... evolve...
... into pass the buck...
Round Robin of Blame
In childhood, games of hot potato are trivialities pierced by ephemeral sacrifices of social esteem, facilely forgotten by the next round... and the next... and the next...
But...
... rather than set such pastimes aside as games of childhood...
... we transform hot potato into pass the buck...
... whereby lessons of accountability and shame and responsibility and forgiveness are repudiated for calculated malice...
... whereby accountability evasion serves ulterior motives... including retaliation and reprisal.
But...
... rather than set such pastimes aside as games of childhood...
... we transform hot potato into pass the buck...
... whereby lessons of accountability and shame and responsibility and forgiveness are repudiated for calculated malice...
... whereby accountability evasion serves ulterior motives... including retaliation and reprisal.
*
When the blame game is... children who blame invisible ne'er do wells for pilfering cookies tucked into mischievous smiles...
... such games of rogue puerility are innocuous.
But...
... it's hardly the case that such games of childhood arrive untouched and intact into adulthood. For it's far more likely that the insouciant appeal of casting fly lines in the dark...
... pales in comparison to the far more sinister and robust satisfaction of directed blame that exacts intentful retribution. Like stoning two birds with one stone... petty vengeance masquerading as blame shifting... is how never enoughers win game after game after game... of pass the buck.
... such games of rogue puerility are innocuous.
But...
... it's hardly the case that such games of childhood arrive untouched and intact into adulthood. For it's far more likely that the insouciant appeal of casting fly lines in the dark...
... pales in comparison to the far more sinister and robust satisfaction of directed blame that exacts intentful retribution. Like stoning two birds with one stone... petty vengeance masquerading as blame shifting... is how never enoughers win game after game after game... of pass the buck.
*
Yet...
... games of blame and pass the buck remain impervious to transparency.
Like corruption and prostitution...
... the economy of shifting blame from where it belongs to where it doesn't... is so robustly insulated, so zealously defended, so extraordinarily profitable...
... who rights instead of wrongs...? Because... rightdoers are as disposable as integrity to wrongdoers exploiting gravy trains of round robins of blame.
Addendum
Of course...
... all the shifting in the world... can't shift blame... to where blame won't stick...
Which begs the question...
... if passing the buck isn't effective unless blame sticks...
... doesn't it stand to reason...
... that games of passing the buck... incentivize blame sticking... to include strategies and tactics of deliberate, covert, tacit, etc. deceit and distortion and collusion...?
(Notwithstanding the corollary... that games of passing the buck... also incentivize the preservation of personal teflon by which blame cannot stick to us... regardless of the truth...)
What if...
... deceit includes notes and documentation, for example, masquerading as 'objective records' that are beliefs and opinions that are unverifiable by objective facts... that, by no veracity whatsoever, dumbfoundedly satisfy 'cause' for blame shifting...?
... distortion includes reports and assessments, for example, masquerading as 'objective recommendations' that are beliefs and opinions that are unverifiable by objective facts... that, by no veracity whatsoever, dumbfoundedly satisfy 'found' for blame shifting...?
Verily...
... how harmless then...
... how absent of malice then...
... are round robins of blame?
Indeed...
... as harmless...
... as absent of malice...
... as intentions that lie.
M
We often dismiss the blame game...
... as normative...
... as expected...
... under the premise that self preservation and self advancement and self conceit...
... are reasonable...
... and harmless.
But...
... is pass the buck... wholly harmless?
When reprisal and retaliation masquerade as reasonable self preservation, harmless self advancement, banal self conceit...
... is such game... wholly absent of malice?
And what of our indifference and our dismissal of such game...
... are we not complicit by our denial of and our apathy to that which is flagrantly abhorrent?
Haven't all of us... at one point or another... been subject to being targeted...
Haven't all of us... at one point or another... been subject to directed blame...
... without cause...
... without found...
... without objective veracity...?
And...
... when we ask ourselves... why...
... do we not recognize... the truth in plain sight...
... of calculated harm...
... of intentful malice...
... of petty vengeance unmasked... for the self preservation of someone else... for the self advancement of someone else... for the self conceit of someone else...
... at our expense.
As if...
... our lives are disposable... to never enoughers callously and savagely indifferent to the real lives of real people in the real world.
... as normative...
... as expected...
... under the premise that self preservation and self advancement and self conceit...
... are reasonable...
... and harmless.
But...
... is pass the buck... wholly harmless?
When reprisal and retaliation masquerade as reasonable self preservation, harmless self advancement, banal self conceit...
... is such game... wholly absent of malice?
And what of our indifference and our dismissal of such game...
... are we not complicit by our denial of and our apathy to that which is flagrantly abhorrent?
*
Haven't all of us... at one point or another... been subject to being targeted...
Haven't all of us... at one point or another... been subject to directed blame...
... without cause...
... without found...
... without objective veracity...?
And...
... when we ask ourselves... why...
... do we not recognize... the truth in plain sight...
... of calculated harm...
... of intentful malice...
... of petty vengeance unmasked... for the self preservation of someone else... for the self advancement of someone else... for the self conceit of someone else...
... at our expense.
As if...
... our lives are disposable... to never enoughers callously and savagely indifferent to the real lives of real people in the real world.
*
Yet...
... games of blame and pass the buck remain impervious to transparency.
Like corruption and prostitution...
... the economy of shifting blame from where it belongs to where it doesn't... is so robustly insulated, so zealously defended, so extraordinarily profitable...
... who rights instead of wrongs...? Because... rightdoers are as disposable as integrity to wrongdoers exploiting gravy trains of round robins of blame.
Of course...
... all the shifting in the world... can't shift blame... to where blame won't stick...
*
Which begs the question...
... if passing the buck isn't effective unless blame sticks...
... doesn't it stand to reason...
... that games of passing the buck... incentivize blame sticking... to include strategies and tactics of deliberate, covert, tacit, etc. deceit and distortion and collusion...?
(Notwithstanding the corollary... that games of passing the buck... also incentivize the preservation of personal teflon by which blame cannot stick to us... regardless of the truth...)
*
What if...
... deceit includes notes and documentation, for example, masquerading as 'objective records' that are beliefs and opinions that are unverifiable by objective facts... that, by no veracity whatsoever, dumbfoundedly satisfy 'cause' for blame shifting...?
... distortion includes reports and assessments, for example, masquerading as 'objective recommendations' that are beliefs and opinions that are unverifiable by objective facts... that, by no veracity whatsoever, dumbfoundedly satisfy 'found' for blame shifting...?
By what justification do we assume the self preserving are absent of deceit, absent of distortion... especially that deceit and that distortion that pave slick paths of accountability evasion for the self preserving...?
By professions? By titles? As if professionals and titlebearers are above mortal sins.
What if...
... collusion includes education, training, and knowledge building, for example, masquerading as legitimizations of 'objective accreditations', 'objective certifications', and 'objective licenses' that are manipulated and employed as tools of exploitation, coercion, and extortion...?
By what justification do we assume the self advancing are absent of collusion... especially that collusion that stacks the decks to win game after game after game of pass the buck... whereby accountability evasion serves ulterior motives for the self advancing... including retaliation and reprisal (especially against rightdoers, whistleblowers, truthers)...?
By supervisions of boards? By memberships of associations? By procedures of self policing? As if in the pocket chums of and good ol' clubs of professionals and titlebearers are sacrosanct and above reproach.
(Notwithstanding... threats of, fear of, witnessing of, demonstrations of, etc... blatant, implicit, institutional, systemic, etc... directed blame, being targeted, vengeance and retribution... compel wrongdoing and fuel games of passing the buck... because...
... though we dismiss blame games... on the one hand... on the other... we indisputably recognize that rightdoers are expendable... to wrongdoers callously and abhorrently indifferent to the real lives of real people in the real world.)
By professions? By titles? As if professionals and titlebearers are above mortal sins.
*
What if...
... collusion includes education, training, and knowledge building, for example, masquerading as legitimizations of 'objective accreditations', 'objective certifications', and 'objective licenses' that are manipulated and employed as tools of exploitation, coercion, and extortion...?
By what justification do we assume the self advancing are absent of collusion... especially that collusion that stacks the decks to win game after game after game of pass the buck... whereby accountability evasion serves ulterior motives for the self advancing... including retaliation and reprisal (especially against rightdoers, whistleblowers, truthers)...?
By supervisions of boards? By memberships of associations? By procedures of self policing? As if in the pocket chums of and good ol' clubs of professionals and titlebearers are sacrosanct and above reproach.
*
(Notwithstanding... threats of, fear of, witnessing of, demonstrations of, etc... blatant, implicit, institutional, systemic, etc... directed blame, being targeted, vengeance and retribution... compel wrongdoing and fuel games of passing the buck... because...
... though we dismiss blame games... on the one hand... on the other... we indisputably recognize that rightdoers are expendable... to wrongdoers callously and abhorrently indifferent to the real lives of real people in the real world.)
*
Verily...
... how harmless then...
... how absent of malice then...
... are round robins of blame?
Indeed...
... as harmless...
... as absent of malice...
... as intentions that lie.
M
*
More
In the Era of the Blameless... there are always professions of convenience, titles of convenience... that bestow upon never enoughers, that confer upon wrongdoers... defense, justification, legitimization... of round robins of blame.
Because accountability... that noble virtue to which childhood aspires... is that virtue to which never enoughers of every age, that aspiration to which wrongdoers of every era... are inexorably allergic and savagely averse.
M
Masterful post. I love all of your posts about blame, deceit, and distortion. Please keep them coming!
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me that everyone nowadays believes that they have the right to opine, judge, or adjudicate who is to blame while superficially looking at the whole picture so as to avoid any form of responsibility for their actions, conduct, or ethos. In the end how can anyone believe that we are not living in the Age of Darkness where the truthful and all kind are easy targets for blame as they hold themselves to standards of integrity and truth that the wrongdoers do not.
When I was a child, I had a relentless coach that used to tell me that there was no I in team on the field but in the classroom - he always told me the there were a lot of i's in responsibility and accountability. I used to frown at him but he would just smile and tell me that one day - I would get it. What I did not understand back then is that accountability and responsibility exist at the individual level. When we come together to form societies, institutions, associations, governments, companies, and other groups, our individual responsibility becomes gray or completely disappears as we seek to adopt the group responsibilities over those of our own. The result is often blaming others, retaliating against those that refuse to shed their personal responsibility, coercing others to align to our system, and even corruption or more nefarious practices. In the end, "passing the buck," is an expeditious way to say that one stands only for themselves - or that they stand for nothing other than what their "group" expects of them. Both of which are a one way ticket to a world where the deceiver - the corrupter - the malicious - the liars - and the never enoughers hold all the cards; and that my friend is a world that is going straight to !@#$.
ReplyDeleteYour post makes me wonder if each of the snowflakes in an avalanche or blizzard ever feel responsible for the havoc that they wreck; and if they did would they apologize or change their ways?
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing that you have your looks dear as your ability to understand nature, philosophy, and what she is writing is not part of your repertoire. Or maybe it's that your never enough ways are inexorably allergic, savagely averse, and barbarously deaf to virtues of truth, accountability, and humbleness.
DeleteWe are simply heading in the wrong direction as a society, as a world. The number of blameless never'enoughers grows while the number of truthful accountables diminishes. Or maybe - this has always been the case where a small group of virtuous beings toil day in and day out in an endless quest to expose the truth, to change the world for the better for all, and to teach while another minority (but much bigger) spends all of their time and energy in discrediting them, seeking reprisal against them, and in some cases hunting them down ensuring that they never get a solid footing. As for the majority - they turn a blind eye to the witch hunts, the lies, and the pass the buck ways either out of fear of being lumped in with the truthful, becoming the blamed, or just because they are too selfish or self absorbed to care.
ReplyDeleteI stand with you as always as one of the truthful and am grateful for every post where you continue to toil regardless of the ramifications. It helps to show me not only what it means to be principled but also to remind me that our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors for the posterity yet to rise.
You just... like... waking sleep....
DeleteWho doesn't love waking sleep with a pair of twins except those that have prosthetics.
Delete