A regrettable thing happened once at a place where I worked. One of those things that causes everyone to wonder exactly what happened and why it had happened, something that defied a ready explanation, and this profoundly frustrated the boss.
“Blame has to be fixed,” she said. I countered that if she insisted upon that without knowing for sure exactly what caused the problem, then “fixing the blame” on someone wouldn’t do any good at all. She would be able to explain it away to her boss as being the fault of so-and-so, but it would be a lie, and how would she like it if it happened to her?
In another scenario, she would say, “Those dead children? Those dead farm animals? The house that burned down? All your fault, Job. You should have had police watching the neighborhood, and better fences around your fields, and you shouldn’t have built your house in such a windy place. None of those things has ever happened to me because I haven’t made mistakes like you’ve made, Job. I’m really sorry for your problems, Job, but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you the truth, and the truth is, all that was your fault.”
“Is it my fault,” Job reflects, “that I live in a cruel world with cruel people and unimaginable misfortune?”
Some people insist on fixing blame, even on themselves, because that’s preferable to admitting that they don’t know why something went wrong. Something goes wrong, and there has to be an explanation, with the idea that the mistake can be avoided next time.
An employee is laid off because the board of directors decrees budget cuts, so the last person hired is the first person fired, and even this person thinks, “If only I was more attractive. If only I’d been nicer to the boss. If only I’d moved more product. If only I’d done better, I wouldn’t have been fired.” Blame has been fixed by the friends of Job who live inside her head. The worst of it is, maybe they’re right!
When a corporation earns profits, often it doesn’t matter how, or why. Credit must be fixed, so the CEO is rewarded with a bonus equal to the combined salaries of half his workforce, with bonuses also allocated to the vice presidents and such. Maybe the company has been relocated to another country with much lower operating costs and labor wages, so the local workers are fired and left destitute, but the stockholders profit.
“This is actually all for your own good,” the stockholders tell the unemployed peasants at the food bank. “Now you can get retraining at the local college and learn new jobs so you can get better jobs in the modern economy.”
But college is too expensive and financial aid isn’t available. “It’s the government’s fault,” say the college administrators.
“It’s the voter’s fault,” say the politicians.
“It’s the politicians fault,” say the unemployed workers.
“It’s the union’s fault,” say the board of directors and the executives.
“It’s our fault,” say the hungry children, “that my parents can’t put enough food on the table.”
“It’s God’s fault,” say the bitter parents.
Was it Job’s fault that he suffered, and was he responsible for the good fortune he enjoyed later? I don’t know. That’s the story, and we accept it on its own terms, and try to learn something from it.
“Where did it all go wrong?” I’ve been known to ask. “When did it all begin to turn around for the better?” is a question I ask that is equally difficult to answer, because there’s no knowing the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.
Sometimes we think we are at fault, when we are not, and sometimes we think we are not, but we are.
We all have friends who could have been the friends of Job, and with such friends, we don’t need enemies, but we all have them all the same. Having such friends and enemies, we should have empathy enough to simply, quietly suffer with those who suffer that we might share in their joy when at last we know the truth, and when, at last, the righteous are rewarded.