After the smoke clears, we begin to apportion blame. We have a natural tendency to try to shift the blame onto others, avoiding guilt and responsibility for errors. But there are some obvious problems with this strategy.
When I make mistakes I blame myself. It is emotionally painful. A behaviourist would call it negative re-inforcement and wonder what behaviour becomes less frequent due to this negative re-inforcement.
Do I make mistakes less often? It doesn't seem to work like that. The behaviour that declines is that of recognising my mistakes. Not recognising my mistakes has the same drawbacks as recognising them but then blaming others.
Naturally mistakes should be collected and filed away as negative training instances. I do reasonably well when playing serious games of Go, intending to learn to play better. Over and above that one needs to be aware of the dynamics that ones emotional responses are creating. Both collection and filing are at risk.
And yet people with internal attributional styles (ie, take blame for all of thier decisions) tend to be the most depressed... I would suggest that people critically examine how things in thier life occurred so they can make wiser decisions in the future, but not assume that they could have known to act differently before-hand. The word blame implies a moral failing or weakness of judgement that did not necessarily exist.
The Seven Stages of a Project, which I remember going around in the 70s, is still on the web
Phase 1: Uncritical AcceptancePhase 2: Wild enthusiasmPhase 3: Dejected disillusionmentPhase 4: Total confusionPhase 5: Search for the guiltyPhase 6: Punishment of the innocentPhase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants
To say "I was not to blame for what happened" is to say "I could not have prevented it", which is to say "In future situations like that, I will be helpless".
That doesn't really follow. "I could not have prevented it" is ambiguous between two readings, "could have ... with foreknowledge" and "could have ... without foreknowledge". For instance, you may not have known that that patch of road was notoriously icy and slippery, but you'll sure know it next time. So there's an undistributed middle term in the implied syllogism.
Patri's point links well with Dennett's 'variety of free will worth wanting' : under his determinism, consideration of moral responsibility for what is past is meaningless.Learning to do better in the future is, on the other hand, our freedom.
I&#8217m reminded of a scene in Pride and Prejudice:
It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, &#8220Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.&#8221
&#8220You must not be too severe upon yourself,&#8221 replied Elizabeth.
&#8220You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.&#8221
Patri Friedman reminds us why it's important to own up to our failures or missteps, and makes the interesting connection between accepting blame and holding hope: After the smoke clears, we begin to apportion blame. We have a natural tendency
The best way to disarm unilaterally IMHO is to exercise care in your choice of career.
For example, the "adversarial" legal system of the English-speaking countries rewards people who use self-deception to deflect blame from themselves and their clients, so a person with a habit of looking internally rather than externally for the cause of their behavior and their experiences might want to avoid law school. If they go to law school, they should plan to write books or teach rather than represent clients. The occupations of professional columnist in the main-stream media, professional popular blogger, elected official and electioneer seem to me almost uniformly hostile to this habit. In contrast, the trades (carpentry, plumbing, etc), engineering, information technology and the natural sciences are known by me to be conducive for the most part. I recall reading an autobiography (Ulam's?) in which the person's businessman father encouraged the person to pursue a career in the sciences to avoid the "compromises" required by a career in business. (I am not surprized to learn from his web site that Patri has degrees in math and computer science.) I am beginning to think that most jobs in non-profit organizations are fairly hostile to leading a life of low self-deception because prospering in those jobs usually entails maintaining an impression of being altruistic or dedicated to a social mission while diverting the organization's resources to the organization's employees and their friends. In other words, the "informal economy" based on reciprocal altruism rather than monetary transactions plays a very large role in the lives of most employees of non-profits.
My parents drilled into me from a very early age this habit of looking internally rather than externally for the cause of my behavior and my experiences. As far as I can tell, the effects have been positive and very significant. Although it is possible to take this habit too far, I recommend it for almost everybody who is not suffering from pathological perfectionism or pathological guilt.
Finally, here are some quotes from John David Garcia that say something similar to what Patri just said in a way I find very inspiring.
There's a symmetry there: if others weren't so eager to shift blame to us at the slightest opportunity, we wouldn't be so rapid to try and defend ourselves instinctively.
But in social and business interactions, when blame is a weapon, who would want to disarm unilaterally?
Patri Friedman, at overcomingbias, makes a nice point "Errors are valuable training instances, and our bias against accepting blame reduces the number available". And on...
When I make mistakes I blame myself. It is emotionally painful. A behaviourist would call it negative re-inforcement and wonder what behaviour becomes less frequent due to this negative re-inforcement.
Do I make mistakes less often? It doesn't seem to work like that. The behaviour that declines is that of recognising my mistakes. Not recognising my mistakes has the same drawbacks as recognising them but then blaming others.
Naturally mistakes should be collected and filed away as negative training instances. I do reasonably well when playing serious games of Go, intending to learn to play better. Over and above that one needs to be aware of the dynamics that ones emotional responses are creating. Both collection and filing are at risk.
And yet people with internal attributional styles (ie, take blame for all of thier decisions) tend to be the most depressed... I would suggest that people critically examine how things in thier life occurred so they can make wiser decisions in the future, but not assume that they could have known to act differently before-hand. The word blame implies a moral failing or weakness of judgement that did not necessarily exist.
The Seven Stages of a Project, which I remember going around in the 70s, is still on the web
Phase 1: Uncritical AcceptancePhase 2: Wild enthusiasmPhase 3: Dejected disillusionmentPhase 4: Total confusionPhase 5: Search for the guiltyPhase 6: Punishment of the innocentPhase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants
To say "I was not to blame for what happened" is to say "I could not have prevented it", which is to say "In future situations like that, I will be helpless".
That doesn't really follow. "I could not have prevented it" is ambiguous between two readings, "could have ... with foreknowledge" and "could have ... without foreknowledge". For instance, you may not have known that that patch of road was notoriously icy and slippery, but you'll sure know it next time. So there's an undistributed middle term in the implied syllogism.
Patri's point links well with Dennett's 'variety of free will worth wanting' : under his determinism, consideration of moral responsibility for what is past is meaningless.Learning to do better in the future is, on the other hand, our freedom.
I&#8217m reminded of a scene in Pride and Prejudice:
It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, &#8220Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.&#8221
&#8220You must not be too severe upon yourself,&#8221 replied Elizabeth.
&#8220You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.&#8221
With Blame Comes Hope
Patri Friedman reminds us why it's important to own up to our failures or missteps, and makes the interesting connection between accepting blame and holding hope: After the smoke clears, we begin to apportion blame. We have a natural tendency
So let us instead be honest about how we could have acted differently, even when things turn out craptacularly.
Not advise that everyone would be wise to follow in this age of lawsuits.
Or for anyone who works within a bureaucracy.
How do you reward people for this behaviour?
So let us instead be honest about how we could have acted differently, even when things turn out craptacularly.
Not advise that everyone would be wise to follow in this age of lawsuits.
Or for anyone who works within a bureaucracy.
How do you reward people for this behaviour?
The best way to disarm unilaterally IMHO is to exercise care in your choice of career.
For example, the "adversarial" legal system of the English-speaking countries rewards people who use self-deception to deflect blame from themselves and their clients, so a person with a habit of looking internally rather than externally for the cause of their behavior and their experiences might want to avoid law school. If they go to law school, they should plan to write books or teach rather than represent clients. The occupations of professional columnist in the main-stream media, professional popular blogger, elected official and electioneer seem to me almost uniformly hostile to this habit. In contrast, the trades (carpentry, plumbing, etc), engineering, information technology and the natural sciences are known by me to be conducive for the most part. I recall reading an autobiography (Ulam's?) in which the person's businessman father encouraged the person to pursue a career in the sciences to avoid the "compromises" required by a career in business. (I am not surprized to learn from his web site that Patri has degrees in math and computer science.) I am beginning to think that most jobs in non-profit organizations are fairly hostile to leading a life of low self-deception because prospering in those jobs usually entails maintaining an impression of being altruistic or dedicated to a social mission while diverting the organization's resources to the organization's employees and their friends. In other words, the "informal economy" based on reciprocal altruism rather than monetary transactions plays a very large role in the lives of most employees of non-profits.
My parents drilled into me from a very early age this habit of looking internally rather than externally for the cause of my behavior and my experiences. As far as I can tell, the effects have been positive and very significant. Although it is possible to take this habit too far, I recommend it for almost everybody who is not suffering from pathological perfectionism or pathological guilt.
Finally, here are some quotes from John David Garcia that say something similar to what Patri just said in a way I find very inspiring.
There's a symmetry there: if others weren't so eager to shift blame to us at the slightest opportunity, we wouldn't be so rapid to try and defend ourselves instinctively.
But in social and business interactions, when blame is a weapon, who would want to disarm unilaterally?
How We Justify Foolish Acts and Bad Decisions
Patri Friedman, at overcomingbias, makes a nice point "Errors are valuable training instances, and our bias against accepting blame reduces the number available". And on...