My latest article
The Western Herald - Playing blame game only avoids solving problems
Playing blame game only avoids solving problems
by Duane Gundrum
September 02, 2004
Whenever a horrible situation involving young people happens in America, after the shock wears off, I immediately start fearing the natural tendency of the mainstream press and adult advocacy groups to blame specific targets. When a few kids at Columbine High School went nuts and killed fellow students and their teachers, it didn’t take long for the recriminations to begin. In practically every example I can think of, it didn’t take hardly any time whatsoever for the hype to begin, blaming activities of children for their eventual misdeeds.
In the Columbine case, almost immediately, there were reports that these kids may have done their horrible deeds because they played computer games called Doom and Diablo; there was also a series of reports casting blame on that most evil of games, Dungeons and Dragons. In other incidents, I’ve seen blame cast upon rock ’n’ roll music, violence in games, movies, television, and on so many other types of casual entertainment that one would think that our society is nothing but a bastion of evil, training our youth to become psychotic killers.
What has never ceased to amaze me is that no one ever seems to cast blame inward, coming forward and saying, “You know, perhaps it was my bad parenting that might have caused a problem here.” Or maybe it’s even simpler than that. Perhaps the blame can be cast on the individuals themselves without a single influence from any of these sources whatsoever. During the Columbine situation, the investigation turned up that these students were ridiculed during their school years by other students, but to this day, I have yet to see any attempt to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Oh, they made all sorts of other changes, like making sure students didn’t wear trench coats, but honestly, how much safer do you think that really made high school environments? For a short while, things will appear safe, and then yet another huge story comes out about some kid or group of kids that just went nuts, and the blame game starts all over again. This goes on until we forget and then a new one starts up after that.
I’m going to go out on several limbs here. First, I don’t think computer games, porn, music, Satan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or non-stop karate movies can turn someone into a violent individual, ready to kill at a moment’s notice, unless that person was already unstable to begin with. I’ve played a lot of these games, listened to a lot of this music, dated Buffy (okay, in my fantasies only) and watched non-stop karate movies, and I’ve found such exercises great moments of enjoyment. Not once have I ever thought of hurting another person because of these activities. Now, cut in front of me on the highway, and you’re toast, but that’s another story. Everyone knows getting behind the wheel of a car is allowed to turn you into a raving lunatic. That’s socially acceptable, from what I can understand. In the same vein, I don’t think these activities turn individuals into bad people unless they were bad people to begin with.
The second limb I’m going to go out on is what I suspect the real problem is: accountability. No one wants to take responsibility for any situation when things go bad. From politics to personal daily actions, no one is responsible for anything. Presidents aren’t responsible for wrong decisions that might bring us to war because they were given faulty intelligence; political front-runners aren’t responsible for their actions after wars they’ve fought in because they were young; you’re not responsible for being late turning in your last paper because your printer wasn’t working; the media isn’t responsible for crappy reporting because they give us what we “want;” and parents aren’t responsible for the actions of their children because of the influences of evil entertainment.
Our country has reached a point where we don’t seem to be accountable for anything we do. We’re always right, and if someone figures we’re wrong, either that individual is biased against us, or the information we used was flawed in some way. Unless someone is misunderstanding me, I’m completely right on this issue. Either that or you’re disagreeing with me because you disagree with my political beliefs. I know this because I can’t be wrong.
I was reading an article about the music industry bringing lawsuits against people for downloading illegal music, and the article indicated that people were settling with the music companies because they couldn’t afford lawyers to fight back. And for a moment, I was thinking, “Man, those music companies are taking advantage of poor people and ...” right before I realized that I’m falling into the exact same trap. People who aren’t downloading illegal music aren’t being brought into litigation, but those that did download illegal music seemed to have a whole lot of excuses (”my kids did it,” “it shouldn’t be illegal,” and “they shouldn’t have access to my account to find out I was stealing”). Does anyone see a trend here? The solution was kind of simple. Don’t do it.
But no, nothing we do is wrong. There is always an excuse.
To sum up, I would just like to say that as citizens of the most powerful country in the world, we need to start taking some responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Next time you’re fishing for an excuse, just say you did it, you’re sorry and it won’t happen again. I know it won’t happen, but it would sure be nice to see it more often.
By the way, if there’s anything about this article you don’t like, I’m blaming the copy editor. It’s all her fault.
Duane Gundrum, the Western Herald opinion editor, is a Ph.D. student from Santa Monica, Calif., studying political science.
Stumble It!
The Western Herald - Playing blame game only avoids solving problems
Playing blame game only avoids solving problems
by Duane Gundrum
September 02, 2004
Whenever a horrible situation involving young people happens in America, after the shock wears off, I immediately start fearing the natural tendency of the mainstream press and adult advocacy groups to blame specific targets. When a few kids at Columbine High School went nuts and killed fellow students and their teachers, it didn’t take long for the recriminations to begin. In practically every example I can think of, it didn’t take hardly any time whatsoever for the hype to begin, blaming activities of children for their eventual misdeeds.
In the Columbine case, almost immediately, there were reports that these kids may have done their horrible deeds because they played computer games called Doom and Diablo; there was also a series of reports casting blame on that most evil of games, Dungeons and Dragons. In other incidents, I’ve seen blame cast upon rock ’n’ roll music, violence in games, movies, television, and on so many other types of casual entertainment that one would think that our society is nothing but a bastion of evil, training our youth to become psychotic killers.
What has never ceased to amaze me is that no one ever seems to cast blame inward, coming forward and saying, “You know, perhaps it was my bad parenting that might have caused a problem here.” Or maybe it’s even simpler than that. Perhaps the blame can be cast on the individuals themselves without a single influence from any of these sources whatsoever. During the Columbine situation, the investigation turned up that these students were ridiculed during their school years by other students, but to this day, I have yet to see any attempt to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Oh, they made all sorts of other changes, like making sure students didn’t wear trench coats, but honestly, how much safer do you think that really made high school environments? For a short while, things will appear safe, and then yet another huge story comes out about some kid or group of kids that just went nuts, and the blame game starts all over again. This goes on until we forget and then a new one starts up after that.
I’m going to go out on several limbs here. First, I don’t think computer games, porn, music, Satan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or non-stop karate movies can turn someone into a violent individual, ready to kill at a moment’s notice, unless that person was already unstable to begin with. I’ve played a lot of these games, listened to a lot of this music, dated Buffy (okay, in my fantasies only) and watched non-stop karate movies, and I’ve found such exercises great moments of enjoyment. Not once have I ever thought of hurting another person because of these activities. Now, cut in front of me on the highway, and you’re toast, but that’s another story. Everyone knows getting behind the wheel of a car is allowed to turn you into a raving lunatic. That’s socially acceptable, from what I can understand. In the same vein, I don’t think these activities turn individuals into bad people unless they were bad people to begin with.
The second limb I’m going to go out on is what I suspect the real problem is: accountability. No one wants to take responsibility for any situation when things go bad. From politics to personal daily actions, no one is responsible for anything. Presidents aren’t responsible for wrong decisions that might bring us to war because they were given faulty intelligence; political front-runners aren’t responsible for their actions after wars they’ve fought in because they were young; you’re not responsible for being late turning in your last paper because your printer wasn’t working; the media isn’t responsible for crappy reporting because they give us what we “want;” and parents aren’t responsible for the actions of their children because of the influences of evil entertainment.
Our country has reached a point where we don’t seem to be accountable for anything we do. We’re always right, and if someone figures we’re wrong, either that individual is biased against us, or the information we used was flawed in some way. Unless someone is misunderstanding me, I’m completely right on this issue. Either that or you’re disagreeing with me because you disagree with my political beliefs. I know this because I can’t be wrong.
I was reading an article about the music industry bringing lawsuits against people for downloading illegal music, and the article indicated that people were settling with the music companies because they couldn’t afford lawyers to fight back. And for a moment, I was thinking, “Man, those music companies are taking advantage of poor people and ...” right before I realized that I’m falling into the exact same trap. People who aren’t downloading illegal music aren’t being brought into litigation, but those that did download illegal music seemed to have a whole lot of excuses (”my kids did it,” “it shouldn’t be illegal,” and “they shouldn’t have access to my account to find out I was stealing”). Does anyone see a trend here? The solution was kind of simple. Don’t do it.
But no, nothing we do is wrong. There is always an excuse.
To sum up, I would just like to say that as citizens of the most powerful country in the world, we need to start taking some responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Next time you’re fishing for an excuse, just say you did it, you’re sorry and it won’t happen again. I know it won’t happen, but it would sure be nice to see it more often.
By the way, if there’s anything about this article you don’t like, I’m blaming the copy editor. It’s all her fault.
Duane Gundrum, the Western Herald opinion editor, is a Ph.D. student from Santa Monica, Calif., studying political science.
Stumble It!
posted by Duane @ 4:19 AM
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