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Originally Posted by Drolefille
Same with Columbine. Teachers and students looked back and said "what could we have done differently. It's still the shooters faults. They are responsible. But could we, as peers, have encouraged different behavior?
There are almost always other options.
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You've backed into a corner here, I think.
The concept of reflection that you're pushing really only gives two options:
1 - Was there something we could have done to prevent what happened?
2 - Was there something we did that caused what happened? (Note: this is akin to "is there something we could have NOT done to prevent what happened?" - this is important for logical consistency, I think)
#2, which is basically how I thought you'd phrased this earlier, is quite literally a 'blame' scenario - if you eliminate some action to prevent the undesirable response, we are left with no other choice but to determine that action was the 'cause' and thus they are at 'fault'.
#1, which is not nearly as direct in terms of 'blame', is much more important in something like Columbine, since it deals more directly with things like oversight, social interaction, etc - all malleable to an extent. I'm not sure that a nation's policies are comparable - the temporal nature of actions on this level means that the Monday Morning Quarterback implicitly acts with the benefit of hindsight and, most importantly,
knows the action/response dynamic of uncontrolled, volitile and often chaotic groups, individuals and systems affected by policies.
Sitting around going "Where did we go wrong? Why do Arab extremists hate us? Why did they feel the need to perform one of the most awful acts of modern history?" seems inherently flawed. Even if a situation was handled somewhat poorly, do you think the response was justified?
If the response was above and beyond what was justified, can we really assume that other situations would not have led to the same unjustifiable response?
I'm not saying there shouldn't be an examination of policies post hoc, but rather that this examination should be rooted in overall utility for the nation - not in some sort of knee-jerk/reactionary "Why oh why did they take that particular harsh action!" paralysis (or worse, politics).
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