You've Got Someone to Blame

A recent telephone conversation:-

Mobile Phone Rings -- Unknown Number
Me: Hello
Caller: Is that Mr White?
Me: Yes, who is this please?
Caller: I'm calling from (name-of-claims-company-spoken-very-fast-so-I-can't-actually-catch-it). According to our database, you may have had an accident in the last 5 years that wasn't your fault.
Me: No, not that I can recall.
Caller: Really? No accident at work, (Me:No) no car accident (Me:No), no accident in a shop or public place (Me:No).
Me: Can I ask what your database actually says, because the information is obviously wrong
Caller: No its not, it says you may have had an accident in the last five years - anyone may have had an accident.
Me: So, you mean its just a database of names of people to call and hassle. In that case please can you..
Caller rings off, presumably to avoid a request to remove my name from the database.

The thing is, these calls are hardly uncommon these days. It seems we live in a culture where what we really want to do, whenever anything goes wrong, is find someone to blame. Anyone to blame, that is, anyone so long as its not ourselves

You see it everywhere - certainly all over the news. Things go wrong, blame the government. Or the previous government, the Unions, the Press, George W. Bush (well, we can blame a lot of things on Dubya), Gordon Brown, Maggie Thatcher.... Not big enough - okay, lets blame the Eurozone, America, climate change. Still not big enough... I know, we can blame the bankers. Okay, so its really big - lets blame God then.

Its not new -- lets go right back to the beginning - when Adam and Eve eat the apple and God confronts them, Adam says "It was the woman's fault", and Eve responds "no, blame the serpent!"

But actually, shouldn't we start looking a bit closer to home... in the early 20th Century - the Time newspaper posed the question "What's wrong with the world?". They had a number of answers, covering a range of economic, political and sociological answers. In contrast, G.K. Chesterton's response was:-

Dear Sirs:

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G. K. Chesterton