the.com/blame
The emotional accounting trick that converts your problem into someone else's personality flaw.
means To hold someone (or something) responsible for a fault or wrongdoing, usually by pointing at them instead of the problem itself.
from Traces back through Old French 'blasmer' to Latin 'blasphemare' — yes, the same root as 'blaspheme.' Originally it meant to revile or speak evil of someone, often in a religious sense; over time the sense softened from cursing someone's soul to simply pinning fault on them. So every time you blame your sibling for the broken vase, you're using a faded-out version of a word that once meant religious condemnation.
- etymology
- Shares a root with blaspheme — once meant literal verbal abuse
- psychology
- Lowers anxiety short-term, poisons relationships long-term
- neuroscience
- Activates same brain regions as physical threat response
- irony
- Easiest to assign, hardest to accept