I think blame is a lot more toxic to bystanders than regret. I see that as the binary, that you can focus on preventing blame or focus on preventing regret, but you can't do both. I am the child of someone who had a lot of blame toward others for restricting his path in life in various ways. I would much rather be the child of someone who made a decision to pursue gender transition that they later regretted than be the child of someone who blames the authorities for stopping them from pursuing their interest in gender transition.
I guess I don't really see the difference? Or why one is fine while the other is not, especially when there are so many cases where regret and blame are so tightly intertwined, blaming either ourselves for problems outside of our control or whoever let us get away with choosing at all. Please say more, if you feel like it!
I think blame is when there is a clear target of the grievance who is not you, while regret is when you acknowledge the decision you're unhappy with was on you. Regret tends to be inward in focus, while blame sprays out onto the outer world.
Hmm then I guess I'd say that I don't think there is much difference in quality between blame turned inwards vs outwards!! Like obviously weird little fascists who decide that they should sue their doctors for not saving them from regret are doing immense damage to the world outside of themselves, but that doesn't make me feel like turning blame inwards to the self is comparatively okay. The results of so many of our choices are so far outside of our control that self-blame seems almost entirely self-destructive, yanno??
Maybe that's a bit much, but I feel that way bc I spent a lot of my life trying very hard to live up to advice about various things (how to be productive, meet your goals, be ~intentional~ with your time etc) that fully just didn't work for me, in a paradoxical kind of way. I'm the sort of weirdo that is really good at making schedules, calendars, and to-do lists, etc but the act of making them seems to make me *worse* at actually achieving anything I set out to do. I spent a lot of time setting goals and then instantly failing at them because having the heuristic hanging over my head created performance anxiety that made me just totally shut down, instead of motivating me to reach for the goal like it's supposed to.
I still really haven't found a solution for this, lol, but it's at least led me to err on the side of refusing to blame anyone (myself or anyone else) except in situations where intentional harm is done.
I think the ability to do what you describe in the last paragraph of this comment (erring on the side of not blaming anyone except in instances of intentional harm) is probably the closest thing we can measure that corresponds with psychological strength which is arguably another concept very directly related to blame, regret, and forgiveness on a philsophical (and legal) level specifically due to how the issues of agency and consent are related to our understanding of intention in linear time. I'm not sure if that makes it any easier to untangle the concept of blame from that of regret, but the fact that only future me is able to in good conscience do one without the other kind of makes intuitive sense, right? Whereas, future you is specifically unconscionable and thus lacks the agency to give even implied consent.
Another banger. Can't wait for Part 2!
I think blame is a lot more toxic to bystanders than regret. I see that as the binary, that you can focus on preventing blame or focus on preventing regret, but you can't do both. I am the child of someone who had a lot of blame toward others for restricting his path in life in various ways. I would much rather be the child of someone who made a decision to pursue gender transition that they later regretted than be the child of someone who blames the authorities for stopping them from pursuing their interest in gender transition.
I guess I don't really see the difference? Or why one is fine while the other is not, especially when there are so many cases where regret and blame are so tightly intertwined, blaming either ourselves for problems outside of our control or whoever let us get away with choosing at all. Please say more, if you feel like it!
I think blame is when there is a clear target of the grievance who is not you, while regret is when you acknowledge the decision you're unhappy with was on you. Regret tends to be inward in focus, while blame sprays out onto the outer world.
Hmm then I guess I'd say that I don't think there is much difference in quality between blame turned inwards vs outwards!! Like obviously weird little fascists who decide that they should sue their doctors for not saving them from regret are doing immense damage to the world outside of themselves, but that doesn't make me feel like turning blame inwards to the self is comparatively okay. The results of so many of our choices are so far outside of our control that self-blame seems almost entirely self-destructive, yanno??
Maybe that's a bit much, but I feel that way bc I spent a lot of my life trying very hard to live up to advice about various things (how to be productive, meet your goals, be ~intentional~ with your time etc) that fully just didn't work for me, in a paradoxical kind of way. I'm the sort of weirdo that is really good at making schedules, calendars, and to-do lists, etc but the act of making them seems to make me *worse* at actually achieving anything I set out to do. I spent a lot of time setting goals and then instantly failing at them because having the heuristic hanging over my head created performance anxiety that made me just totally shut down, instead of motivating me to reach for the goal like it's supposed to.
I still really haven't found a solution for this, lol, but it's at least led me to err on the side of refusing to blame anyone (myself or anyone else) except in situations where intentional harm is done.
I think the ability to do what you describe in the last paragraph of this comment (erring on the side of not blaming anyone except in instances of intentional harm) is probably the closest thing we can measure that corresponds with psychological strength which is arguably another concept very directly related to blame, regret, and forgiveness on a philsophical (and legal) level specifically due to how the issues of agency and consent are related to our understanding of intention in linear time. I'm not sure if that makes it any easier to untangle the concept of blame from that of regret, but the fact that only future me is able to in good conscience do one without the other kind of makes intuitive sense, right? Whereas, future you is specifically unconscionable and thus lacks the agency to give even implied consent.
uhhh i guess not because i'm not sure what you mean by that last part, say more??
Thank you so much!!! 🌞 🙇♂️