Scapegoating

AIDS and other Pandemics Pandemics have existed for centuries and their effects on society have changed the way people coexist, together as communities and with a disease. Every century is wracked with a new widespread pandemic that changes the structure of society and that allows people to gain and pass on knowledge for cases in the future. The major diseases that impacted the world centuries ago can shed light how society has progressed, not only in terms of technology and science but also…

Today, several novels are written for the purpose of implicitly mentioning a real world event by portraying a real world event as something that occurs in the plot. Even though some of the plot is changed, the reader is able to interpret the story as the real world event. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Miller portrays the society of Salem, a small town located in Massachusetts during the witchcraft period as the idea of McCarthyism. Miller also portrayed the play as the several types of…

Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” is a play, which is a direct parallel to what happened during the Holocaust to the Jews. In these two situations certain individuals become very influential and powerful through the means of scapegoating numerous people. Both of the leaders in these tragedies are commonly described as self-seeking, for their aspiration to blatantly accuse and torment others. While their intentions were different, there are many social similarities that teach us what can transpire…

In politics, demagoguery is usually used by a speaker to persuade an audience with propaganda rather than the quality of the argument. Demagoguery refers to the political strategy that appeals to an audience’s emotions and prejudices with certain characteristics and elements. In junior Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s speech to the American public, he used demagoguery to appeal to the American audience on the wrongdoings and undermining communist actions of Edward R. Murrow, the Educational Director…

origin (Jackson, 43). According Vickery, Jackson creates this appalling and horrific situation through the use of tools as characterization and thematic elements of individuals versus the general public, which has been depicted in the story as scapegoating. A scapegoat is a person who usually bears the burdens and mistakes of others. In the story, the villagers are used to holding lotteries every year where they get to determine their next scapegoat. Upon the selection, the scapegoat is then…

Gayle. "'The Lottery' As Misogynist Parable." Women's Studies 18.4 (1991): 353. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 22 Sept. 2015. Argues “The Lottery” discloses a powerful misogynist parable, satisfying the commonest and most widespread cultural scapegoating even as the “political” aspect of the story seems to dispel another. The Lottery exposes small-town life in 1984 many Americans looked to recover the innocence before WW2. Also revealed is the fragility of the nuclear family that plays a…

Watters 3 path of traditional Puritan behavior. “For example, one of the first accused women, Sara Osburn, had been previously scandalized by the community for having premarital sexual relations and not regularly attending church, whereas another woman, Martha Corey (another accused) was shunned for having an illegitimate child” (#1.) Puritans believed in the devil as much as they believed in God and truly believed that the Devil selected the weakest individuals (women and children) to do his…

right now is within the muslim community” (Donald Trump). It is far more painless for a candidate to cast blame on an outside individual, rather than looking introspectively on themselves and the real issues facing the nation. Going along with the scapegoating devil figures theme, devils are held over the masses heads in order to manipulate the public. This is extremely prevalent in Lord of The Flies, as jack uses the entire idea of a beast to manipulate the other children into succumbing to…

Further, Staub emphasises the weight of the hardship individuals are faced with as a condition for genocide. He claims that when individuals are confronted with difficult life conditions they turn to scapegoating, that is, they claim that some other group is at fault for their suffering. Therefore, they become justified in “turning against and harming members of another group” (Staub 1999, pg. 305). It can also be said that segregated individuals in poor…

The Disabled: Treated as Humans Throughout history, people with disabilities have been socially disadvantaged, not because of limitations but because of assumptions made about them based on group characteristics (Schaefer, 2015 p.372). Scapegoating someone because they have a disability, assuming that the individual is the same as someone else with the same disability, is the same as saying that all people with tattoos are dangerous. If there is a news article about someone with bipolar disorder…