Talk:Scapegoating/Archive 1

Atheists

American atheists and agnostics sometimes face prejudice although Atheism and Agnosticism are not technically Crimes. There are moral problems  in the United States, like casual sex, Alcohol and illegal Drug abuse and other crime.  Atheists, to lesser extent agnostics are easy scapegoats.  Examples of humanists leading moral lives are often ignored.  United States Mass media mostly feature atheists who can be seen as immoral.  Atheists are sometimes vilified and treated harshly.  Some atheists may to see themselves in the Stereotype and lose confidence in their capacity to be moral.  Others make a point of practicing moral humanism.

Where's the evidence that atheists and agnostics are scapegoated—by anyone other than Jerry Falwell and his ilk—for these "moral problems"? Also remember that not everyone thinks casual sex and alcohol/drug use are moral problems, and only drug use is always considered a crime —the others are only criminal in carefully delimited circumstances. —69.156.205.32 05:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Note: the above comment is related to the page history at Talk:Scapegoating/Old history. All the other comments on this page are related to the page history currently at the scapegoating article. Graham87 03:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Untitled

"Overlords"? What does this mean, in the context of bullying in schools? Joyous 03:45, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Scapegoat vs. Fall Guy

As written the article equates scapegoat with fall guy. My understanding is that a scapegoat is actually innocent but has blame attached to them to distract blame from others, whereas a fall guy is a participant in the wrongdoing (is actually guilty) but is one among a number of wrongdoers, and is made to "take the fall" to protect their fellow wrongdoers. The following reference agrees, although its hard to call it authoritative: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/grammar/index.php?m=200703 I have not changed this for the moment, absent a more definitive reference. The mess of an article over at Fall Guy makes the same potential mistake.

As of today, the article at Fall guy seems much improved, and distinguishes several types of 'fall guy', only one of which overlaps with the meaning of 'scapegoat'. I agree that equating the term is potentially misleading, and besides it doesn't seem to add to this introduction section significantly. I've moved the reference down to the metaphor section, and introduce it as a 'related concept' rather than an equivalent term. Mooncow (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed text

Scapegoating is usually done by...

Scapegoating in schools are usually done by bullies, people who like to force people to do things, and overlords.

Patsy

A patsy is a person who takes the fall for a crime. Lee Harvey Oswald is considered the best example.

I removed this text from the article in chief. I'm not sure what the first is going on about --- admittedly, my school had overlords, and mad scientists and henchmen as well, but my experience is not ordinary. The second strikes me as profoundly POV. -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:31, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The internal link for Patsy links to a page about the shortened version of Patricia. The only page patsy 'as in scapegoat' appears is on the disambiguation page. This really shouldn't be linked, or else it should link to a new page IMO 78.16.251.237 (talk) 01:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Mistranslation

Were there ever any scaegoats? Wasn't it just a western mistranslation of the hebrew text?

There were probably scapegoats, and the Hebrew text isn't mistranslated (as far as anybody knows, I believe). That said, it is unclear how much the ritual was actually practiced, but this is the case with a lot of "strange" ancient Israelite religious observances, such as the sabbatical and jubilee years and the injunction to stone your stubborn and rebellious child. Makaristos 06:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Frameup = scapegoating?

The assertion in the section "Scapegoating" that equates "scapegoating" with "frameup" is questionable and misleading. I suggest that this sentence should be removed. The two terms have distinct connotations. soverman 14:48 08 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I agree the terms have distinct connotations. Rather than remove it, I have described it as a 'related concept'. Mooncow (talk) 18:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Lev. 16:8-26; R.V., "the goat for Azazel" (q.v.), the name given to the goat which was taken away into the wilderness on the day of Atonement (16:20-22). The priest made atonement over the scapegoat, laying Israel's guilt upon it, and then sent it away, the goat bearing "upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited." At a later period an evasion or modification of the law of Moses was introduced by the Jews. "The goat was conducted to a mountain named Tzuk, situated at a distance of ten Sabbath days' journey, or about six and a half English miles, from Jerusalem. At this place the Judean desert was supposed to commence; and the man in whose charge the goat was sent out, while setting him free, was instructed to push the unhappy beast down the slope of the mountain side, which was so steep as to insure the death of the goat, whose bones were broken by the fall. The reason of this barbarous custom was that on one occasion the scapegoat returned to Jerusalem after being set free, which was considered such an evil omen that its recurrence was prevented for the future by the death of the goat" (Twenty-one Years' Work in the Holy Land). This mountain is now called el-Muntar.

Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary, Public Domain --JohnMajerus 04:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

When did "scapegoating" acquire its meaning?

It seems to me that scapegoating - i.e. blaming somebody for something they did not do to illicitly divert attention from the wrongs of the scapegoater, has a different meaning than the biblical story: in the biblical story there is nothing illicit. Does anybody have any comment?

The connection seems clear to me. A scapegoat is blamed for particular evils, and in the ritual, the sins of the people are symbolically transferred to the scapegoat. It becomes, quite literally, the scapegoat. I don't know what you mean by "illicit". Can you clarify? Also, please consider getting a username to identify yourself, and sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~). Thank you. Makaristos 08:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Scapegoating in the common meaning is illicit, not symbolic. I think that is a significant difference. Like borrowing and stealing. But there are other differences as well: in the biblical story the scapegoat is not a member of the group (it is a goat after all), the actor whose attention is being diverted is strictly speaking God, not the group, the scapegoat is not punished but set free. It seems to me that at some point the meaning of the word was transferred and I am curious when and why that happened. Perhaps there is another legend out there about a goat that is the real source of the "scapegoat" concept?

I still don't quite understand what you mean by "illicit". Scapegoating is not illegal, however bad it is. And you're right about all the points you make, but I still think the connection is quite clear: in each instance, you have the transference of blame onto a particular thing that obviously didn't do it. The scapegoat in the Bible is sent into the wilderness (or killed by being pushed into a ravine, or whatever--depends on your reading of the word Azazel), carrying the people's sins away from them. I don't see any reason to think that there's a temporal discrepancy between the "two" meanings of the words, because there's only one meaning, and the connection is clear and beyond reproach for me. Makaristos 16:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

When I mention "illicit" I mean that in the biblical story it is said that the goat is a scapegoat. In "scapegoating" this is never uttered - in fact, that the victim is innocent is a big secret. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.80.29.139 (talk • contribs) .

What? I don't understand. "It is said that the goat is a scapegoat"? But "In 'scapegoating' this is never uttered"? The goat itself certainly wasn't guilty of the sins of the people. I still don't understand what you're talking about. Pleast clarify. --Makaristos 22:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Please add a link to mobbing.ca

Mobbing is a form of scapegoating which takes place in the workplace. The scapegoated person is subjected to bullying and harassement in a concerted effort to eliminate them from the workplace. You can find more information at http://mobbing.ca

For your convenience here is the link you can add to "External links":

• mobbing.ca (Mobbing resources in Canada)

Radyx 19:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

As I have explained on your talk page, I do not think the website belongs on Wikipedia. Please check out Wikipedia:External links for the guidelines. --Makaristos 16:36, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi User:Makaristos, thanks for your reply.

I had a look at Wikipedia:External Links but wasn't really able to find anything there that would preclude inclusion of a link to mobbing.ca. Even item 4 under "Links normally to be avoided" does not apply.

Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising, or that require payment to view the relevant content, colloquially known as external link spamming.

First mobbing.ca certainly does not "primarily exist to sell products or services". mobbing.ca had a great deal of content before there was any advertising whatsoever. Any advertising that has been added has been with the purpose of adding to the visual interest of the pages by providing links to products that relate directly to the subject at hand. Products which would be of interest to targets of scapegoating (mobbing). With over 40 pages of content, so far, the vast majority of the site is content - not advertising. So I do not believe it would be fair to say mobbing.ca contains "objectionable amounts of advertising". Further mobbing.ca does not "require payment to view the relevant content" of any of its pages whatsoever.

Content on mobbing.ca does contain a range of perspectives, some pages reflect opinions of those who have experienced scapegoating firsthand, most pages provide more objective information such as the health and legal information pages as well as many feature articles written by journalists and researchers. A site not being 100 percent nuetral is not a reason to preclude its inclusion as an external link in Wikipedia. If you searched hard enough I'm sure you could find a reason to disallow any site at all. There are far more reasons (as mentioned in previous post) to include mobbing.ca than the few technicalities which may be found to disallow it. mobbing.ca is completely relevant to the subject at hand and provides a depth of information currently not covered in the Wiki article. Let's not split hairs while overlooking overwhelming justification for inclusion of mobbing.ca. Please reconsider and add mobbing.ca to the external links.

For your convenience here is the link:

• mobbing.ca (Mobbing resources in Canada)

Thanks for your help. Radyx 04:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Description of mobbing added to Political/sociological scapegoating

Mobbing is a form of sociological scapegoating which occurs in the workplace. In support of this I include a quote from At The Mercy Of The Mob A summary of research on workplace mobbing by Kenneth Westhues, Prof. of Sociology University of Waterloo, published in OHS Canada, Canada's Occupational Health & Safety Magazine, Vol. 18, No. 8, December 2002, pp. 30-36. I believe this expert opinion supports inclusion of mobbing in this section. I have also waited for a month for response to my request above. Since there has been none and it is obviously appropriate I will go ahead and add an external link to http://mobbing.ca.

Radyx 22:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I took away "I luv Joshua Whittle!" as it was obvious vandalism.

Unless Joshua Whittle concurrs I don't think you have a consensus. :-P Batvette (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Bush a Scapegoat?

I took out the statement claiming that Bush is a good example of a political scapegoat. If anything, Bush is receiving less criticism than he deserves for the decisions he has made. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.119.108.85 (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Maybe your dislike for the man has you too blind to see the obvious? The desire to remove Saddam stretches way back to Clinton's administration, and the policy continues into the end of 2001 when a bipartisan group of congressmen issue a written demand to Bush that he act on the matter. By October 2002 the House and Senate pass the Iraq war bill, AKA AUMF on Iraq, which laid an unstoppable course to invade the country. Not a SINGLE new piece of intelligence came out of that country during Bush's tenure, the entire body of intel comes from Clinton's DCI Tenet- YET the media convinces everyone after the fact it was BUSH that made it all up and both houses of congress were his dupes- including senators and congressman who pick apart the CIA's budget for decades! Hillary Clinton too! So America invades an energy rich middle east country to keep its resources from falling into the hands of France, China, and Russia, and its ruler from further agression with our allies KSA and Kuwait- the prior we owe all our prosperity since 1973 to-and we get to use a whole country as a shooting gallery for Al Qaeda for years- And EVERYONE, including the world and the american people, ALL get to blame it on one guy who went back home to Texas and will likely rarely be heard from again- and you say he's not a scapegoat for the decisions HE made? WE invaded a country and WE'RE playing victims of BUSH! That's how well it worked. That guy didn't decide what he had for breakfast every day. Please. Batvette (talk) 13:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Ritual exclusion from group or tribe

One anthropological parallel I see here is the concept of mingi. In similarity to the Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary text for scapegoat (above), the ritual exclusion could and did include, as I recall from an old documentary on PBS, more violent means leading to death, such as throwing a child designated as mingi into the river to drown, which would prevent the great discomfort of having to face the apparition of one who reappears after a period of time. As I recall, those who were forcibly separated from their tribe would, if they were able, shadow their tribe at a distance, though they would eventually succumb to starvation or predators in the jungle. JohnMajerus 07:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible Section Confusing

Someone made a complete mess of this section. While technically correct (AFAICT), it is so muddled that it makes it sound as if the biblical *existence* of the concept of the scapegoat is based on a mistranslation, when it is simply the *term* "scapegoat" which is a mistranslation. Someone needs to rewrite this as clearly as it is explained here: http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/brush_excerpts/brush_20040707.shtml 68.73.114.58 (talk) 05:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Pedophiles

Are scapegoats —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.245.137 (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Reorganising

I intend to reorganize this to put much more emphasis on the metaphorical meaning of scapegoating. --Penbat (talk) 22:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. The talk page could not be moved. Stifle (talk) 10:57, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

---

Scapegoat → Scapegoating — IMHO the current article is a very dull description mainly of the ancient historical origins of the word "scapegoat", although current day political and psychological aspects are touched upon towards the end. Scapegoating is an important concept quite closely associated to bullying, where the bully victim is often a scapegoat. A few years ago the bullying article used to be called "bully" before it was renamed. Similarly, it would make sense to rename "scapegoat" as "scapegoating" as "scapegoating" is the broader concept that incorporates "scapegoat". Also it should encourage editors to write about the broader modern day concept rather than just get bogged down with describing the word "scapegoat". I plan to develop this article myself in time. "Scapegoating" is a very common word these days and is an important social psychological construct. See for example the references to "scapegoating" in Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=Scapegoating&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws I dont think this is controversial as I am simply askng for a variation of the original name.--Penbat (talk) 12:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Unlike bully/bullying, a scapegoat derives from an actual goat. In my opinion, this article is very interesting as it is, and the current title doesn't impede the ability to expand it further. While "scapegoating" has been used by some behaviourists, the noun "scapegoat" remains more common in day-to-day use. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 14:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

There are 36,800 references to scapegoating in the Google scholar link i gave, the vast majority of which relate to scapegoating in a behavioural sense and very few relate to scapegoating in a historical sense so your "While "scapegoating" has been used by some behavourists" point doesn't stack up. Obviously it is reasonable to cover the origin and history of scapegoats but currently it is disproportionate,.--Penbat (talk) 15:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

There are 63,100 hits for "scapegoat" on Google Scholar, much more than the 36,800 for "scapegoating". 84.92.117.93 (talk) 15:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Bullying" has only about 40% of the hits on Google as "Bully" yet the "Bully" Wiki article was renamed as "Bullying" a few years ago. "Scapegoating" incorporates anything to do with "scapegoats" but in addition allows more scope to cover people who do the scapegoating (and the process in general) as well as the scapegoats themselves.--Penbat (talk) 15:43, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Changed my mind on the basis of your arguments. Switching to support. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 15:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Our convention, set out in the Naming Conventions, is to use the noun form, which would be Scapegoat. I suspect Bully was renamed to Bullying, against these conventions, because of the multiple uses of the word Bully, and the need for a disambiguating term. That consideration does not apply to Scapegoat. Skinsmoke (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Incidentally, the verb is also to scapegoat. Skinsmoke (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment doesnt make sense as in the case of bullying the verb is "to bully", but it wasnt the verb I was referring to but the general concept, "scapegoating" in the same way as "bullying".--Penbat (talk) 20:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Just looking at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Article_title_format it seems to me that "scapegoating" is equivalent to "democracy" and "swimming" (both of which are quoted as being valid according to Wikipedia naming conventions) while "scapegoat" is equivalent to "democrat" and "swimmer". "Democracy" and "swimming" (which relate to the broad concept rather than just an individual) are obviously much more sensible names for Wiki articles than "democrat" and "swimmer".--Penbat (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the Wikipedia naming conventions more carefully, it says "Sometimes the noun corresponding to a verb will be the gerund (-ing form), as in Swimming." So the verb is "to swim" and the gerund form is "swimming". With scapegoating the verb is "to scapegoat" and the gerund form is "scapegoating". So "scapegoating" is entirely valid according to the Wikipedia naming conventions which actually supports my case instead of yours.--Penbat (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.