I assume everyone knows what a scapegoat is. The term originated in Biblical times from a religious ritual. The sins of the community were projected, literally, onto a goat, which was then driven into the wilderness or slaughtered. The sins of the community were expiated. In the Christian religion, Jesus takes on the role of the scapegoat, thereby giving rise to the belief that He suffered and died for the sins of believers so that they could be redeemed.
In our modern society, we also have scapegoat rituals, so much so that it seems to have become a way of life for us. We've grown very accustomed, in virtually every sector of modern society, to having scapegoats, who carry the burden for the rest of us.
The obvious example is the soldier, fighting the war in Iraq, and his/her family. The rest of us feel inconvenienced by the war not in the slightest. Despite the war costing half-a-trillion dollars to date, there are not even any proposals to raise taxes to pay for the war. We borrow the money from the Chinese, and presumably, future generations will have to pay the piper (another scapegoat).
How common a pattern the scapegoat has become is demonstrated by recent mining disasters. We all use electricity, and the greatest source of electricity in our country is coal. Lives are lost procuring that energy for all of us, but we are one of the most wasteful countries regarding efficiency. For example, in their 1999 book, Natural Capitalism, Hawken, et. al., write about our cavalier attitudes toward energy efficiency:
When the CEO of a Fortune 100 company heard that one of his sites had an outstanding energy manager who was saving $3.50 per square foot per year, he remarked, "That's nice-it's a million-square foot facility, isn't it? So he must be adding $3.5 million a year to our bottom line." In the next breath, he added: "I can't really get excited about energy, though-it's only a few percent of my cost of doing business." (p.266)
But sacrificed miners are not the worst of the coal business. The environmental destruction of communities from strip mining or mountain top removal is well known. Families are forced from their land, children are sick from exposure to toxic coal dust, schools and communities are at risk from floods of coal slurry, should one of the dams, storing the toxic sludge waste, breaks. These realities are well documented here:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/166
Yet we are very comfortably ignorant - very willing to let others bear the brunt of our comfortable lifestyles.
I could go on describing ways in which we are willing for others to be sacrificed for our convenience. Manufacturing jobs have left the U.S. in droves so that we can have cheap prices. The workers, who lost those jobs, along with the healthcare, and their families - they have been sacrifices on the altar of market forces. The protests are vehemently raised when any talk of national healthcare is raised. Better, I suppose, to let 47 million people go uninsured than interfere with markets - not that most of us have adequate health insurance, anyway.
What about us has become so willing to allow others to bear the burden for us, while we complain adamantly against being inconvenienced ourselves. We might buy flourescent light bulbs and think we've really done something, but compare that to a national guardsman, whose family is facing foreclosure because he's not earning enough money to keep a roof over his family's head.
If it's time to turn this scapegoat pattern on its head, then I suggest that we look for leaders, who will challenge us to step up. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." JFK was the last leader, who did so. It's time to get down to brass tacks, and stop complaining every time you hear the word "taxes". It's time to stop being comfortable with the fact that someone else is bearing the burden, someone else is out of work, someone else is stranded in a mine, someone else is at war, someone else can't get medical treatment. It's time to start expecting leaders to pull us together in a common effort.
There are other examples of scapegoats in our "economy" (a more accurate word these days than "society"), and I invite your comments on who else might be scapegoats. I also invite your comments on how we can begin to end this pattern.
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Comments: 19
It is all about BEING the change we want to see in the world ... today!
One little step, will insure the next and then the next ... till it all merges into
one's lifetime journey! The only catch ... the first step.
Janice - are those federal laws or state laws that protect military families against foreclosure? I hope they are federally mandated so that all U.S. soldiers are protected.
Thanks for that information. I'll pass it on. The financial hardship on these families is substantial.
C.L. Mareydt: "It is all about BEING the change we want to see in the world ... today!"
Exactly!
Diane: "...what more I can do to reduce energy use."
Good for you! Green energy is available. Most utilities offer that as an option for a small monthly premium. Info. is at
http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/locator/index.htm
or if your utility does not offer that, Sterling Planet's national program will provide it
http://www.sterlingplanet.com/
Aside from what we can do individually, Amory Lovins proposes a profitable strategy to transfer our economy to hydrogen by 2050 - imagine, no more dependence on mideast (or any other) oil.
Winning the Oil Endgame
http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Oil-Endgame-Amory-Lovins/dp/1881071103/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1692228-2284715?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186972126&sr=1-1
Great that your utility gives you the option of wind. That's great! I don't really get Kennedy's (or anyone else's) opposition to wind energy. Compared to extracting coal, and the environmental disaster that represents (not to mention eyesore), wind turbines are nothing. I share your dream of having a wind farm. A few acre spread with a half dozen turbines - you could just about live on that! And yes, the porch swing would be mandatory. Reminds me of Joni Mitchell's, "Sisotowbell Lane", if you're familiar with her early work.
I have not seen the BMWs you mention. I will look it up. Thanks for that information.
From Technology News Daily
My example is just one example typical of how fortunate we are at the cost of others.
The Niger Delta is typical of the exploitation of the poor by the more fortunate.
See what the price of gas costs there in National Geographic's article
"Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and Betrayal in the Niger Delta"
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/feature3/index.html
How often does it come to mind as we press the pedal down that these people who once fed themselves from the fish in the now fouled waters are worse off thanks for the discovery of rich oil deposits. Is there much difference between our foot on the gas pedal or our foot on their throat? We could just blame these atrocities on the rich oil companies, but we too are guilty simply by our complicity.
"The Niger Delta holds some of the world's richest oil deposits, yet Nigerians living there are poorer than ever, violence is rampant, and the land and water are fouled."
Of more concern to many drivers here in the states is the high gas prices. Rather than sacrificing a small amount of time by slowing down to conserve, the only sacrifice made is the sacrifice of the poor and defensless Nigerian scapegoats.
So much of what we have comes at a cost to others, usually the poor. Probably the better the bargain we get, the worse someone else pays in hardship.
from verse 81 of Te-Tao Ching
The Sage accumulates nothing.
Having used what he had for others,
He has even more.
Having given what he had to others,
What he has is even greater.
Therefore, the Way of Heaven is to benefit and not cause any harm;
The Way of Man is to act on the behalf of others and not to compete with them.
Kay. Spoiled indeed. Speaking of the WWII generation, I remember my father, who fought in Europe, often speak of making things better for following generations. That sentiment seems rare these days, especially when you speak with market "fundamentalists".
Larry. Thanks for the link to the National Geographic article. Absolutely, it qualifies as a scapegoating situation.
Larry: "Probably the better the bargain we get, the worse someone else pays in hardship."
Well said. Also, thanks for the verse - how appropriate an antidote to scapegoating it is.
I have also been thinking that it is time for a LEADER in Washington to take us down the path of energy conservation. I suppose proposing that Americans cut back is a death sentence for a politician, but it needs to happen. It made me sick when Bush told us to go shopping when we were sending our military overseas to fight for us. It is like saying, "Forget about the sacrifices our military and their families are making, just go about your daily lives as if nothing is wrong...and make sure to buy lots of junk from China so they'll buy our treasury bonds to support the war."
The scapegoat idea is one that could fall into that category of "It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but ..." or "might have worked at the time under a certain context and understanding, but it's meaning and conection to our psychies have just been lost..."
Who wouldn't want to be able to place their guilt or their burdens to be placed on something else's shoulders and carried away... but with it has been taken the connection to personal responsibility as you have pointed out in your essay. Has society become dependent on such a mechanism to relieve its burden consiously or subconsioulsy and lost its sense of personal responsibility? The point is not to retain some crippling sense of guilt, but to maintian some mature sense of responsibility to inform and direct one's life.
If you do think about the context of the original goats taking those burdens into the wilderness or into death with them, you must realize that those goats had important connections to those folks who were using them in that way. They were not an abstract concept or even someone else's goat in someone else's village or tribe... They were an important part of the life of whoever was 'sacrificing' it. (each goat some one owned was part of someone's 'wealth' and 'survival'). To goat hearding peoples, they (goats) were an intimate part of their lives (they took care of these creatures and the creatures rewarded them with succor). The point is, there was a true connection to the 'scape goat' ... I suppose as tribes or individuals gathered more and more goats... the connection became less and less and the 'convenience' of officialy relieving one's burden became easier, greater, and less meaningful. The point I'd say of the whole exercise is: "hey! I don't have to cripple myself with this burden, but I have to acknowledge it, understand it, and feel the responsibility of it. I have to live and to learn and to grow... I will release the burden to achieve clarity and will learn from it to grow..."
Well... those are a few of my thoughts about that anyway...
There is a lack of awareness and honest responsibiltiy...
Very good piece Steve
Exactly right, David! Many times, I've seen so-called conservatives accuse so-called liberals of getting off on guilt, as if that were the goal. Of course, guilt is an adaptive emotion in the sense that it yields the outcome you state here. Those, who ridicule the feeling of guilt, are by definition, psychopathic, and there is a psychopathic element in the scapegoating phenomenon - expecting a very small minority to carry the burden for the majority's convenience.
David: "...you must realize that those goats had important connections to those folks who were using them in that way. They were not an abstract concept...."
Excellent point, David. The modern phenomenon of pervasive anonymity adds an additionally insidious element to the pathology of scapegoating. Today, we feel badly (for a moment or two) about trapped miners, but who, other than their families, lose any sleep over this. Better yet, who decides to turn out the lights when they leave a room because of it - or buy flourescent light bulbs - or begins to rethink the whole assumption that our electricity must come from coal?
Thanks for your comment.