A woman lives with her husband in a small town. He goes off to work every day, leaving her home alone and bored. No wife of his will ever work. She forms the habit of taking $2 down to the Ferryman, who takes her across to the forest. She walks and returns home for another $2. After a time, she meets a ranger in the forest, with whom she strikes up a love affair.
Until one day, she oversleeps in the rangers hut. She rushes to the ferryman, but alas, has forgotten her money today. The Ferryman explains that he cannot let her board the last ferry of the day. He is managing a business, his boss would not allow favours, even though they are friends. The Wife bolts back to the Ranger to borrow the funds.
“I’m not comfortable getting involved” explains the Ranger, “This is just casual between you and I.”
One more dash to the ferry, but too late. The Wife decides to head through the dangerous part of the forest and cross a bridge to get home in the failing light. As she crosses, a Bandit sneaks up behind her and clubs the back of her skull. The blow is fatal, and the Bandit departs once he realises she has no coins. - Adapted from - The Butterfly Mosque.
Now the question is - Whose fault is it?
Husband? Wife? Ranger? Ferryman? Bandit?
I’ve asked this in so many classrooms, cultures, agegroups, settings, wordings and always get a wide variety of answers. My follow up question is always:
Explain why you believe this. Justify your opinion.
Common answers include:
The Husband’s fault - He should have looked after his wife better
The Wife’s fault - Ultimately we are all responsible for our own destiny
The Wife’s fault - She shouldn’t have been committing adultery
The Ranger’s fault - He slept with her, so should have helped her
The Ferryman’s fault - He was her friend and had a duty of care
The Bandit’s fault - He hit her on the head
Which brings us back to causality. Fault is subjective, and if you present an opinion, you cannot be wrong. It is also possible to stretch causal timeframes from millenia to moments. We can focus on mechanistic, social, or ecosystem wide interactions. (For an amazing exploration of this in more depth, particularly as it relates to primates, I strongly recommend the book ‘Behave’, by Robert Sapolski.)
For even more delicious grey areas, consider how the answers people give are influenced by the way we deliver the story, how we prime our audience, or the order in which we list the options.
Here are some common recent stories where people disagree as to causality, choices, or whether dichotomies exist.
An addict lands in jail after stealing some food
A primary school teacher runs a gender tolerance workshop, encouraging her students to express themselves, and is accused of sexualising children
A High school teacher honestly answers her student’s questions about sex during an English class and is dismissed for inappropriate behaviour
A young girl is out alone, dressed scantily, late at night and is gang raped
A person speaks out against a company decision and is warned not to do this. They continue speaking freely, and get fired.
A university professor tells a student their answer is incorrect and is dismissed for ‘bullying’.
A whistleblower exposes government crimes, and is tortured for the manner in which they exposed them.
A child’s parents refuse to inject known toxins into their newborn and are refused access to childcare, education, social programs
An elected politician fraudulently grants themself dictatorial powers and this is the fault of the voters, both for and against, somehow.
A human being refuses to inject a genetic experiment, and is choosing to be denied access to work, education, health care, transport
You’ll note that there is a common theme to these substacks - I am particularly bitter about the last 3 examples. I have ex-friends who still maintain it was ‘my choice’ to be persecuted as ‘unvaxxed’, and that parents choose to have society discriminate against their naturally healthy offspring, yet who also say it was the bandits fault, or the rapists fault. For many, Causality exists when convenient, otherwise victim-blaming will do just fine.
It's gobsmacking to me that your former friends effectively blamed you for being persecuted. I can see why they're ex-friends. Good riddance to bad rubbish.