Scapegoats

Scapegoats

During a time of crisis, most people want to blame all the mishaps on one particular person or group. This removes any pressure from their shoulders as they wouldn’t be the victim to an inevitable doom. Of course nowadays, extreme situations such as the one shown in “The Lottery”, don’t happen. However, that doesn’t mean that scapegoating doesn’t occur nowadays. At its bare bones, scapegoating is just simply that act of blaming one person or group for some type of event.

When I first thought about this topic, one subject stood out to me immediately. That subject happened to be sports. Personally, I don’t play many sports. I do, however, watch and play a lot of volleyball. Volleyball is a team effort and if you don’t match the standards of your fellow teammates, you are bound to make the most mistakes. The pressure you feel when you play a game directly connects to scapegoats. You don’t want to be the scapegoat that gets blamed for your team’s loss. That’s when the pressure starts to build up.

I happen to remember a situation similar to this. It was at this school. There was a volleyball tournament for charity and I was watching the final match with my friends. The game was really close, 24 to 23. The game was to 25 and my friend was on the team with 23 points. They start the round, and when the ball comes towards my friend, he misses it completely. I was able to hear a collective groan from the audience. While some were supportive, others blamed my friend and told him that his team would’ve won without him. Looking back at this now, I see that this just human nature and that scapegoating comes naturally for us sometimes.

Let’s take a look at this story and examine it. A person that is scapegoated is meant to suffer in some way. In this story, my friend is humiliated and has to hear the collective groan from the audience. Not to mention, the harsh comments he heard as well. I think that check out for him suffering. Now the part in which he is made to bear the blame for others. Now this is interesting. Everyone blames him for missing the most important hit of the game. Everyone blames him and not the team itself.

Remember when I said that volleyball is a team effort? Well it is, and that doesn’t