The most popular participation sport in America is not football, baseball, basketball, tennis, or golf. The most popular, drama-filled, adrenaline-packed, life-changing, and fortune-altering game available is the “Blame Game”. It’s played at the office, in the schoolyard, around the dinner table, at the church, in rush hour traffic, in the bedroom, at the family reunion, everywhere during the nightly news programs, in the US House of Representatives, in the US Senate, in the hallways and closed rooms of administrations. There’s even an extremely popular version called “Solitaire” that is designed to be mobile and can be taken absolutely everywhere.
At one time in my life, I thought that the “Blame Game” was exclusively an American game. But, after working in over 150 countries of the world, I am here to conclusively report that the excited participation in the risky game, knows no boundaries or borders. I was in Rwanda and observed the aftermath of the Hutu – Tootsie genocide and realized that a very special edition of the deadly game was designed for international tribes, traditions, and institutions.
I even personally visited at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers near the City of Basra, in the country of Iraq, where it is agreed that the area, with over 40% of the world’s date palm trees, used to be known as “the garden of Eden.” As I viewed the area and drank in the historical beauties of the setting, I realized that even there, the very first created woman on earth wholeheartedly joined in the participation of the dastardly “Blame Game” when confronted with her disobedience -- she defensively mumbled something about, “the devil made me do it.” Then, when her mate, Adam, was confronted with his disobedience to the known rule of God, he responded with a quick and concise retort: “wife made me do it!” The game is literally played everywhere!
Strangely enough, one of the reasons that the game is so universally embraced is that it actually has its origins in the pursuit of the eternal virtue of “Justice”. God, Himself, said to us: “. . . that I am the Lord who exercises Kindness, Justice, and Righteousness on this earth, and in these I delight. declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:24). God loves Justice!
Justice is the quality of discovering and pursuing honesty, integrity, truth, right, rectitude, due process, and fair play. Then, when the principle is discovered and attained, it is expected that there will be follow up by appropriate conduct in the administration and maintenance of the rule. That’s justice.
So, it is a good thing, when corruption, wrongdoing, crime, perversity, malevolence, or vice is suspected -- to go after it, discover it, expose it, lay it bear for all to see, and rectify the situation. The intention is to root out the mischief, and seek an appropriate cure for the problem and set the culture back on course in accordance with the desired virtue.
For example: In this current coronavirus episode, if China is suspected of having pursued international germ warfare to the detriment of other international cultures, then it is appropriate to honestly investigate the matter with the intention of discovering the truth, and if necessary, rectifying the problem and setting the world communities and cultures back on a corrected path. Justice is a good thing!
The most effective avenues of evil, however, are those roads that are perverted from the one-time boulevards of beauty. Humanity has a propensity for taking discovered and accepted virtues and perverting them into grotesque methods of self-ruination. It happens so very subtly. That, is exactly what has happened in the development of the popular “Blame Game”.
Individuals observed, over time, how effective and successful it was in ever-so gently twisting the concept of virtue and the pursuit of Justice. If the culture was experiencing a malady, there must be a reason. That reason must be pursued, discovered and corrected according to justice. It was very acceptable to lay the responsibility of the malady at the feet of the suspected wrongdoers or naughty villains. They were the obvious problems. And until the problems were corrected it was the villains’ fault for the glitch in society.
It is not much of a jump to transfer that thought pattern to the individual’s everyday life style. In fact, there are some immediate, unintended benefits. If you are experiencing difficulties, disappointments, hardships, or misfortunes in your life, it must be that some villains or naughty wrongdoers are at work in your life messing up your happiness. You are an innocent, ill-prepared, and disenfranchised “victim”. As a pitiable victim, there is obviously nothing you can do about the inequity until the villains go away or the wrongdoers stop their mischief. It is simply awful – but sort of convenient – not to be expected to fix your own problem.
Time and again, we are faithfully warned not to be involved in perverting this concept of Justice. The same God who proclaimed this phenomenon of Justice also told us: “Do not pervert Justice” (Leviticus 19:15). He also warned: . . . The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted” (Habakkuk 1:4). But our tendency is to go right along in our game and pervert Justice to our own usefulness.
The game of blaming others for your demise is a sub conscious mechanism for avoiding your own responsibility in the matter. You are in the mess you are in as a result of your own choices that set into motion consequences that now, are not to your liking. Blaming others gives you a temporary relief from making changes in yourself.
The “Blame Game” is dangerous because it blocks you from ever discovering and facing the reason or reasons why the problems evidenced themselves in the first place. This perversion blocks you from the necessary moral insight that if you want different outcomes, you need to start making different choices. It is like developing moral cataracts on your eyes so that you are prohibited from seeing your own position of responsibility and accountability. Eventually, you will go blind.
Here is an insight I have observed as I have watched many people, including myself, playing the “Blame Game” (maybe the insight is worth something . . . maybe not). If a player is looking into a wrongdoing or perversity with the sincere desire to discover a solution to the problem in order to rectify the situation, probably, they are seeking “Justice”. If the player is seeking to blame people or circumstances as an excuse for their discomfort or miseries, without honestly seeking a positive cure, it is probably a “perversion” or control mechanism.
What wonderful joy and peace can be ours, however, when we discover that our successes and shortcomings are directly related to our acceptance of personal accountability and responsibility. It only takes one person to change your life . . . YOU!
GROWTH BEGINS WHERE BLAMING STOPS