You might know that the phrase "pardon my French" basically means "just pretend that my bad language is French" What's less commonly known is the fact that the majority of swear words in the English language are actually derived from Germanic. Weird, right? Well, I asked a college English teacher why that was and he pointed out that because of the historical enmity between France in England, the English decided to attribute unpleasant language to their enemies.
As much as I find this fact interesting, I must say that what interested me the most was a pattern I was starting to see. A pattern of judging or blaming others to protect or make oneself feel better. This attitude in society isn't just a recent development. To prove it, let's take a look at some of society's oldest pieces of writing in the book of Genesis. In the first few pages God confronts Adam about eating some forbidden fruit. It's Eve's fault, he tells God, she told him it was okay. According to Eve, it's not her fault either, the serpent was the one to blame.
It seems it's all we see today. Society is so judgmental and unable to see past its ideals and standards. All we see in the news today is finger pointing and judgment and division. "It's so-and-so's fault that there's so much violence in the worlds today." or "Such-and-such a religious group is responsible for all of the discrimination. They're all such terrible people." Let's just think about this for a minute. Our society condemns itself by blaming others for being judgmental. It's a vicious cycle. If one group is judgmental of the other, the latter group will return the sentiment and from there, it just doesn't end. It is ridiculously ironic. Do you know what else is really ironic? The fact that we blame this vague character, society, for all of the bad stuff that happens. Society tries to make everyone conform to its narrow-minded standards. Society is so self-centered. It's Society's fault that women feel so pressured to fit a certain beauty standard. Society is so sexist, racist, biased, whatever...
Well, who is this Society, who is blamed for everything bad in the world? My general idea of Society was everybody but me and the people I would talk to about how bad Society was. So, how does that work if everybody thinks that way? Does that make Society a nonexistent and entirely fictitious entity? Then where do all of our problems come from? Surely, Society must exist. Well if it does it must mean that we are as much a part of Society as the rest of Society itself. Gasp. I know. It's more ironic than the fact that the obscure non-conventional, ironically uncool hipster is now a well known, stereotypical, and cool subculture.
So let's go back and look at the things we were blaming society (or certain equally vague groups within society) for. Just as I thought, it makes us look pretty bad. So what makes us do it? The same reason that the English blamed the French for the one area of their language that wasn't influenced by the French. The same reason that Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the Snake and on and on it goes. We don't like to look bad, we like to disassociate ourselves from the wrong and make ourselves blameless. Who doesn't want to be a good person?
The truth of the matter is, I'm probably just as biased as you are, and we're probably just as biased as the rest of the society that we are a part of. So the next time you're about to blame society or your parents, or anybody for the shitty things that happen (pardon my French) maybe stop and consider if what you're going to say is true or if you just need a scapegoat. Maybe just this once, we are to blame instead of them.
