The priest places his hands on the goat’s head and then,
with a smack, drives it into the wilderness.
While another animal is sacrificed, this one is spared that fate,
scampering over the rocks into freedom:
the original (e)scape goat.
It’s human nature to find a scapegoat, someone to blame for
our own problems and shortcomings. It’s
easier to point the finger at another than to look in the mirror. We create human scapegoats rather than take
responsibility for our actions, rather than acknowledge our short comings. When someone else is to blame, we feel
pristine and our ego remains unbruised.
The mess we’re standing in?
Someone else made it.
“My father didn’t support me, so I didn’t pursue my dream to
graduate school.” “Why don’t you go now?” “It’s too hard.”
“My daughter got a C in Spanish because the teacher was mean.”
“I didn’t get the promotion because my boss wanted someone
he could push around.”
“I’m angry that you didn’t invite me!” “Why didn’t tell me you wanted to come?”
Scapegoating is a form of bullying. (Note the animalistic reference in both
terms.) So is gaslighting, a term I
recently learned. Gaslighting is a suite
of behaviors intentionally designed to challenge another person’s perception of
reality.
Classically, gaslighting is the practice an abuser uses to
make his partner doubt her own sanity: secretly moving things in the house,
denying something she knows to be true, repeating a lie often enough that it
becomes ‘fact.’ The gaslighter makes his
victim feel uncertain, unworthy, or irrational.
I’ve met a few gaslighters.
Not knowing the term, however, I couldn’t define what was
happening.
Every time I’d point out
something they were doing that was inappropriate, they’d turn it around without
acknowledging the observation. “But what
about you? You…” By doing that, the gaslighter’s own
shortcoming is overlooked. A gaslighter
may present as sweet in public, but bitter in private. That’s incredibly disconcerting. Was I missing something? Why didn’t everyone see what I saw? A gaslighter can play the martyr, creating an
image of victim even while victimizing others.
Someone else is the cause their distress, not their own failure to
perform.
Human beings are complex animals. We protect our own self-image, at times, even
if it hurts others. It is helpful to
recognize these tendencies in other people, and also in ourselves.
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