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About this quote

What does it mean?
Blaming others is treated as a sign of being smart or virtuous.
In plain terms
Our culture rewards blaming people instead of solving problems.
What can you take from it?
Blame is often mistaken for virtue or intelligence.

Where it applies

  • media criticism
  • social commentary
  • conflict

Putting it to work

  • question blame culture
  • seek solutions over fault

Questions to consider

  • Is blame ever productive?
  • How do we value solutions over blame?

Another view

Blaming can be useful for accountability in some contexts.

More from Lionel Trilling

  1. Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our p…

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  2. There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.

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  3. The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

    Permalink to quote #20

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