Lately, I've been made keenly aware (once again!) of the fine art of scapegoating. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this concept and its practice, please allow me to educate you on this issue. Regardless of how it is described by professionals in the field of mental health, scapegoating is basically blaming someone else and/or punishing someone else for something they are NOT genuinely responsible for. It's that simple. So now let's talk about scapegoating in more detail....
Where does the word "scapegoat" even come from? In the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, a goat was let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the Israelites on its head. Now this practice of blaming the goat for the sins of the Jewish people may not seem so terrible as the goat clearly didn't know what was going on. Letting a goat loose in the wilderness didn't seem like such a big deal punishment-wise either. The spot where goats were typically let go was about six miles from the city of Jerusalem. Once, a goat managed to even find its way back to the city. This was not a good thing when it happened. The returning goat was believed to represent such an evil omen, that a new practice was implemented immediately. When taken to the spot (a mountain now called el-Muntar), the man in charge of the goat was instructed to push it down the mountainside so it would die from its bones being broken in the fall. Now that's scapegoating. Blame the beast and then kill it for sure...
Scapegoating is not a good thing. Of course it's obvious how the scapegoat feels when we are being blamed and punished for something we didn't say and/or do---or say/do with the intention of hurting another person. Ask anyone today who sits in a prison cell or on death row for a crime they truly did NOT commit. Ask any childhood abuse survivor whose mere existence was reason enough to blame, severely punish, and neglect him or her on a regular basis. Even our fairy tales are loaded with examples of scapegoating gone wild. Cinderella...Snow White...Red Riding Hood (I always wondered why her mother just didn't take those blasted cookies herself to grandma's house!). We have been so saturated with all the reasons why scapegoating is so WRONG---you would think we would finally learn what to do in order to "solve this problem" once and for all! Maybe my two cents on this topic will encourage at least some of us to get over our own bad scapegoating habits sooner than later....
First, we have to be clear on why people choose to scapegoat others in the first place. The answer is simple. They want to AVOID RESPONSIBILITY. It doesn't matter if it's a "big" personal responsibility (like getting a job and paying their own bills) or a "little" personal responsibility (brushing their own teeth each day). Scapegoaters are NOT into being fully responsible for themselves and their own words/actions on a daily basis. Period.
Scapegoats, on the other hand, are ALSO struggling with personal irresponsibility. Instead of avoiding their own responsibilities on a day-to-day basis (big or small), they are willing to TAKE ON the personal responsibilities of others! Yikes! Talk about bass-akwards logic! But there you have it. Scapegoats are the over-responsible "I'll do it for you"'s among us...
Scapegoaters (the people who "do" the scapegoating) often come across as simply thoughtless, foolish, and/or oblivious to the needs of others. I just had a good friend tell me the other day about a neice who ordered the most expensive thing on the menu when taken out by my friend's family the other night. How is this the same as scapegoating? Who was this neice "blaming" and/or "punishing" by her actions? Well---think about it. Scapegoating doesn't have to be as obvious as shoving a goat down a mountainside in order to break its legs and kill it. In this case, I believe the neice was, at the very least, making a statement about what she feels she deserves and may not otherwise be getting from her family. I mean listen...when I was a kid, if I ordered the most expensive thing off the menu and was surrounded by my family---I wouldn't have a jaw left to chew with by the time the food came out! Inotherwords, scapegoating can be subtle as well as blantantly overt!
Another type of scapegoater is all about workin' the compassion factor in each of us. "Oh, I broke my arm I broke my leg I can't get up I can't sit down I'm too tired I'm too wired I'm too sick I'm too busy.." BLAH-DE-BLAH-DE-FRIGGIN'-BLAH! Really? I want these scapegoaters to be marched into the intensive care unit of the nearest hospital and forced to stay there for at least 4 hours every day for a month. If that doesn't work, I want these scapegoaters to be marched into the nearest hospice and forced to interact with the dying for at least 4 hours every day for a month. If they can't get it after that, they are completely hopeless. I mean it's one thing to be able to go to the nearest party store for alcohol and cigarettes every other day...or to go shopping...eating out...hitting the casinos---but another to be "truly" immobile and unable to care for yourself. Scapegoaters who exploit the good nature of their family and friends by crying "helpless" in order to get favors, money, rides, etc. etc. are only being a bit more creative than the typical scapegoater in avoiding their own personal responsibilities...
The third type of scapegoater I will mention here now is the person who watches your every move and listens to your every word like a hawk...and is basically lying in wait for the time when they feel you have "violated" their trust. This type of scapegoater is, to me, the most dangerous. Without you even realizing it, you are being set up to function as their personal Jesus once you get to know them and/or become more intimately involved with them. They are the emotional vampires among us. This scapegoater will seem to go with the flow and function somewhat reasonably UNTIL you don't do whatever it is that they "expect"---and there's hell to pay in its aftermath. "After all I've done for you and this is how you pay me back?!" You know, that kind of logic at work. These scapegoaters are hard to identify UNTIL they melt down at you over whatever straw broke their backs about "you" and the "way you are" as a person. Grant it, these scapegoaters are NOT the type of people who can comfortably and openly discuss much of anything with you when they feel you have offended them. No, these are the folks who are usually "fine" when you ask them what's wrong.....but getting them to talk truthfully about their own feelings and needs ANYWAY is like pulling teeth. These same people are those that make YOU feel like getting "too deep" on any topic with them is annoying and/or offensive in itself. They like to live their lives on the surface. Until of course you "blow it" enough times and they come after you like Jaws!
Next time, we will talk about the common relational dynamics of the scapegoats among us...
