explanation?

An explanation simply attributes cause to effect.
An excuse attempts to apportion false causes to the effect, sometimes magnifying slight cause to major cause or minimising the actual effect.

It feels like a fine line between the two when we are explaining ourselves because it tends to be our emotions that chooses which way we lean.

Laying blame is offering an explanation with an emotional attachment it makes us feel good to blame others because we have attributed cause and responsibility elsewhere, at the same time implying that it inexcusable to cause the effect.

Blaming ourselves doesn't feel as good though because it brings responsibility for a undesired effect back on us. If we are sensible we treat it less emotionally and see it more as an explanation that is excusable still within our ability to respond with a correction.

So


Blame is offering an explanation with an emotional attachment

Responsibility is recognition of where the ability to respond lays

The lies we tell ourselves and the emotions that drive us will determine the distance between what is and what we think



Obviously that not quite right because there is no need to excuse msharmony the blame she so deservedly has earned

what kind of red flags? looking back on those who assaulted me there where know red flags ... well maybe there where but I was so young I had know idea what might come nxt ... some things you try not to think about ... in those cases ... but I never once blamed myself ... only blame I take ... was not telling someone at the time ...

I accept responsibility for not making better choices

it doesn't excuse the attackers at all, but it keeps my emotional power and control instead of giving it away


in the first instance, I didnt trust my gut when it was raining and muddy and there was only one sole car at the park

in the second, I should never have stayed at a strange males home when my car broke down out of town,,,there were better choices

Bravo for thinking almost exactly as I do about this. One thing that happens too rarely these days, is for people to realize that they don't have to go 100% one way or the other. They don't have to blame EVERYTHING on themselves or the other person; they can hold themselves responsible for that which is within their control, and still hold others responsible for their willing part in whatever happens.

As you say so wisely, taking responsibility for yourself isn't an act of sacrifice, it's an act of self-empowerment.

ty