You're already in a less open, less curious state when your language is that of "blame".
The more open-minded curious approach uses language more around cause and effect and studying causes vs correlations and looking for empirical evidence about how the world works.
When you notice that you are looking for who to blame, then the best thing for learning is to investigate your own reactive (though perhaps very subtly reactive) state.
"Facebook made me do it" is a blaming state too, and it leads nowhere to get stuck in that blaming mindset.
Wow, that was rude of you. Sorry, you being judgy and condescending about my mental state and whether I am or not curious is not conducive to a conversation here. I'll let you have the last word.
Oh, oops, I'm sorry about my sloppy writing that seemed rude. I intended the generic "you". I see now how that failed to come across.
I wrote:
> You're already in a less open, less curious state when your language is that of "blame".
And DUH, that reads first to almost anyone (including myself on re-reading) as "you (yes, you, person I'm replying to) are in a less open state… blah blah blah"
When what I meant to express was the other way around in the emphasis. The better edit could be:
When our language is that of "blame", it's a good indicator of being in a less open, less curious state.
And I only mean that in terms of a general idea that being in a blaming mindset is a common thing, and it's not as conducive to real curious learning as other ways of talking about something.
I didn't really know what your mindset was before, but I think I now know that at least after reading my poorly-phrased post, you then were in a triggered and reactive state. I'm sorry about that. Thanks for replying so that I could learn from this instead of me not noticing the issues with my post.
P.S. I think condescension is the worst derailer of any communication, and I don't blame you for reacting when you read my post as having that tone. I didn't actually have a condescending view. I get into reactive blaming states too, and I don't think I'm any better than you, and I don't think there's any shame in having common reactive feelings.
Ah, sorry yes I think I did misread your comment. Thanks for explaining!! I wasn't offended or anything, I just didn't see a path forward in the conversation.
Anyhoo, I'm not saying we need to abandon looking at how external agents influence behavior, all I'm saying is that personal responsibility is critical in informing how we look at behavior. Without that lens, it would almost impossible to implement a fair justice system. We can all work towards structural changes while still adopting a punitive stance when it comes to egregious violations of criminal and civil law.
Glad to actually get clarification of the misunderstanding. Thanks for being responsive!
I agree with you fully here. The semantic thing is that there's this useful self-reflective framing of contrasting "responsibility" from "blame" similarly to contrasting restoration vs retribution. The idea is that blame is about accountability, about finding fault, and it's commonly the mindset we're in when we're reactive in the sort of sense of not being stoic, being stuck on being mad that the world is the way it is and so on. By contrast, if we are taking responsibility, we are asking ourselves how to actually respond to the reality we face instead of focusing on figuring out who to blame. I know that's not a universally recognized distinction, but I find it very useful.
The more open-minded curious approach uses language more around cause and effect and studying causes vs correlations and looking for empirical evidence about how the world works.
When you notice that you are looking for who to blame, then the best thing for learning is to investigate your own reactive (though perhaps very subtly reactive) state.
"Facebook made me do it" is a blaming state too, and it leads nowhere to get stuck in that blaming mindset.