"Asking 'Who is the villain?' is the prologue to asking who should be punished. But asking 'What are the conditions that led to this?' leads us to consider how to change those conditions so that the situation is less likely to happen again.
Reframing things in this way is a type of analysis known as dependent origination. Though this term has far-reaching and often abstract implications in Buddhist thought, it simply means that everything arises on the basis of multiple factors, and if we want to discourage something from happening again we have to address the factors underlying it. If our goal is to judge and punish, we will need to determine guilt, which becomes more difficult as we consider more causes. But if our goal is to gain a better understanding, then the fact that there are many factors is not a problem."
- Matthew Gindin, from "The Red Hat Rorschach Test." Tricycle, 30 January 2019.
