An enthusiasm for the allocating of blame

Patty Limerick lists a few of the problems few, if any of us, are trying to solve in America today:

1. An incomplete recovery from the recession.

2. Difficulties in equitably providing health care.

3. The uncertain state of American power internationally.

4. The stalemated state of deliberation on the nation's energy future.

5. The population's inclination to obesity.

6. The fracturing of a national sense of common ground and shared affiliation by digital media.

7. Drought in the West.

8. The inability to identify, foster and consistently reward the qualities that make teachers effective.

9. The lag in maintenance and repair of the nation's infrastructure.

10. The crisis of immigrant children flocking to the border.

Try this line of thought: Let's say you go to work in the morning and you encounter a problem. You could spend the day thinking carefully, systematically and accurately about this problem, and then moving on, by mid-afternoon, to a resolution and remedy. Instead, you choose to devote the whole day to looking for a co-worker to blame and preparing statements of condemnation to heap on the successful candidate.

Would you feel, at the end of that day, that you had invested your time and effort productively? Even if you felt satisfaction and pride in a day well spent, would any of your co-workers agree?

And yet this batty way of taking on a problem is embraced widely in civic life today. Our leaders and many of our citizens are showing such an enthusiasm for the allocating of blame that they do not have an ounce of energy left over for actual problem-solving.

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