On my podcast Enemies: From War to Wisdom, I have done several episodes on how we speak to ourselves and to others. Ordinarily, we might not think much about the power of speech, but now in this time of physical and economic crisis, we need to consider carefully the emotional environment we create. After all, we live within the interpersonal space that we generate and we want that space to be as non-toxic as possible. The words we use matter.
Very often when I am speaking with friends and family these days I hear them say things like “If we could just get rid of that idiot in the White House, things would immediately improve!” or “The Democrats just want to run Trump out of office and they’re using this virus to crash the economy!” or “Can you believe what the governor did: he set back progress in dealing with the virus!” In none of these situations is the person speaking about anyone they personally know, or about details they are truly privy to, or about anyone who is in the room. They are, to use the popular phrase, “just letting off steam.” It turns out, though, we don’t let off steam when we blame. We just steam up more. Expressing irritation, especially when it is not face-to-face with a person you are actually communicating with, does not discharge your feelings, but instead increases frustration or irritation. Blaming others creates more hatred and blame, not less. And that kind of hatred and blame follows us around as we string it along.
At the beginning of the most popular text of the Buddha’s teachings, The Dhammapada, are three often-quoted lines about dwelling on blame:
“He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who
harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.
“He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who
do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.
Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred
appeased. This is a law eternal.
Adding to our interpersonal distress in this time of crisis is any statement of blame made irresponsibly or just to “let off steam.”
Why do humans take delight in blaming others? Why do we continue to repeat the same blaming statements even though they lead nowhere and don’t help? We are hard-wired to find faults – we notice what is wrong, rather than what is right, and we come with more negative emotions than positive ones. We are, so to speak, inclined to blame quickly and much less inclined to be grateful quickly for what others do for us. It may feel as though blame brings relief, especially if we are preaching to our choir and others concur, but in reality it stirs the pot of hatred more.
When it comes to COVID 19, it would seem impossible to place blame (wrongly and sadly, I thought this virus would bring us together to understand how to survive it, but that hasn’t happened) because there are countless entangled causes and conditions that have led to where we are now. For example, one cause is our collective desire for new iPhone technology and Apple products. That desire led directly to the international contact much of the world has had with Wuhan, China. In current confusion about the causes, the meaning, and the conditions of this virus – we still don’t know a great deal –we could simply and modestly pay attention to what is needed in our own lives while the scientists and experts find out more about the virus (see, for example, a report about innovative research on blocking the virus from hijacking the proteins in our cells, being done at UCSF, reported by Robin Marks on March 25, 2020) or we could blame politicians and pundits for “not doing enough.”
When I look at the media and journalism during this time, I often see in the headlines two entangled themes: increasing fear (how to “stay safe”) and blaming authorities for what they are getting wrong. Blame of those in charge is sometimes so baldly political that political parties are simply called out; this is not journalism or news. Perhaps there is an assumption that increasing emotional threat will keep people more alert, but that is simply wrong. Increased blame and increased fear just activate the fight-freeze-flight reactivity of the emotional brain and limit our ability to concentrate and reflect. Instead of becoming thoughtful about what we are facing, we react out of our old anxieties.
Our personal choice to blame others also has consequences. If we stir the pot of hatred and ill will, when it does not need stirring, the steam rises from it all the same. On the other hand, if pay close attention to what is actually happening in our own thoughts and feelings and work with these to lower the emotional threat to ourselves and others – we improve our mental health and those around us.
There are two sources I draw upon when I contemplate the human longing to blame someone (even God). One comes from Zen and the other from psychology. There is a story in Zen called “the empty rowboat” and it goes like this. You are rowing a boat across a lake and the water is clear and calm. You are on the way to meet a friend for lunch and are facing a time limit and so, you are stressed a bit. Rowing along, suddenly CRUNCH, another boat bumps into you hard. You are furious: “In this whole lake, why would somebody ram into me!?” You reel around to scream at the person and the boat is empty! No one to blame. Your heart rate recovers quickly and you go right on rowing, with no narrative of hatred and ill will.
To expand the meaning of the story from the perspective of a psychological theory that is backed by a lot of sound research, I like to cite “attribution theory.” Originated by Fritz Heider in the 20th century (expanded later by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner) it proposes that the attributions we make about events and behaviors of others contribute importantly to how we feel and think about them. For example, you are walking under a tree and a heavy branch falls on your head. It’s painful and you cringe, but you recover pretty quickly. But if you were walking under the same tree and someone hit you with that branch – same branch, same impact – you would react more strongly and feel the pain and distress more strongly and for a longer time than when you thought it “was an accident.” Same event, different meaning. Attribution theory has developed a comprehensive understanding of how we attribute meaning to events and others’ actions: a great deal of our reactivity rides on whether we feel that something “just happens” or is intended (even through stupidity) to harm us.
The Zen story of the rowboat ultimately asks us to go further than attribution theory does. When posed as a challenge, the Zen story asks if you actually can know the causes and conditions of every boat that rams into you. When you begin to look deeply into what brought you to a particular event, a particular moment, you see that one cause is nested in another and another and another until the whole universe has to be set up in a certain way for the boat to ram into you! Phew. You see that a lot of what happens in life is without blame. People don’t control or intend it. Even though you are responsible for your own words and actions, you really can’t figure out exactly why things happen as they do and there is no virtue in getting worked up with blame and ill-will.
No Blame: Lowering Emotional Threat Levels