A family struggling to pay for fuel still has to pay for it after a politician has identified an enemy. A school in poor condition still needs repairing. There is something worth holding on to in that stubborn gap between the satisfaction of an explanation and its usefulness to the people whose lives supposedly concern us.
The Guardian reports that protests in France over deteriorating schools and living costs escalated in several cities into violence, with a historic town hall burned and 1,800 arrests. In its account, Donald Trump and JD Vance blamed immigration for the unrest. The supplied reporting offers no evidence establishing that claim.
What happens when we accept an explanation like that? We can find ourselves feeling that we have understood a problem while becoming less interested in its particulars. The cost of getting to work, the condition of a classroom, the decisions that might improve either: these demand patience. Identifying a group to blame offers a much quicker sense of having got somewhere.
There is a serious complication here. People have responsibilities for what they do, including during a protest. Concern about living costs cannot excuse setting a building alight. Nor does a grievance, however genuine, tell us everything about everyone who joins a crowd. We should resist convenient explanations from any direction.
But responsibility requires attention to actual actions. Once blame spreads from particular people to a whole category, someone who has committed no offence can become answerable, in other people’s eyes, for events they had nothing to do with. That is a consequence felt in ordinary encounters, where suspicion can arrive well before anyone bothers to ask a question.
We have some responsibility for the explanations we pass on. Before repeating one, it is worth asking what evidence would make us reconsider it, and whether it helps us understand what needs doing. An account that can absorb every event without ever being tested is a poor guide to another person’s life.
Repairing a school involves budgets, decisions and work. Making daily life affordable involves difficult choices. Neither task becomes easier because anger has found a destination. When the argument moves on, the people living with those problems still need an answer that reaches them.