There is a difference between blame and impact, which we sometimes forget in our current 鈥渨oe is me鈥� culture.
Take the Brennan Park pool closure.
It has sucked for many: folks who take lessons, teams preparing for competition, and especially for those who rely on it for physical therapy or a mental health boost. It has been a real hardship for some, and an inconvenience for many more.
But the vitriol that has flowed toward the District for it seems a little disproportionate.
After all, it was Vancouver Coastal Health that called for the closure of the pool, not the District.
And if it was no longer safe, for whatever reason, it needed to be investigated and fixed.
Something can be hard, but that doesn鈥檛 always mean punishment need follow.
To be clear, The 麻豆社国产 is looking to obtain freedom of information reports from Vancouver Coastal Health to find out more about what led to this closure.
Perhaps there is accountability to be found.
With accountability, we find out why something went wrong and ensure it doesn鈥檛 happen again.
And sure, we can bemoan that we don鈥檛 already have a better facility. Did previous councils drop the ball on getting us a new pool sooner? Perhaps.
But there is something unsettling about the people who pick up pitchforks, seeming to feel personally slighted, every time something goes wrong in town.
We seem to want to punish, rather than resolve.
Journalist, professor and author Frank Bruni鈥檚 book takes aim at the culture of blame in the U.S., but it is a culture alive and well north of the border, too.
He says it led to the election of President Donald Trump, who used real and perceived slights as a rallying cry.
Once you start looking, 鈥榳oe is me鈥� is everywhere.
鈥淚t infuses our cultural and political debates with an ill will that prevents us from forging compromises and finding common ground. Everything is grievance, and grievance often functions as the enemy of progress,鈥� Bruni writes, in a column in magazine.
Of course, this doesn鈥檛 mean there aren鈥檛 real victims or that everything that happens doesn鈥檛 include someone or something to blame.
But not everything is a slight. Sometimes crappy things happen and collectively finding a solution beats bringing out the pitchforks.
It is federal election season. Watch the politicians.
Some will use our habit of feeling slighted to attack the other guy. It is a tactic, as used by Trump, to make us feel wronged and give us someone to punish.
Expect and look for information on what the politician and party will do to make things better and create unity, rather than division.
That is how we progress, as people and as a society.
