Scapegoats

The Old Testament book of Leviticus tells of an intersting custom practiced by the ancient Jews. They would symbolically put all their sins on a goat and send the goat out into the desert. That's where we get the word scapegoat. The Jews weren’t really blaming the goat for anything. And they knew their sin had not really gone anywhere. It still resided in their hearts, and the only way to truly get rid of it was to enact in each moment what they had symbolized with the goat. So, the practice was a way of expressing as a group their knowledge of the inner work they needed to do. The modern scapegoat has no such symbolic value. Nowadays when we scapegoat someone we actually do blame him, not only for something he didn’t do, but for something of which we ourselves are guilty. Blaming others is very common. It’s a fear-based response to the rigors of self knowledge. If the actions of another cause me to feel my own weakness or dysfunction, I blame that person for the feelings and call their actions inappropriate, even if they are not. In a family or social group, this is a great way to keep members in line. It usually occurs when one person makes a move toward spiritual or emotional health. Very often, such actions cause sharp disturbance in the mechanisms and systems the family has constructed to ensure its own survival. Usually it’s not a matter of literal survival. Instead it’s the survival of the illusion the family has of itself. It’s the perpetuation of a quietly, often unconsciously agreed upon group denial. This survival instinct might be sparked by the group need to prevent an internal explosion that has been threatening to happen for years. If the disturbance is dealt with honestly, everyone in the group will have to come clean about their feelings about everyone else. Since most people aren’t equipped to deal with that constructively, it can feel like a tornado brewing. But being unequipped to deal with a storm doesn’t mean people can’t see it coming. So, they seek to avoid it. The energy of that storm has to go somewhere. Enter the scapegoat. The actions of the wayward member contradict the system, and therefore shed light on it. When a family is forced to face its own dysfunction, that sense of exposure evokes a defensive, usually collective response. Instead of facing and changing the dysfunction, the group rallies against the one who caused it to surface and threatens them with some kind of punishment if they don’t apologize or make some reparation. It’s weird. And it doesn’t really work. That’s the strangest part of scapegoating someone. It doesn’t work. Most often, the group doing the scapegoating has to concoct an offense for which the wayward member must be punished. Or, at the very least, take the illogical, untenable stance that some perfectly legitimate action is somehow abhorrent or unacceptable. The whole thing is a lie from front to back. But maybe the worst part of scapegoating is that it’s a pattern. In each instance an innocent victim is chosen and sacrificed, creating a temporary veneer of reconciliation. But it’s not real. The truth is, the group illusion has been protected, the group denial has been sustained. But no real growth or change has occurred. The circumstances that led to the need for a scapegoat are doomed to repeat themselves in some form. Families need to shatter into individuals who relate to each other as individuals. Sometimes that can happen when on person makes one small step toward autonomy and self reliance. In every case where the actions of one send shock waves through the system, there is an opportunity for everyone to grow. But because we are afraid of ourselves we don’t step up. We fall back on the darkside of family, the part that isn't good for anybody, the part which, born out of fear, will sacrifice the very people it's was designed to protect. Ever forward.

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