Blame becomes a meaningless concept the moment one understands how suffering in a family system or even in a community extends back through the generations. “Recognition of this quickly dispels any disposition to see the parent as villain,” wrote John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist who showed the decisive importance of adult-child relationships in shaping the psyche. No matter how far back we look in the chain of consequence—great-grandparents, pre-modern ancestors, Adam and Eve, the first single-celled amoeba—the accusing finger can find no fixed target. That should come as a relief.
