2 Jun 2010
The scapegoat
Having someone to blame
Every few days I have been including excerpts from Jean Vanier’s “Community and Growth” that I have found helpful. This passage talks about what happens when one person is singled out as the scapegoat.
As I reflect on the many groups I have been part of, I find this challenging because I realise how easy it is to blame someone else for the situation in which I currently find myself:
In many communities, there is someone who is more fragile or difficult than the others, who seems to provoke all their aggression and become the butt of their blame, criticism and mockery. All members of a community, in some corner of themselves, feel frustrated and guilty. These feelings can very quickly be felt as a sort of anguish – a sense that we are not comfortable with ourselves. So we project our own limitations and cowardice on to someone weaker than ourselves. This ‘scapegoat’ for personal and collective anguish can be found in many communities.
One the aggression, bullying or rejection are unleashed, they are not easy to control. And yet, for the health of the community, they have to be deflected from their target, because no community can live while one of its members is being persecuted. So another person, either consciously, or unconsciously under the inspiration of the Spirit, must absorb the aggression. They may do it by playing the fool. Then the aggression is gradually transformed and the crackle of tension is dissipated in the light of laughter.
Can you think of a scapegoat in a group you are part of?
I have learned that it is usually the things you hate about yourself that you find most difficult in others..