Blame and accountability
(Nimue)
Content warning for abuse and bullying mechanics.
Blame is often a dead end, and seldom achieves much. It can lead towards punishment. In cultures where blame is prevalent, people are unlikely to feel safe about owning mistakes, and may be safer and better off if they lie or try to shift blame onto others. That shuts down scope for solving issues and improving anything.
Accountability on the other hand, is all about owning mistakes and being able to sort things out. Cultures of accountability promote forgiveness and understanding, enable problem solving and are focused on getting better outcomes. Honest mistakes are recognised as such. It’s a much healthier and more effective way to function.
Blame is something that gets weaponised a lot in abusive contexts. If you are in an environment where blame is a major issue then you can be confident that this is a space where both dishonesty and bullying are likely. Blame is about having power over others, and avoiding accountability. If people who could not have been the cause of the problem are blamed and punished then this is an abusive situation.
Abusers will often set up situations where there is no way of getting things right, and then blame the victim for getting it wrong. This is often supported by further gaslighting so that the victim feels they didn’t understand what they were trying to do, forgot something important, weren’t careful enough and so forth. They can end up internalising the blame – which is the intended outcome. Victims who blame themselves don’t try to escape and don’t fight back. Bullies and abusers often tell victims that the victim is making them do it – incredibly abusive behaviour is often blamed on the recipients. Your body does not cause rape, your tears do not cause violence, your innocent mistakes do not cause verbal abuse – and yet many victims are persuaded that this is true. Some abusers will try to convince their victims that said victim is actually a bully. This is disorientating and can leave deep wounds.
If this gets in, then you can end up trying harder and harder to appease the abuser rather than realising you aren’t the problem. You can end up constantly second guessing yourself, anxious about everything you do, blaming yourself, hating yourself and consequently unable to take care of yourself in any way. This has been me, and recovery is taking a lot of work and support.
There is, I eventually realised, a very simple way of looking at this. Does being accountable work? If it does, then all is well and you’ve just got some problems to solve. If you are doing your best to be accountable then it cannot be all your fault. If you are trying to fix things and trying to be a better person, taking onboard criticism and caring about how you impact on others, then you are good. If you respond to problems by looking for someone else to blame, denying your own responsibility then at the very least you are part of the problem. You can change that any time by switching over to accountability. If problems never seem to be your fault and you always blame others then you need to step up and become more accountable.
We’re all going to encounter these situations. As Druids we can build healthy communities and safe spaces by promoting accountability. We can challenge situations where blame culture dominates. We can help each other be accountable and take responsibility where we should be doing that, and we can watch each other’s backs for situations where blame and scapegoating are occurring. Accountability is essential for learning and growth, and creates safer, healthier spaces. Working for that can be an everyday Druidry choice.
Blame culture can be all about fear rather than necessarily coming from a desire to abuse and control. However, it does no one any good, so working to dismantle that by helping each other feel more confident and secure in our flawed humanity is good work to be doing.
