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Originally Posted by ironman
Bottom line, once again, i think this is the now more often typical case of not taking responsability for own actions and the stupid necessity of everybody to find responsability (through seudo-psycology) for someone's mistakes in third person's actions. "The guy killed 4 in a convenience store assault".- it's not his fault, is society's fault for not giving him enough opportunities. "The dude raped 5 women and molested chilren".- you should understand that it's not his fault, he was raped by his uncle when he was 7.
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Traditionally, in the world of social psychology, the "fundamental attribution error" describes a person's tendency to see his own actions as a product of the environment, and a third party's as due to some innate personality trait. That's not to argue that one is correct and the other is wrong, but i thought it'd contrast the "pseudo-psychology" of seeking external explanations for a person's behaviour.
Whilst i don't doubt that some people argue as you criticise, i personally see a distinction between assigning responsibility and identifying reasons why people behave as they do. For example, i don't think it's unreasonable to cite poverty as a factor in crime. That doesn't mean i support letting criminals with low incomes off the hook, but it does mean that if i'm asked for opinions on how to reduce crime, i'd look at reducing poverty.
Maybe it's a slightly bizarre distinction i'm trying to draw, and i don't think i really understand it myself. Perhaps the best way i can think about it is the effect of "blame" on a person*: if i know my community will disapprove of something, i'm more likely to refrain from doing it. But this is where i step into the world of ill-informed psuedo-pyscho-philosophical babble. Free will, eh? What's the deal with that?
*edit: there's also the whole "nature vs. nuture" thing to think about too.