What motivates political blame?

Great Debates
1

In this pit thread, a conservative pundit is quoted as blaming liberal cultural values for 9/11.

It seems to me that over the last five years, a huge proportion of the intellectual discourse around 9/11 and the ensuing American-started war on and in Iraq has been dedicated to discussing whose fault 9/11 is. The question of “why” it happened quickly degrades to “who is to blame.”

And, in the meta-discussion about the discussion, we talk about how hateful, manipulative, decietful, and false fill-in-the-blank-group is for blaming the other side (in this decidedly two-sided issue).

However, I suggest that the motivation behind much of the finger-pointing is not a desire for power, or of one-upmanship. It is, in fact, that people are unwilling to carry blame themselves, and in fact are intensely affraid of being responsible in any way for what is going on.

We do this all the time for smaller issues. We avoid getting entangled in situations because we don’t want to be blamed for any negative outcome. Avoidance and isolation is the name of the game when a person wants to get by in life with the least amount of hastle and trouble.

So, when the pundit quoted says:

I don’t think he really cares much about the left. He is just deathly affraid that his team might bear any degree of responsibility. Like the sibling who knocks over a fragile lamp while playing tag in the living room, all he can do is point at his brother and yell, “he did it!” when mom comes into the room.

I don’t know if I’m making a lot of sense, but all of the discourse around 9/11 makes a lot more sense to me when viewed through this lens. People are blaming others as a method of self-defense and self-preservation, not because of a genuine hatred or vendetta towards their neighbor who happens to disagree politically.

(of course, I feel this is true in a general sense. There are many people out there who get a lot of joy out of making other people squirm. I’m not saying that these people don’t exist, or that they are justified in behaving as they do. However, I think that even most of these people’s actions are based initially in a need for security and control, as opposed to genuine unbiased passion about the issues).

2

Osama bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, George W. Bush is responsible for Iraq. Next question?

3

Ah, thank you for clarifying that for me.

Since the deep question of the thread title has been settled, perhaps we could spend a little time talking about the wholely less-important part of this thread: the content of the post.

Namely, given that there are many pundits of all stripes whose MO consists of looking (or not) at facts and then consistantly placing blame for 9/11 (though this can be applied to other issues as well) on the “other” group(s), it might be worth considering, for the sake of harmony and understanding, that the reasons for this behaviour lie in a need to isolate oneself (or one’s tribe) from responsibility, fault, and trouble. And, that despite the joy one might get in imagining one’s political opposites as angry, violent and sinister, there is a much less malicious force at work than it is convenient to believe.

4

A possible outcome of cognitive dissonance?

Nail. Head. Hit.

I agree in general, although I’m not willing to dismiss consideration of the vendetta possibility. Demonization of the other side is not trivial, even if the cause is something irrational, or the product of cognitive dissonance, something like demonizing the other side to make one’s spurious and personal attacks seem more justified.

Many, possibly most vendettas, do not have concrete provocation. But that does not make them any less real.

5

While the above may have sounded to the OP like a snippy way of answering, it sounds perfectly true to me.

How can it be the fault of the ‘cultural left’ that a group of people headed by Bin Laden decided to attack? They are completely responsible for their own actions and decisions. Saying ‘My brother made me do it’ didn’t fly with my mom and saying ‘The left made them do it!’ doesn’t fly with me.

6

That’s a good point. I guess I’m responding to the implications (or flat-out accusations) that the opposition is “evil.” That, to me, implies sinister motivations, and I think it would behoove us all to evaluate whether or not a person or group is actually acting agressively for personal gain or pleasure, or is in fact responding defensively to a situation out of fear. If nothing else it may help stear discourse in such a way as to bring us back from the extreme polarization in which we find ourselves.

7

Anyone that makes the statement that some set of cultural values help by portions of the U.S. is responsible for 9/11 has clearly no understanding of the events leading up to it. And is just using it as a political tool.

9/11 happened as result of security and foreign policy decisions(or the lack there of) in the months, years, and decades leading up to 9/1.

8

With apologies to the OP, that is just right. Osama for 9/11 and Bush for Iraq. Yes, there is a ton of circumstances that surrounded each of those when they made their decision but, in the end, they made those decisions.

Also, there are the facilitating circumstances that **griffin1977 ** describes but they just made a difference in the degree of difficulty that the “deciders” had to face to carry out their plans. Osama didn’t attack the US because it was easy, he did because he wanted to.

When you are mugged, it is not your fault for having a watch. Even if you are stupid enough to flaunt a $25K watch in a seedy neighbourhood. It is always the mugger who mugs you.

9

While I do ask that question in the thread title, I would think that from what I posted in the OP itself, it would be evident that:

[list=a]
[li]This thread is not about who specifically is to blame for 9/11, and[/li][li]I disagree with the fellow quoted; I do not think the cultural left is responsible for 9/11[/li][/list]

I’ll ask a mod to change the title from:
The Blame Game: whose fault is Iraq/911?

to:
What motivates political blame?

. . . which I don’t really want to do, but it seems that folks are fixated on the title of the thread while ignoring the actual content of the post.

10

The same thing that motivates all kinds of blame. To make yourself look better than the other party. It comes back down to personal responsibility. What is the point of blame if not to shift the focus to how bad someone or some other group is? If the focus is on others faults or at least perceived faults, then you don’t have to be accountable for your own shortcomings.

11

This is pretty much what I was trying to say, and I apologize for being snippy originally.

Saying “without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened” may or may not be true, but that wouldn’t make the left responsible for the attack. The fault lies with the people who commit the crime, not the people they try to use as justification. If Helen Hunt hadn’t been a famous movie star, Hinckley wouldn’t have shot Ronald Reagan. But only an idiot would say that Helen Hunt was responsible for the shooting or that it was her fault. It was Hinckley’s fault that he shot the president, just like it’s bin Laden’s fault that he attacked the United States and it’s Bush’s fault that he attacked Iraq.

12

IMO these kind of comments are just an extension of the concept of bad things happening because of someone’s behaviour (someone else of course) has “angered the gods” or because of the “witch” in the next hut.

A concept that is still around and well in some quarters of course .

13

This sounds like a lot of “Great man theory” stuff. Thousands of people are responsible for each, in terms of planning and many other ways. Those two probably have the most responsibility, although Khalid Sheikh Muhammad is about as responsible for September 11 as Bin Laden. You can’t say Bin Laden was solely responsible; he wasn’t even on the planes. The advisors who said we should invade Iraq share blame, and so do the Representatives who decided it was unnecessary or not politically expedient to ask about Iraq are also responsible for what’s happening over there. It’s a long list and there’s no way any single person can be blamed for the whole thing.

Why it happened is important, and the list of reasons is long. “Who is to blame?” is obfuscation.

14

Changed title per request of OP.