Columnist J.M. Sorrell: Strategic scapegoating

J.M. Sorrell
Published: 02-04-2025 5:04 PM |
When saving face is a primary operating mode and when people denigrate others to justify their own harm or inertia, mistrust and chaos ensue.
It has become shockingly common in recent years to blame anyone other than one’s self for mistakes and misdeeds rather than to reflect, learn and grow from our flaws and biases. When people are both humble and confident, they are more likely to express regret and inquire about what is needed to make things right. Taking responsibility sows trust, while blaming victims or whistleblowers is a tired old form of manipulation designed to distract from the actual issue or problem.
Scapegoating is a process where unwarranted blame is cast to explain societal or personal problems that are not being successfully addressed. Philosopher Kenneth Burke coined the expression “scapegoat mechanism” to describe the contagious groupthink behavior where one person is singled out and killed metaphorically or literally as the root of the problem.
It is also applied to entire demographics of people deemed to be “the other.” Strategic displacement may be the result of guilt, shame, envy, anger, or insecurity.
As a villain or villains are created, all eyes move from reality to piling on the dehumanization of the messenger or group who are not the actual problem. The displacement tactic works until a productive intervention takes place. An equally powerful number of allies may emerge to inform the narrative about the messenger or group and the real issue that has been willfully ignored or rewritten.
Most thoughtful people today who have general knowledge about the Holocaust would consider the concept that Jews actually caused the mass murder of over 6 million Jews in Europe to be offensive and absurd, yet that thinking was common throughout much of the world at the time. In Andrea Dworkin’s book, “Scapegoat,” she wrote that the vileness and normalness of antisemitism in Austria and Germany for decades leading up to the Nazi genocide is left out of the history books because it contradicts the notion of how wonderful free speech and liberties were in those countries.
Jews were made to feel responsible for harm done to them because of their Jewishness. She wrote, “The so-called Jewish problem was unsolvable because Jews themselves refused to solve it.”
Pitting Jews against each other may have been a tactic learned from the Soviets. Dara Horn (in “People Love Dead Jews”) wrote, “Over four generations, the Soviet regime forced Jews to participate in and internalize their own humiliation … as they destroyed far more souls” without paying a price such as a Nuremberg trial. Jewish Bolsheviks were part of a government that persecuted and imprisoned Jews for practicing Judaism and supporting Judaic-based Zionist institutions. This was at play before, during and after World War II. The “good Jews” had thriving Yiddish arts, music and theater while pledging loyalty to the Soviet state.
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Eventually, all of the assimilated artists and intellectuals were killed or expelled under Stalin’s orders. Horn wrote, “The tragedy was that integrity was never an option in the first place.” Many Jews were put in the morally compromised position to assist in the catching and killing of Jews by sadistic Nazis in order to potentially survive. Today’s Bolshevik version has Jews proclaiming their anti-Zionist credentials in a contemporary form of disassociating from Jews who support Israel. Assimilated Jews find favor in their group who scapegoat Jews for causing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre in Israel.
Will tomorrow’s people see the absurdity of this moment in time to be as offensive and absurd as we see the Holocaust? Will people know that national spokespeople for Code Pink and the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) blamed Israel and U.S. government support for Israel for the Los Angeles wildfires?! There is nothing “peaceful” about such abhorrent behavior in the midst of a tragedy; in fact, it’s very Trump-like. When a group’s narrative does not allow for nuance, humility or regret, its members will continue to save face no matter what and they will not grow.
At the community level, naming a person’s style or personality as the problem rather than directly addressing the real issue is disappointing. The stereotypes come to mind: Pushy Jew; too-much Jew; persistent Jew; Jew who defies self-hatred or assimilation. What would it be like for Easthampton to hear the message regarding the urgency of addressing antisemitism rather than shooting and dehumanizing the messenger? Check in with other schools and community-wide organizations who have successfully acknowledged, validated and acted to teach and change the culture of hatred against Jews unequivocally.
J.M. Sorrell is a feminist at her core. She agrees with Saul Bellow: “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”