fandomhigh | Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

//Right, so, the blame game.// Jono walked into the room today looking tired but triumphant. //I was up all bloody night re-planning this class, because something, somewhere, replaced all of my notes with photographs of bags of garbage sitting at the bottom of a cliff. No, I don't know why. I'm going to say it was the island. That seems to be the case, these days, more often than not.//

Garbage. He couldn't even begin to fathom what in the world was up with that.

//See, the thing about change, like with my new-found collection of rubbish heap photos, is that it's often not our own fault. Unless you have the power to cause natural disasters or you're a large disagreeable wolf, you probably didn't personally blow that house down. Somebody is ill and then they pass- Nothing you could've done about that. You might look further into it, perhaps the construction of the building was faulty or there was malpractice at play. Or perhaps you're on the flip side, looking to sue Planters because they didn't put a warning label on their product, warning you that it might contain nuts.//

That last bit was said mostly in jest, but there were people out there, he was sadly sure, who had most likely tried. Mr. Peanut would be truly disappointed.

//In a lot of cases, however, the blame game is something else. It acts as an excuse to not deal with the situation. It gives rise to a, 'well, they broke it, let them' fix it mentality that gets in the way of moving forward, of repairing the damage done or finding some way to counter it. It's where you end up with scapegoats, where people who might actually have nothing to do with a situation suddenly find themselves in the thick of it because rather than fix or learn to cope with the consequences of change, somebody else decided to pass the blame off on them.//

Jono shrugged his shoulders and held up what were, indeed, twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photos of garbage with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was.

//Today, I was sorely tempted to come in here and say, 'the island did it,' and throw a video at you lot. Fandom did it, it's not my fault, no harm, no foul. Instead I stayed up half the night - without coffee so help me - on a night I might've otherwise spent tossing around pretending that I'm not an insomniac. Sometimes it isn't your fault, but you have to knuckle down and do something about it anyway. This week, surprising nobody, I want you all to discuss the blame game, talk about the damage that might be caused when somebody prioritizes 'whose fault is this,' over 'how can I fix it?' As always, feel free to use examples from real life, whether you blamed someone else and it ended poorly, or someone blamed you, or somebody you know. 'I don't have to deal with this, it wasn't my fault' is often nice and easy to hold on to, but, unfortunately, that's not how the world works.//

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Talk about the damage that might be caused when somebody prioritizes 'whose fault is this,' over 'how can I fix it?' As always, feel free to use examples from real life, whether you blamed someone else and it ended poorly, or someone blamed you, or somebody you know.

"Wars can start over such things," Yeul said quietly. "If something goes wrong enough, if enough people blame one side and those people blame the other..."

She shrugged slightly.

"In that case, there was no fixing it. One half left and the other half remained behind. Saying what was the right choice... both sides thought that the solution was acceptable, even if nothing was fixed."

"We had a war start over 'you should have known not to do that, even though nobody told you'," Joker contributed. "Talk about blame."

"I understand," she said, nodding. "Similar things have happened in my world over the course of history. Blame is easy to give and no one likes to own up to their own mistakes."

Yeul tilted her head.

"Was there a clear victory in the war you mentioned?"

[And my notifs are totally MIA, so I'm sorry for the super slowness on my end.]

"Militarily? Naah. Ref stepped in and broke up the fight. Politically, though? We kicked everyone's asses. Someone you've never heard of takes the first baby steps off their planet and holds their own against the strongest navy in the galaxy? People stand up and take notice."

[Don't worry about the notifs -- it's all good.]

"It does sound impressive," she said politely, smiling a bit. "At least, put that way. I am glad it wasn't worse. Often it is."

"I... didn't mean it wasn't bad," Joker told her. "A lot of people died, on both sides, because of a stupid misunderstanding. And a lot of people are still blaming each other and fighting about it, still."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize," Yeul said, looking apologetic. "I apologize for making light of it, in that case."

"You... weren't really making light of it, either" Joker replied. "I mean, making light of it would be saying something like 'Man, that First Contact War was rough, but at least now there are all those pretty memorials on Shanxi!'"

"Well...you don't fix the thing that's broken or wrong, to start," Celia said, unconsciously flexing her right hand a bit. She wasn't quite ready to talk about all the blame she laid at her father's feet, or how she was trying to move past it. At least, not in front of the entire class. "Blaming someone might feel good in the moment -- and in all honesty, sometimes people deserve blame for the things they've done. But it doesn't accomplish a thing."

"You want to talk about damage, but what about all the good it does?" Joker asked, tongue firmly in cheek. "Prioritizing blame over solutions is how government works. I mean, without that, we might have to pay attention to what candidates are actually proposing when we go into the voting booth and refuse to vote for anyone on general principle."

"I know, right?" Cecil agreed. "I mean, if we had to focus on solving things instead of who looks good, it would just be crazy!"

He was possibly a bit more serious about it than Joker.

"It distracts you," Eleanor said. "If you focus on whose fault it is, you might get sidetracked into seeking revenge. It can be thoroughly counterproductive to what you really need."

Such as getting out of Rapture.

"But what if you really need revenge?" Cecil asked curiously.

"I know we're focusing more on blaming other people, but then there's also blaming yourself," Kathy offered. "I mean, it might not cause the same kind of outward harm as blaming someone else, but it can be just as hard to move past. Harder, maybe, because you're the only one holding you accountable."

She knew a lot more about self-blame than blaming others, honestly.

"I think self-blame has a lot to do with trying to gain a measure of control, though. Maybe all blame does. If someone's at fault, then it was something that could have been prevented, maybe even fixed. Blaming yourself--or someone else--might be easier to stomach than the idea that it was just too big or whatever for anyone to affect at all."

Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

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