Management of Similarity: Blame

Earlier posts in this series:

Poles of Attraction
Management of Similarity
Management of Similarity Moment

It’s important to understand what a narrative is.

Facts are objects and events. To create meaning, a narrative is necessary. A narrative is necessarily an compression of facts. Some facts are demoted and others promoted. Some are included, some excluded.

If I were to describe a trip to an animal shelter, I most likely would not mention the shirt that the receptionist was wearing. However, I might mention the dogs I passed over. Their behaviour might tell you something about my priorities. My curation of events helps you avoid irrelevant information, and focus on information that allows you to draw useful conclusions.

Here is where narratives may diverge. Another person might describe different dogs than I would, thereby giving the listener a different impression of my priorities. Both narratives would be compatible with the facts, but the conclusions drawn from them would be different.

Here is the important insight about narratives: there is no inherently correct narrative. Narratives are, by virtue of compression, untrue. Facts can be true, but since narratives omit facts, they are untrue, even if not false.

When a situation creates disappointment among different actors, it has always to do with narrative. One path to take is to assume that all actors are rational and equally motivated. Then we can ask who contributed unreasonably to the disappointment. We can assign blame to the guilty actors, and we can forgive them.

Narratives of Blame

Creating narratives of blame might seem easier, but it is not. The conversational loops of accusation and counter-accusation rarely end in consensus, and often end with frayed nerves. Creating narratives of blame might seem natural, but it is merely habit, derived from inherited notions of sin and guilt.

In the blame narrative, we are identifying bad actors. We are amplifying what we don’t want; we are putting our attention on differences and on disappointments. If you force someone to defend or justify his behaviour, you are more likely to get that behaviour in the future, precisely because a narrative of justification has been crafted in his defense. People who engage in blame culture never escape it because it is a loop. Forgiving bad actors doesn’t change that. It just makes a new cycle possible.

Narratives of Failure

Management of similarity is attention to what is what is working right, or how to make things work right. Someone might or might not be to blame, but here the approach is to examine the social structure in which the failure occurred.

Consider that an army is capable of enlisting the participation of some very incompetent and unmotivated people, and nevertheless it can achieve complicated and dangerous objectives, on schedule. The army does not assume that every soldier is a rational and motivated actor. It does not permit soldiers to do whatever they want, then blame the ones who do undesired things. An army has structure.

Similarly, if you want to bake a cake, and one of the participants is six years old, you do not assume that she is a rational and competent actor, who may later be blamed for failure. You assign her to her older sister.

If you build a rocket, you don’t tag each component with the name of the responsible person and launch. You institute checks and back-up systems.

The Desired Outcome narrative

When something has gone wrong, the first question to ask is, “What were you trying to do? What was your goal?”

Usually, people’s goals are more reasonable than their methods. It is easier to come to consensus about goals. When it comes to methods to achieve those goals, everyone can agree that at least one method is wrong, namely, the one that inspired the discussion. At this point, you must build a common narrative about how the goal is going to be accomplished, and what the contingency plans are going to be. The question is not who is responsible for taking out the trash, but rather, what shall be done when the trash is not taken out. What is the Plan B? Perhaps a secondary storage area is needed. Perhaps a private means of getting to the landfill is needed. Do you need a reminder system for taking out the trash? Do you need a second person to confirm the task has been completed?

If a plate is broken, are you going to have an investigation to discover the guilty party, or is there a common fund for replacing such loses? Do you switch to plastic plates for everyday use?

If someone left the front door open, shall the guilty party be ferreted out through the comparison of schedules? Or shall a door return arm be installed to ensure the door closes automatically?

Did someone put gluten in a meal intended for all? One solution is blame, apologies — and hunger, for at least one person. Another solution is to keep all allergy items in a separate cabinet, with the names of the affected persons on the door.

This type of second-guessing and planning might seem excessive, but consider the alternative: blame and resentment, forever.