Scapegoating, sometimes calledplaying the blame game, is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g., "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., "I couldn't see anything because of all the tall people"), groups against individuals (e.g., "He was the reason our team didn't win"), and groups against groups.
A scapegoat may be an adult, child, sibling, employee, or peer, or it may be an ethnic, political or religious group, or a country. Awhipping boy,identified patient, orfall guy are forms of scapegoat.
Scapegoating is distinct frombuck passing. Where scapegoating mainly centers around blame, buck passing revolves around passing responsibility between individuals. Instead of being a negatively cornered target, an individual involved in buck passing actively partakes in the act of shifting responsibility and may be able to deflect blame.
Scapegoating has its origins in thescapegoat ritual ofatonement described in chapter 16 of the BiblicalBook of Leviticus, in which a goat (or ass) is released into the wilderness bearing all the sins of the community, which have been placed on the goat's head by a priest.[1]
A medical definition of scapegoating is:[2]
Process in which the mechanisms ofprojection ordisplacement are used in focusing feelings ofaggression,hostility,frustration, etc., upon another individual or group; the amount ofblame being unwarranted. Scapegoating is a hostile tactic often employed to characterize an entire group of individuals according to the unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals belonging to that group. Scapegoating relates toguilt by association andstereotyping.
Scapegoated groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of different races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behaviour from the majority. However, scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such as governments, corporations, or various political groups.
Jungian analystSylvia Brinton Perera situates its mythology ofshadow andguilt.[3] Individuals experience it at thearchetypal level. As an ancient social process to rid a community of its past evil deeds and reconnect it to the sacred realm, thescapegoat appeared in a biblical rite,[4] which involved two goats and the pre-Judaic,chthonic godAzazel.[5] In the modern scapegoat complex, however, "the energy field has been radically broken apart" and the libido "split off from consciousness". Azazel's role is deformed into an accuser of the scapegoated victim.[6]
Blame for breaking a perfectionist moral code, for instance, might be measured out by aggressive scapegoaters. Themselves often wounded, the scapegoaters can be sadistic,superego accusers with brittlepersonas, who have driven their own shadowsunderground from where such areprojected onto the victim. The scapegoated victim may then live in a hell of felt unworthiness, retreating from consciousness, burdened by shadow and transpersonal guilt,[7] and hiding from the pain of self-understanding.Therapy includes modeling self-protective skills for the victim's battered ego, and guidance in the search for inner integrity, to find the victim's ownvoice.[8]
Unwanted thoughts and feelings can be unconsciously projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for one's own problems. This concept can be extended to projection by groups. In this case the chosen individual, or group, becomes the scapegoat for the group's problems. "Political agitation in all countries is full of such projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little groups and individuals."[9] Swiss psychiatristCarl Jung considered indeed that "there must be some people who behave in the wrong way; they act as scapegoats and objects of interest for the normal ones".[10]
Thescapegoat theory of intergroup conflict provides an explanation for the correlation between times of relative economic despair and increases in prejudice and violence towardoutgroups.[11] Studies ofanti-black violence (racist violence) in thesouthern United States between 1882 and 1930 show a correlation between poor economic conditions and outbreaks of violence (e.g. lynchings) against black people. The correlation between the price of cotton (the principal product of the area at that time) and the number of lynchings of black men by whites ranged from −0.63 to −0.72, suggesting that a poor economy induced white people to take out their frustrations by attacking an outgroup.[12]
Scapegoating as a group necessitates thatingroup members settle on one specific target to blame for their problems.[13]
In management, scapegoating is a known practice in which a lower staff employee is blamed for the mistakes of senior executives. This is often due to lack ofaccountability in upper management.[14]
Literary critic and philosopherKenneth Burke first coined and described the expressionscapegoat mechanism in his booksPermanence and Change (1935),[15] andA Grammar of Motives (1945).[16] These works influenced somephilosophical anthropologists, such asErnest Becker andRené Girard.
Girard developed the concept much more extensively as an interpretation of human culture. In Girard's view, it is humankind, not God, who has need for various forms of atoning violence. Humans are driven by desire for that which another has or wants (mimetic desire). This causes a triangulation of desire and results in conflict between the desiring parties. This mimeticcontagion increases to a point where society is at risk; it is at this point that thescapegoat mechanism[17] is triggered. This is the point where one person is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group. This person is the scapegoat. Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again.
Scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people. Girard contends that this is what happened in the narrative ofJesus of Nazareth, the central figure in Christianity. The difference between the scapegoating of Jesus and others, Girard believes, is that in theresurrection of Jesus from the dead, he is shown to be an innocent victim; humanity is thus made aware of its violent tendencies and the cycle is broken. Thus Girard's work is significant as a reconstruction of theChristus Victoratonement theory.
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