In a long-read for The Atlantic, Kayleigh Roberts explores the psychological impulse to blame victims for their misfortune and why it may be particularly common in American culture. “Holding victims responsible for their misfortune is partially a way to avoid admitting that something just as unthinkable could happen to you—even if you do everything ‘right,’” she writes. “No matter what we want to believe, the world is not a just place. And it takes some difficult cognitive work to accept both that bad things sometimes happen to good people, and that seemingly normal people sometimes do bad things.”
