thoughtcrumbs

The psychology of blame

One of the things we heard repeatedly from people we interviewed in New Orleans was that Katrina wasn't the problem; it was the levees. Though the storm was horrible, they rode it out just fine. The flood changed everything. Psychologically, for those coping with loss, the difference is between blaming nature and blaming humans. And now a report from Berkeley engineers suggests the levees broke not because of the overwhelming levels of water, but because of design flaws and political cost-cutting. Human error.