Who do you blame?

[hallow]

For me, "bame", and "responsibility" are extremely similar. If you take responsibility or "blame"for an action, you can choose yourself if it gave you the outcome you want. If it was a bad choice you still take that responsibility and learn from it positive or negative. If you force the negative on something else you will never learn from the action and that negative action.

[sky]

O

Originally Posted by hallow

For me, "bame", and "responsibility" are extremely similar. If you take responsibility or "blame"for an action, you can choose yourself if it gave you the outcome you want. If it was a bad choice you still take that responsibility and learn from it positive or negative. If you force the negative on something else you will never learn from the action and that negative action.

I think taking responsibility is in the present and blame keeps you based in the past. Blame is focused on finding fault whereas responsibility allows you to learn, grow and move on.

[sentient]

Originally Posted by sky123

I think taking responsibility is in the present and blame keeps you based in the past. Blame is focused on finding fault whereas responsibility allows you to learn, grow and move on.

^ That I trust is the Prefrontal Cortex speaking. Looking at things objectively, ability to admit and to learn from mistakes plus the ability to survey the whole mechanics of the situation and then being able to take responsibility and direct/intend mental energy - therefore actions, for more positive outcomes.

Not so if you have an overactive Amygdala. In NPD even the slightest hint or insight into a mistake is seen as a monumental threat to self-image and before they can even say panic – they have panicked already and gone into a full blown Amygdala Hijack, where the negative insight into self is instantly externalized and with blind rage blamed as being somebody else’s fault.

NPD or say PSTD are extreme examples, but blaming becomes our modus operandi when we are not able to admit and integrate our own shadow sides. And everybody has got one to work on imo.

Carl Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality. According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by sky123

O





I think taking responsibility is in the present and blame keeps you based in the past. Blame is focused on finding fault whereas responsibility allows you to learn, grow and move on.

your right, that's a better way of putting it.

[winter light]

Originally Posted by Gem

I'm not to sure how responsibility is imagined in Eastern philosophy except to say that there's not much said about responsibility in Buddhist philosophy, and I assume the notion of responsibility wasn't as prominent in the East as it is nowdays in the West, though in the Gita, Krishna convinced Arjuna that he had a duty to start a war. A holy war, no less, a moral war, a 'dharma war' so to speak. As with Jihad, the interpretations range from actual blood and guts battle, to the battle people have within themselves, to more general moral dilemma between good and evil. However, doctrines of God, love and peace typically entail the irony of God sanctioned violence, which is somehow morally justifiable, though sometimes on God's mere whim, obedience to which is definitively 'good'. In any case, the concept of responsibility comes with moral implications and philosophical dilemmas concerning degrees of free will or even God's will, all of which influence law and how it is applied. This peculiar mix of some sort of moralism, personal will and social order make responsibility difficult to site in any particular individual, as it is imagined within everyone and pervades the whole of social fabric.

I used to assume that the Gita was more a historical story. But now I wonder if it is really an allegory to describe a fundamental aspect of the human experience. That we feel responsible for things that are well beyond our control and that we may have no understanding of the higher order. Events are already in motion before we "arrive" to become part of the process. Then in our life we are compelled to be who we are meant to be within that higher order.

It is an insult to our sensibilities. It requires surrendering all of our ideas about the way we think the world should be so that we support the world being what it is. Surrendering even any expectations to understand what is taking place in the moment. It must be done. It will be done. And it is our duty to fulfill this higher order. We even must take complete responsibility, and assert it was our choice, despite all evidence that we feel trapped in a circumstance and without choice. It is also a very solitary, painful and personal experience.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by winter light

I used to assume that the Gita was more a historical story. But now I wonder if it is really an allegory to describe a fundamental aspect of the human experience.

I guess there has historical and allegorical aspects, and is quite useful when taken as allegory.

That we feel responsible for things that are well beyond our control and that we may have no understanding of the higher order. Events are already in motion before we "arrive" to become part of the process. Then in our life we are compelled to be who we are meant to be within that higher order.

To me the issue of responsibility or accountability is linked to the power of self determination. Fir example some of my peers were creating a narrative about how obesity is 'your responsibility', and I thought that was an ill considered notion not least of all because we can't make that claim about obese children since they don't have enough self determination to take on that responsibility. We start to shift the responsibility, 'Oh then it's the parents' responsibility,' or is obesity caused by a 'consumer culture' in which behaving normally tends toward escalating obesity rates? The expansive view on obesity rates makes responsibility difficult to locate as it transverses individual, social and cultural dimensions.

It is an insult to our sensibilities. It requires surrendering all of our ideas about the way we think the world should be so that we support the world being what it is. Surrendering even any expectations to understand what is taking place in the moment. It must be done. It will be done. And it is our duty to fulfill this higher order. We even must take complete responsibility, and assert it was our choice, despite all evidence that we feel trapped in a circumstance and without choice. It is also a very solitary, painful and personal experience.

People can only make choices based on possibilities, so the allegory on obesity implies that children don't 'eat' but are rather 'fed', and they don't choose to be obese. Fir a very strange reason we then consider an adult as fully responsible when in fact an adult has not suddenly become a unitary being set apart from all else with infinite choices, but is really just a small but integral part of an enormous cultural organism.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by sentient

^ That I trust is the Prefrontal Cortex speaking. Looking at things objectively, ability to admit and to learn from mistakes plus the ability to survey the whole mechanics of the situation and then being able to take responsibility and direct/intend mental energy - therefore actions, for more positive outcomes.

Not so if you have an overactive Amygdala. In NPD even the slightest hint or insight into a mistake is seen as a monumental threat to self-image and before they can even say panic – they have panicked already and gone into a full blown Amygdala Hijack, where the negative insight into self is instantly externalized and with blind rage blamed as being somebody else’s fault.

NPD or say PSTD are extreme examples, but blaming becomes our modus operandi when we are not able to admit and integrate our own shadow sides. And everybody has got one to work on imo.

In the bio-mechanical model of 'a person', the cells and electrical currents somehow get together and operate as a lifeform, but I don't choose the division of cells for regenerating my skin - that just happens. But on the other hand, in my mission to lift very heavy things, I can do things to cause more muscle hypertrophy, denser bones and stronger connective tissue by exercising in a particular way and ingesting certain ratios of nutrients. So maybe there is a mixture; because things 'just happen' according to universal physical laws, I can behave in ways so that said laws promote greater likelihood of optimal outcomes.

[sky]

Originally Posted by hallow

your right, that's a better way of putting it.

I don't know if I am right or not but that's the way I see it, others will differ.
I learn nothing from blaming others, I surpose it's an easy way out. If I take responsibility I can see where I went wrong ( hopefully) and learn from my mistakes and move on a lot wiser.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by sky123

I think that life can be difficult enough without wasting energy focusing on negativity, yes it's there and always will be if you keep looking for it. Like you pointed out, interact with positive people as much as you can, choose carefully who you spend time with and when you sometimes come across negative people and need to interact with them you do have a choice to hear what they say but you don't have to listen.

Nice to hear that your retirement is happy and positive, long may it last

I do agree with what you're saying. But sometimes it just snowballs and you just need to vent. Venting is only human. Should open a thread when people can simply vent and leave issues in the thread not out in the universe to manifest. Lol

[Baile]

Originally Posted by hallow

I do agree with what you're saying. But sometimes it just snowballs and you just need to vent. Venting is only human. Should open a thread when people can simply vent and leave issues in the thread not out in the universe to manifest. Lol

A sizable percentage of the threads in this forum are unhappy people venting about their situation, and blaming someone or something. All of social media (Twitter etc) consists of people venting and complaining.

The last thing the internet and the world needs, is (yet another) venting space lol.