Scapegoating Examples

The act of blaming another requires less effort than dealing with a monster, which is likely why this method is used so often. “It’s easier to blame someone else than to accept

My logic is similar to Margret’s in a sense because scapegoating can be the effect of people being under stress or overwhelmed. For example in the selection Half- Hanged Mary, Mary is put to hang for being accused of witchcraft with no evidence to support except for the unfair evidence of her being an independent women. “I was hanged for living alone for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin, tattered skirts, few buttons, a weedy farm in my own name, and a surefire cure for warts” (Atwood 1). Mary ask the women that approach her for their assistance to help her get down from the tree but they are filled with fear and decide to leave her to hang. This begins to angers Mary to the point that she speaks to God as if she were challenging him that she no longer would believe in him any longer. Mary says “or like a dark angel insidious in his glossy feathers whispering to me to be easy on myself. To breathe out finally. Trust me, he says,caressing me. Why suffer?” (Atwood 2). At this point in the story Mary has been hanged for six hours, is hallucinating and is changing her thoughts on what she believes in with God telling her to give up. In Margaret Atwood’s interview with Bill Moyer she states, “When societies come under stress these things happen. People start looking around for somebody they can blame and they feel if they can demolish that person everything is going to be okay” (Atwood).

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

During World War II, Hitler used his power to persuade the government to make him the chancellor, which gave him more control over Germany. This lets him manipulate the people so they would think that same way as he did. The people believed this because they did not understand what Hitler was going to do with the Jews, during this time they used the Jews as a scapegoat to blame for their problems. Many situations have a scapegoat that people need to blame to help them deal with their problems. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller the town used witches as their scapegoat. In the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed the people in Tanzania used witchcraft as their scapegoat. Finally in the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government Makes Americans More Likely to Reach for a Gun the government is creating scapegoats out of the certain people and events. Some people need to find a scapegoat to blame for example, in The Crucible, the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed, and the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government makes Americans more likely to Reach for a Gun the people had to find a scapegoat for the problems that they faced.

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

Scapegoats are a recurring theme throughout stories and literature in all different cultures. The concept of scapegoats first appears in the Book of Leviticus, where a goat is left in a desert far away from society taking the sins of the community with it. In more recent works, a scapegoat is someone who has been blamed for wrongdoings or mistakes. In society and in literature, people in power scapegoat those with less power as a way to blame problems on one specific person or group. Usually, the person being blamed is not at fault for what they’re being accused of, however, the person or group scapegoating has chosen them because they are an easy target. The use of scapegoats has been around since the beginning of humanity and although it

“I think it’s the kind of events that replays itself throughout history when cultures come under stress. When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen. People start looking around for essentially human sacrifices. They start looking around for somebody they can blame…” (Margaret Atwood). Throughout time people have engaged in actions that they later regret and instead of taking it upon themselves they have simply given someone else the responsibility of the blame.

Scapegoating. According to Urban Dictionary, “a scapegoat is defined as, ‘A person or person or object that is used to lay the blame on for all that goes wrong, regardless of the contributions of others. This will usually carry on until the scapegoat has gone, or has managed to successfully defend itself against the arguments presented to it’".The pointing out of a person as an accused or a sinner happens because of the intolerance to any deviation from the society beliefs. This is seen in the play,The Crucible; articles Death Penalty Disgrace and A True Confession. In these articles, the main thing that stands out is that people can be

"The best way to avoid becoming a scapegoat is to find one" (Warren Eyster). Scapegoating, the act of blaming others because of your differences, is a common thing people do. Usually, the victims of scapegoating are the weaker members of society, because they make easy targets. Examples of scapegoating throughout history include; Catholics coming to America in the 1800s, where rumors arose that they were there to steal America's freedom, Adolf Hitler's genocide on the Jewish religion and people through means of concentration camps, and in present times, Christianity and Islam. Only certain members of society are able to be scapegoated. If a Muslim commits an act of terrorism, the whole religion is blamed and deemed bad. If a Christian commits an act of terrorism, the individual is the only person blamed. Never has Christianity been under near as much hate as any other religion. In The Crucible, the people of the town scapegoat each other to keep eyes off of themselves. In real life, Christians scapegoat people of the Islamic faith as terrorists that’s sole purpose is to behead and kill Christians. Xenophobia, the fear of people that are foreign, is very common in present times like how people in America to this day are terrified of people from

History repeats itself. Often times when a society is under stress, a group of people or one person may be who the society blames for their circumstances. This idea was presented by Margaret Atwood in an interview with Bill Moyers. “I think it’s the kind of event that replays itself throughout history when cultures come under stress. When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen” (Atwood). Scapegoating is a common solution for people in these situations.

What is blame? Blame is an assigned responsibility for a fault or a wrong. Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend explain to the readers, "We live in a culture of blame. People will blame anyone or anything for their misery sooner than take the responsibility to own it and make it better,” (Cloud and Townsend, 1). The quote above elucidates that people resort to blame because psychologically they do not want to take responsibility for the fault that they have committed. Blaming is a factor in Shakespeare’s famous play, Romeo and Juliet, for the reason that blaming is a major cause of Romeo and Juliet’s death. Friar Lawrence and Capulet are two of the main factors to blame for the death of Romeo and Juliet.

Blame is putting responsibility for a wrong or mistake on someone other than oneself. People would resort to blame to get out of a bad situation and say it was what they did that caused the mistake or wrong to happen. Blame is a big factor in Romeo and Juliet because, the death of Romeo and Juliet is to blame on many people who drove them further. People would usually go to factor of blaming people to escape an unpleasant or serious situation that would have serious consequences.

Scapegoat Scapegoats are always to blame for people’s problems. Coming from the widely regarded verse in the bible, Leviticus. “But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement upon it, to send it to the wilderness as the scapegoat”. In the verse, the goat is used as a sacrifice to atone for people’s sins.

From the video, The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown, she was presenting her research about finding the core of Vulnerability. One of the results of the research was blaming others for our own mistakes. People prefer to blame others for their own mistakes rather than finding the solution for the mistake. I used to feel embarrassed from my mistakes so I look for someone to throw the fault on, throwing the fault on someone else's made me feel more satisfied with myself.

In the law of Moses, the scapegoat bore the burden of the sins of the people. What is a "scapegoat" and what is the origin of that word? The word scapegoat has two meanings. The most common is "one that bears the blame for others." That person may or may not be guilty of . The original meaning was "a goat was present upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which the goat is sent into the wilderness in the biblical ceremony for Yom Kippur" (the Day of Atonement.