...and the "other half" (as if there are only two perspectives) scapegoat just as handily: corporations, racist people, sexist people, homophobic people, Russian hackers, Fox News, the bourgeois, disloyal white women, people who "vote against their interests", patriotic people, spiritual people, uneducated people, cherry-picked structural injustice, and pretty much anything that doesn't support their preconceived notions of the world.

I'm frankly tired of people seeing problems and immediately outgrouping others, attaching blame, and spewing hate. This will continue to be a disease in our culture until people can learn to understand and disagree and live and let live.

For many progressives I know, those things are blamed indeed, but for society's problems, not their own. There's a real difference there, deriving from the difference in political philosophy. Broadly speaking, the left believes that if you address structural social issues, individuals will eventually have paths to succeed. The right believes that if everyone focuses on the problems they themselves experience, society will eventually improve. Either ethic can be applied in the extreme with disastrous results.

> ...those things are blamed indeed, but for society's problems, not their own.

That's a good point in some cases. But in many cases that doesn't hold. Meryl Streep outgrouped popular, middle American, and "lowbrow" culture(s) when ranting about how they impact on her job. Gay marriage and abortion views are certainly personal complaints as well as social ones. Distaste for spiritual people typically stems from a personal grudge more than a dry academic philosophy about the social impact of disagreements about metaphysical reality or something. How about bikes versus cars disputes in urban areas? Or disagreements about Bay Area rent?

I can come up with more examples. I think there's a "I'm just being the rational one here" type of cognitive dissonance from basically all perspectives. Even that attitude holds the seeds for outgrouping (those irrational people!).

So maybe "some people" is actually most people.

In fact, I'd say Travis is 100% correct. Most people out there would rather blame someone else for their problems than take personal responsibility.

>Most people out there would rather blame someone else for their problems than take personal responsibility.

And why not? There are 8 billion people out there, and one of you. And tons of people who came before the person was even born and shaped the place one was born in, were responsible for their childhood, designed their education programs etc. And of course others are in power and shape policy.

Who is more likely to have created/sustain the situations affecting someone? Themselves or the tons of others?

This is balanced, to some degree, by locality and focus. I leave open the question of how it all nets out.

For a slave in ancient Rome, for example, it would be quite absurd to consider himself responsible for his fate.

A few opportunities aside, I'm not sure it's much different for a modern person.

Only, in some cases, people actually have another person to blame... Like in the case of this driver.