Humans fuck to play the blame game . Adam blamed Eve . Hitler blamed the Jews . When something bad happens , it ’s always someone else ’s fault . Such is the animation of a scapegoat .
The pattern of scapegoating is older than sometime . DuringYom Kippur , the Day of Atonement , the Israelites used twogoatsto symbolise their sins . One was sacrificed to appease God , while the second was slain to pacify Azazel , an malefic spirit . In an act of religious symbolisation , a non-Christian priest conveyed the sins of the Israelites to the goat meant for Azazel . The unlucky butt was then cast out off a cliff [ root : Encyclopaedia Britannica ] .
The first human whipping boy were mostly convicts or other outcast . They often were herded together and forced to demonstrate down the street imbued with the sin of the riffraff . They then were forced out of townspeople and stoned to decease [ source : Campbell ] .
Despite its long chronicle , the word " scapegoat " apparently originated in 1530 , when the Oxford - educated William Tyndale translated the Bible into English [ source : Campbell ] . Little did Tyndale sleep together he would be called a whipping boy , too , when Thomas More blamed him for the Peasants ' War in Germany .
Scapegoating give up world to channelise the finger at others instead of accepting the consequences of their action . These targets normally are outsiders , a person or group who can be promptly dehumanise , and they come in all stripe : political , spiritual , artistic and sporting . Get ready to forgather 10 of the world ’s most famous scapegoats .
10: Pandora
According to Greek mythology , Pandora was the first womanhood – and the first whipping boy . Before Pandora came along , Earth was a happy position , free from turmoil and strife . There were only men around , each create by Prometheus , a god with a cheater reputation .
One 24-hour interval , Prometheus irritated the heck out of Zeus , the master of the Greek gods , by stealingfirefrom heaven and pass on it to mankind . Zeus wanted revenge . He severalise Hephaestus to create a charwoman . Hephaestus , the god of the forge , obliged and molded Pandora out of clay . Before she go far on Earth , Zeus give Pandora a jar ( the box revision came afterward ) and told her never to spread out it . Zeus was a crafty codger and be intimate Pandora’scuriositywould be too much for her to palm . As expected , Pandora open up the jar , unleashing all the bother world face today [ source : National Gallery of Art ] .
9: Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus , a captain in the Gallic United States Army , was the perfect whipping boy for those who hat Jews in the late nineteenth C . In 1894 , the French discovered that a secret military document had found its style into the hand of Germany ’s military attaché in Paris . Although the evidence showed that French Maj . Ferdinand Walsin - Esterhazy had filch the secret text file and given it to the Germans , the loss leader of the French United States Army instead charged Dreyfus withtreason .
At the time , France was a citadel of anti - Semitism . A hugger-mugger judicature - martial found Dreyfus guilty , even though the evidence against him was scant . The government exile Dreyfus to Devil ’s Island . However , bad publicity forced the army to grant Dreyfus a 2nd trial , in which he was once again found shamed of betrayal . Dreyfus was sentence to 10 old age but was finally pardoned . In 1906 , a new French government exalt him free [ rootage : Judaic Agency for Israel ] . He even wound up serving the French army again during World War I.
8: Leon Trotsky
scapegoat are nothing new in politics , and perhaps the most celebrated isCommunistleader Leon Trotsky . The sharp - witted and magnetic hero of the Russian Civil War could have become the next ruler of the Soviet Union after Vladimir Lenin died – if it were n’t forJoseph Stalin .
Stalin was remorseless and brutal , a leader fear by the masses . When Lenin died , Stalin take over the government . Trotsky , who believed Stalin had poison Lenin , shop Stalin as an foe of the revolution . Stalin react by tossing Trotsky first from the company and then from the country . Trotsky , along with many of his friend and family , became a hunted gentleman’s gentleman , but Stalin preserve him alert for a while and used Trotsky as a whipping boy for the failure of Soviet fellowship [ sources : Hudson , Campbell ] .
7: Patient Zero
His name was Gaëtan Dugas , but account knows him as Patient Zero . When theAIDSepidemic first stampeded across North America in the early eighties , researchers were on the lookout for the incognizant person , or persons , responsible for spreading the deadly disease , which was ravaging the homophile community . aesculapian investigators from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention ultimately track down Dugas , a gay flying steward from Canada , relate him to a number of AIDS case in Los Angeles , New York and eight other city .
research worker implicate Dugas in 40 of the first 248 cases of assistance in the United States . When he was told he was threaten his intimate cooperator — about 250 a year ( and thousands of others indirectly ) — he continued to haveunprotected sex . Dugas died in 1984 [ rootage : Henry ] . Public wellness officials have observe that if Dugas had n’t spread the disease , some other person probably would have .
6: The Devil
It ’s intemperate to beat Beelzebub , more commonly known as the devil , as an accessible scapegoat . state of war , pestilence , drought , famine , natural disaster , you name it , Satan gets the blame . In Christianity , evil is synonymous with the devil , who , allot to theBible , was once an angel in heaven but ultimately hang from God ’s grace .
Over the centuries , the dickens became history ’s favored slaughter son . Perhaps all he ask was a defence lawyer as Mark Twain suggest :
5: God
Conversely , God is also a convenient whipping boy . According to such logic , if God ’s so consummate , why does he let high-risk things to occur ?
In fact , as many as two - thirds of Americans surveyed have mentioned feelingangrywith God if they are suffering . Julie Exline , a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University , take how people focalise their anger at God . People , she aver , apply God as a whipping boy when they do n’t get what they want [ informant : Dye ] . And just as , say , commit spouses have to call their anger after an argumentation , multitude also require to resolve their anger with God , or hazard letting it fester indefinitely .
4: The Media
find fault the messenger . That ’s what theancient Greeksused to do . Often when a ruler get bad tidings , he killed the person bringing him the bulletin , thinking that it somehow canceled the bad content . It never did .
These days , many Americans believe " the medium " is the root of all evil , or at least a portion of it . It ’s no wonder . Most people say thatmedia outletsare predetermine , inaccurate and influence by the wealthy , which create them , as a whole , a popular scapegoat . According to a 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center , 66 percentage of those who respond say news stories are inaccurate , while 77 percent believe most news arrangement favour one side over the other [ root : Bedard ] .
3: Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow
In 1871 , a great fervour engulfed Chicago killing intimately 300 people and destroying 17,450 buildings . For more than a century , Catherine O’Leary ’s cow has gotten the blame for the Great Chicago Fire . At the time , Mrs. O’Leary was a little dairy farmer who provided milk to her working - class neighborhood . According to fable , Mrs. O’Leary was late milking the cows that daylight . One of the cow answer by give up over a lighted lantern . The flaming quickly spread from build to building .
A newsperson who was first on the scene reported the purportedly on-key tale ofMrs . O’Leary ’s cow , and a whipping boy ( scapecow ? ) was bear . Mrs. O’Leary went to her tomb in 1895 caustic that most masses believed that she had something to do with the conflagration . Apparently , her resentment was grounded in reality . In 1997 , a Chicago indemnity investigator acquit Mrs. O’Leary cow . While the fire did go in Mrs. O’Leary ’s DeKoven Street barn , the bovine was n’t the culprit . It was acareless pipe stag party — a neighbour of Mrs. O’Leary ’s — who discarded a friction match in the barn and localise the city ablaze [ author : McNamee ] .
2: Yoko Ono
For many , the Beatles were the greatest rock music band in account . When theFab Fourbroke up in 1970 , Yoko Ono , John Lennon ’s wife , shoulder the rap .
" I was used as a whipping boy , a very easy whipping boy , " Ono told CNN ’s Anderson Cooper in 2010 . " You bang , a Japanese adult female and whatever . "
In 2012 , Lennon ’s wingman , Paul McCartney , put the Yoko Ono whipping boy tilt to roost . In an interview with David Frost , McCartney admitted it was n’t easy possess Yoko around all the time , but she was not responsible for the band’sbreakup .
" She certainly did n’t break the mathematical group up , the group was breaking up , " McCartney told Frost [ source : Huffington Post ] .
1: Bill Buckner
In the world of summercater , no scapegoat is as notorious as Bill Buckner , the Boston Red Sox first baseman who booted a quotidian ground ball that cost the Red Sox theirfirst rubric since 1918 . Truthfully , it was n’t all Buckner ’s fault . Red Sox managing director John McNamara should have bench Buckner , who was hobbled by injuries , late in the biz as he had done antecedently . Moreover , Red Sox pitcher Bob Stanley should have shoulder most of the blame .
During Game 6 of the 1986World Series , the Sox were leading the New York Mets three game to two . The plot at New York ’s Shea Stadium went into superfluous innings . By the bottom of the 10th , the Mets were toast . The Sox were up 5 to 3 with two outs and no one on foot . Then things unraveled horribly for the Red Sox . Three serial Met singles narrowed the interruption to 5 to 4 . With runners on first and third , Stanley come into the game to set up to Mookie Wilson . Stanley pitched a wild one , allow the tying run to make . Wilson later bounded a dribbler to Buckner . The ball went under Buckner ’s injury - riddled legs , allowing the winning test to grade . The Mets make headway the secret plan , and ultimately the Series [ sources : Time , Barra ] .
Lots More Information
Like everyone else , I work the blame game . When I hit the golf ball into the water , I blame the golfing gods . Most of the time I blame myself , but never the Old Nick , and sometimes God . As for Pandora , I have a cat cite Pandora , and for 14 year , I ’ve never find fault her for anything .
