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The passage of human civilization into the new geological era of the Anthropocene raises the question of species extinction. How can we confront the possibility of collective death in a way that does not descend into uncontained anxiety or melancholy? Michel Serres's works in the Foundations and Humanism series offer critical insights into the way in which human violence and death operate as mechanisms for binding together human collectives. Serres draws attention to the role of "social technologies" based around sacrificial practices, the scapegoating mechanism, and the use of corpses as markers of social relations (or "statues"). He argues that these mythic logics and practices persist in modern societies and technoscience. They may also be at work in a modified way in the proposed technical solutions to climate change around space travel and planetary colonization. Drawing on the tradition of Folk Horror film-making and literature, it is argued that reversing the direction of travel, back into the Earth, provides better instruction about how to live and die in the Anthropocene. Reflection on the puteal sites where this may be accomplished will serve as the mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to cognitive and behavioural spillover, emotional spillovers remain relatively undertheorised. This is the first paper to conceptualise discrete emotion spillover. In discrete emotion spillover, the content and valence of an emotion experienced towards target A spills over to target B, and indirectly influences subsequent behaviour towards target B. We test this model in two studies, examining the spillover of anger following corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). First, we show that anger spillover depends on attribution of blame, and leads to emotion-consistent outcomes (i.e. punitive behaviour). Second, we demonstrate the effectiveness of communication strategies that can reduce attribution of blame, thus limiting emotion spillover. We conclude by highlighting the implications of the proposed conceptualisation of discrete emotion spillover in other marketing contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Twelfth Night (1601–02), the pressure to enforce a comedic ending competes with problematic and overtly abusive behaviors towards certain characters, particularly the steward Malvolio, who is identified as a target for scapegoating by a persecuting group. As Malvolio is subject to mounting pressures to take in the projections of the group, the mistreatment levied against him gains in cruelty, culminating with his imprisonment in a dark room. While the "pranksters" seek to drive him mad, the figures in power ensure their own narcissistically satisfying ending, at the expense of those stripped of control and dignity. The role of the audience becomes a complex matter by the end, as applauding a problematic play meant to be funny invites a degree of collusion with those who would enforce scapegoating dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January of 2014, comedian Bill Maher sought to alter Americans' perception of the federal political system through a satirical advocacy campaign named #FlipADistrict. Through an alternative reading of Kenneth Burke's understanding of satire, scapegoating, and mortification, I argue that #FlipADistrict fostered a critical sense of political awareness and responsibility in Maher's televised audience. By outlining a comically oriented form of satire or satyric satire, this essay connects political humour to Burke's comic frame. Rather than fostering cynicism, this essay posits that #FlipADistrict's comically oriented form of satire advocated Americans become aware of their piety to political partisanship or complacency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The clinical literature on narcissistic families has often described the presence of a family scapegoat. To date, however, no research has empirically explored this phenomenon. This study investigated the relationship between perceived parental vulnerable and grandiose narcissism and scapegoating, and the impact of these on the symptoms of anxiety and depression in emerging adults, in a sample of 504 Australian adults (Mage = 22.38, SDage = 3.63; 59.72% female, 38.09% male). A path model was tested, with perceived parental vulnerable and grandiose narcissism as predictors, scapegoating as a mediator, and participants' anxiety and depression as outcomes, controlling for demographic variables and participants' vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. Results indicated that higher perceived paternal grandiose narcissism had a direct effect on anxiety and depression, whereas perceived maternal vulnerable narcissism, perceived paternal vulnerable narcissism, and perceived maternal grandiose narcissism had indirect effects on anxiety and depression via scapegoating. Effect sizes were generally small to medium. These findings show that scapegoating is an important variable linking parental narcissism with negative psychological outcomes such as anxiety and depression in emerging adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 represents a unique psychosocial challenge for Asian Americans, because they have been scapegoated for the virus. Accordingly, this study examined: (a) the types of racism related to COVID-19, particularly scapegoating (verbal blaming, physical shunning), reported by Asian American college students (N = 120); (b) the consequences of COVID-19 racism, particularly mental health (i.e. anxiety symptoms) and attitudes about their race/ethnicity (i.e. internalized racism and racial/ethnic pride); and (c) whether ethnic identity commitment moderated the effects of COVID-19 racism on the outcomes examined. A directed content analysis revealed the most prevalent types of COVID-19 racism being: derogatory non-verbal treatment; verbal blaming; and physical shunning. The top three most prevalent types of impact of COVID-19 racism on participants' racial/ethnic attitudes were: racial/ethnic pride; heightened vigilance about one's race/ethnicity; and no change. Further, regression analyses indicated that physical shunning was significantly and positively associated with anxiety symptoms; this relationship was buffered by high levels of ethnic identity commitment. The perpetual foreigner stereotype significantly predicted higher odds of internalized racism. However, verbal blaming significantly predicted higher odds of racial/ethnic pride when high levels of ethnic identity commitment were present. These results highlight the importance of studying COVID-19 racism and associated psychological concerns. Asian American (AA) college students face unique experiences of racism due to the blaming of Asians for the COVID-19 pandemic. The present findings linked COVID-19 racism experiences to greater anxiety and internalized racism. For those students with high ethnic identity commitment, however, COVID-19 racism may strengthen racial/ethnic pride. Therapists working with AA students should understand COVID-19 racism and facilitate ethnic identity commitment development so that pandemic blaming experiences may be rechanneled toward heightened racial/ethnic pride. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though populist politicians deem the terrorist threat as a reason for restrictive immigration policies, existing studies neglect to explore the systematic connection between immigration and security. This study offers a novel theoretical argument about the effect of terrorism on immigration policy and then conducts a first-cut empirical analysis. Based on a battery of statistical tests performed against pooled panel data on immigrant-receiving countries that are attractive to low-skilled workers due to high wages, this study shows evidence that terrorist threats are actually unrelated to restrictive immigration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration to South Africa is commonly depicted as a crisis by government officials, the media and members of the public. This article critically examines the representation of migration to South Africa as a crisis and deconstructs this notion through an examination of the context of migration to South Africa and the reception non-nationals receive upon arrival. While structural forces in nearby countries have caused an increase in migration to South Africa, the South African government's own failures to respond to domestic, political, economic and social crises have led to the scapegoating of migrants by public officials. The construction of migration as a crisis by public officials reinforces existing widespread xenophobic sentiments amongst the public and has enabled a xenophobic response to international migration. This is exemplified in frequent xenophobic protests and attacks by members of the public, the lack of protection of foreigners by government officials, the exclusion of foreigners from basic government services, and the country's harsh immigration system and use of arrest and deportation to regulate migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine how consumers respond to betrayal of their trust in brands, we surveyed 2156 consumers in nine metropolitan centres in China following the 2008 melamine contamination crisis. Drawing on psychological drivers of scapegoating and attribution theory, we investigate how early information and the perceived involvement in a multi-brand crisis and attribution factors influence scapegoat effects. The survey results reveal that the first accused brand, Sanlu, took disproportionate blame and was made a scapegoat for an industry-wide crisis. The observer/tension-discharging perspective, the ‘early information’ effect, and the contrasting roles of manufacturers and non-manufacturer parties in the supply chain in causal attributions have the most significant effect in consumer scapegoating. Study of a highly unfortunate ‘real-life experiment’ shows how a food safety scandal spills over and negatively affects attitudes and beliefs about the whole supply chain and about competing brands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ministers are faced with intense account-giving pressures when things go wrong under their watch. While ministers carry hierarchical responsibility for the behavior of their top administrators, ministers have incentive to shift blame and scapegoat them after policy failures. This is likely since political-administrative relations in most parliamentary systems have become more managerial. However, there is little empirical research regarding the formal and informal accountability rules that govern ministerial and administrative accountability after failures. This article compares two parliamentary systems with ministerial responsibility: the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) and the Netherlands. NSW political-administrative relations have become more managerial than Dutch ones. The comparison highlights two important ethical constraints for ministers: (a) formal rules guiding political-administrative relations; and (b) informal norms regarding appropriate ministerial account-giving. While hierarchically oriented accountability rules and informal (parliamentary) norms buttress Dutch top administrators, these buttresses are less patent in the NSW case. Subsequently, while Dutch ministers have multiple times taken "sacrificial responsibility" for policy failures, NSW top administrators often have to front the media and have taken the fall for their ministers. To conclude, formal accountability rules and informal rules-in-use make ministers take the heat instead of shifting the blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how demagoguery gives meaning to violence by providing a symbolic, expressive outlet for resentment resulting from real or felt precarity. This rhetorical process redirects frustrations away from the entities and sociopolitical structures responsible for creating precarity and toward a scapegoat. Rather than examining demagoguery as rhetoric produced by an individual rhetor or consumed by an audience of the masses, the author explores the "meso-level" of demagogic discourse: the organizations called into existence and motivated by individuals' shared identification with a symbolic struggle against an imagined Other. This phenomenon is illustrated through a close reading of the Proud Boys, a multinational fraternal organization that uses an aesthetic of libertarianism to advance a fascist politic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay identifies and examines scapegoat ecology, an emergent genre in online environmental discourse. In scapegoat ecology, a public of environmentally minded individuals focuses attention and vitriol on a single person for being particularly harmful to the environment. This essay argues that such discourse deflects attention from more complex and systemic environmental factors and implicitly exonerates the broader community, assuring it of its own environmental commitments while excusing it from further ecological action. The essay describes the form and appeal of scapegoat ecology, then provides a series of illustrative case examples before highlighting the implications of such discourse for both environmental communication and broader social/political conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does being a psychoanalyst imply that one should hold a particular political sensibility? This article aims to approach this question in the aftermath of Donald Trump having become the president of the United States and the reverberations of this event, both political and personal, in analytic spaces. Contemplating the ways in which psychoanalysis addresses (or not) the social and political aspects of life, I argue that the social is the unconscious of the unconscious of psychoanalysis. The social is the unconscious of the unconscious of psychoanalysis in the sense that, unlike the unconscious that it traditionally assumes and aims to uncover—the unconscious of drives, of object relations, and of family life—psychoanalysis is reluctant to attend, both in theory and in practice, to the social forces that structure our very being and underwrite our lives. It is so reluctant that one might argue that the social is repressed into an even deeper unconscious, one that disappears completely out of sight. I suggest in the article that the reason for this reluctance is our collective historic trauma, as a discipline created by displaced people and refugees. And I try to imagine what might be our subject matter if psychoanalysis moves beyond its avoidance of the social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vindication of the Gypsy as a hero in some works by Manuel Falla and Federico García Lorca and through the cante jondo competition of 1922 is well known to scholars. What is perhaps less known is that Falla and Lorca reacted against a long tradition of abusing Gypsies in the media, that peaked during the Restoration. This article analyses the cultural production that prompted Falla and Lorca to write in defence of the Gypsy, and pays particular attention to the work of Rafael Salillas, Eugenio Noel, and journalists writing in reaction to the rise of flamenquismo from the 1880s on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic, psychological, and social goods, but from how gift-relations are imbued with power-relations, particularly as generated in activation policies currently spreading through the OECD. Inspired by theoretical consideration of Mauss, Girard, and others, we aspire to offer an imaginative rethinking of unemployment, moving beyond the simple notion that it is just a lack of work, to positioning unemployment as a foundational axis of punishment which is constitutive for modern society. In this way, the unemployed exist as imaginary scapegoats for political legitimization and as surplus labour which allows capitalism to function. Illustrative empirical data are drawn from interviews and media reportage in Ireland, where the switch to activation policies was made swiftly and dramatically since 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aron Ralston and Christopher McCandless, two outdoor adventurers, have captured the hearts of many American environmentalists. Each has attained the status of cultural icons and inspired books and films to recount their tales. While entertainment media have romanticized both individuals, news media are not as easy on one—McCandless is vilified while Ralston is valorized. When reporting these stories, news media outlets attempted to retell each story in a way that conforms to the dominant American ideology of wilderness, where “progress” is marked by control over nature—control that both Ralston and McCandless clearly unsettled. In addition, both committed many of the same errors in being underprepared. Despite these similarities, why are they each presented so differently in the news media? This paper offers a rhetorical analysis of newspaper articles on each story, where the phenomenon of scapegoating alienates McCandless, and the phenomenon of mortification purifies Ralston, restabilizing this American environmental ideology in both stories. In conclusion, I argue that the essential difference between these two stories is that they present two opposing ideals of a human–nature relationship, with Ralston's ideology including a space for technology and industrial knowledge, and thus construed as more appropriate than McCandless' ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism of the novel "Libra" by Don DeLillo is presented. The novel dramatizes U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald. It outlines the characters and explores the symbolic significance of these characters. The themes of the novel are examined which include violence and scapegoating. An overview of the story is also given.

This article discusses three fatal child abuse cases (two from the United Kingdom and one from Australia). Using an interactionist framework, it identifies two critical signs -- the 'invisibility' of the child and certain dysfunctional parent representations -- as the precursors to death in these cases. Reviewing the child death inquiry findings, it argues that acknowledging these critical indicators of risk has significant implications for preventing death in similar cases where child protection workers know the child in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a social category ‘immigrant’ can function rhetorically to constitute a line between self and Other. The case study of spousal murder in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chicago illustrates that Americans attempted to make sense of these murders by scapegoating immigrants. Statistical data illustrate that immigrants were no more likely to murder a spouse than anyone else. Yet, analysis of the rhetoric about wife murder in Chicago newspapers shows that murderers were framed as immigrant Other. We identify three frames used in newspapers to constitute immigrants as Other and identify the contemporary relevance for public understandings of immigration. We argue that while explicit debates about immigration draw lines that constitute American identity, the most insidious rhetorical borders enter into the American imaginary through seemingly unrelated issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Struggles over dignity and dignity denial are a central facet of class struggles and other struggles under capitalism. Marxist theory, however, has not developed an adequate understanding of dignity denial or of struggles against it as a crucial part of capitalism and its dialectic. This paper discusses dignity denial as inherent both in a society based on commodity production for profit and also in the political, ideational, and social implications of capitalist production. It shows how struggles against such dignity denial are also inherent in capitalism. Finally, the paper suggests that an enhanced appreciation for and theorization of dignity denial and the struggles around it can help when framing issues for concrete conflict situations and can also help the development of firmer and better visions of a future socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The publication of theMunro Review of Child Protection: Final Report(2011b, Department for Education, London) was the culmination of an extensive and expansive consultation process into the current state of child protection practice across the UK. Despite the concern about ‘blame’ within the report, there is, surprisingly, at no point an explicit reference to the dynamics and practices of ‘scapegoating’ that are so closely associated with organisational blame cultures. This paper examines this gap in understanding of the recurrence of shortcomings in child care social work practice and suggests that unless the dynamics of scapegoating are more fully understood, new developments, such as the systems approach advocated by Munro, will fall short of their potential impact. A critical review of existing understanding of scapegoating is presented and the paper concludes by outlining initiatives to counter the detrimental effect of scapegoating of everyday practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper follows the case study of Mike Diana – a 24-year-old Floridian artist, writer and zine creator – who in the early 1990s self-published eight issues of his comix zineBoiled Angelto a circulation of 300 people around the world. Local authorities confiscated his work and, through an elaborate legal trial, Diana became the first comic-book artist to be arrested, tried and jailed for creating offensive material. This paper uses the scapegoating process, borrowing from the work of literary critic Kenneth Burke. The discourse produced by the prosecutor’s rhetoric shifted from the creative expression of art to vilifying Diana as the ‘essence of evil’, whereby the only way the community could merge together to expunge their guilt was to purify themselves by punishing Diana to the fullest extent by making sure he received his ‘just desserts’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many contexts today it is clear that religious minorities will face escalating discrimination and persecution. The reason is simple: threatened political elites often seek support or attempt to demobilize opposition by reframing secular conflicts as religious conflicts in a process of religious outbidding. Religious outbidding has led not only to intensified discrimination in employment, worship, and education, but to large-scale violence, including civil war. In Muslim-majority countries, elites are increasing relying on two options to bolster their credibility: 1) introducing and intensifying shari'a law; and then (2) scapegoating those they deemed as threats to their vision of the role of religion in public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I use an updated approach to Richard Hofstadter's paranoid style to analyze the contemporary birther movement. While the paranoid style provides a set of characteristics that describes paranoid narratives, it does not account for why some narratives ring true for certain audiences. Thus, in order to explain how and why the birther narrative resonates with a substantial portion of Americans, I argue that the resonance of the birther narrative can be explained through Kenneth Burke's scapegoating process, which activates the conspiratorial story for the birther audience. I use an analysis of a popular birther film, materials on the birthers' website, and media commentary on the group to illustrate this position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model of social empathy is described where social empathy is defined as the ability to more deeply understand people by perceiving or experiencing their life situations and as a result gain insight into structural inequalities and disparities. The three components of the model-individual empathy, contextual understanding, and social responsibility-are explored and explained. Social empathy provides a framework for more effective social policies that address disparities and support social and economic justice for all people. Social workers are well positioned to enhance social empathy, and application and suggestions for further enhancement and research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the systems-centered approach to training therapists and the particular ways a systems-centered approach is relevant in integrating diversities ij a change process. The systems-centered methods are especially useful in moving beyond stereotyping whether related to gender, race or culture; to exploring the real similarities and differences in people in a way that the differences can be integrated as resources. By introducing theory and methods that create the conditions for lowering personalizing and increasing an understanding of context, therapists-in-training learn to see themselves and their client in context, as well as learn how to develop the contexts in which clients can develop by integrating differences in themselves and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will suggest that healthcare institutions are intolerant of dissent, and use scapegoating as a defence. When dissent involves criticism of the organization, including whistle-blowing activities, the dissenter is likely to be punished and excluded. I will suggest that this process represents a paranoid defence in which the organization acts as an antigroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cognitive/affective construct designated by the term "pedophile" is delineated on the basis of how he is presented in the popular media. His salient characteristics are listed and then examined in the light of scientific and historical data. The "pedophile" is discovered to be a "social construct that floats in the thin air of fantasy." Since the truth-value of the construct "pedophile" approaches zero, we are confronted with the question of why he continues to be such a central and emotionally fraught aspect of American culture. The answer to this question is found in his political usefulness. Specifically, the religious right uses him to further its agenda of sexual repression, and the political right uses him to dismantle the machinery of a free society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathy is a crucial concept in understanding not only child maltreatment, but its intergenerational transmission. One form of maltreatment, often involving both physical and emotional abuse, targets one child in the family, referred to as the "scapegoat." Historically, the scapegoat has been regarded as the only abuse victim; clinical experience demonstrates otherwise. In many families, siblings identify with the parent, joining in blaming the victim for the caretaker's abase of that child. They demonstrate empathy deficits, which may protect them from the effects of witnessing the process. This paper proposes a conceptual model that examines factors contributing to the development of empathy deficits. Ten elements are identified and a unifying model is proposed: the implications are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author uses literary plagues as a model for thinking psychoanalytically about the basic anxieties activated among perpetrators of sanctioned massacres. The model of the plague allows abstracting an underlying primitive psychological organization characterized by syncretism and a powerful anxiety of dedifferentiation and confusion, leading characteristically to imitative behavior within the in-group as well as to the disavowal of the out-group members similarities to oneself, i.e. the disavowal of the other's humanity. Recognizing the historical and social foundations of discrimination and genocide, the author analyzes the interaction between group and individual processes that allow ordinary people to join daily acts of immoral violence. She dramatizes the model of the plague through a psychoanalytic reading of three literary plagues: Thebes' plague according to Sophocles, Camus's chronicle of the plague in Oran, and Saramago's meditation on the plague of white blindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We psychoanalysts – as split subjects – are not immune to charismatic leaders who preach violence against selected targets depicted as the cause of all evils. Freud, in Group psychology and the analysis of the ego, alerted us against such leaders, who can manipulate by transforming us into an uncritical mass. This would be the social equivalent of the perverse pact in repressive desublimation between the superego and the id at the expense of the ego: the latter is put to sleep, and the superego exhorts the id to do violence and regress. Socially, these perverse pacts often take place with the superego represented by charismatic leaders who foster identification with themselves, put the egos of their audiences to sleep through manipulation and thus address an amorphous mass that they can direct towards violence and destruction. An event in which such a phenomenon apparently occurred will be discussed to show how urgent it is to revisit psychoanalytic writings on these matters in order to withstand the temptation to be herded by manipulative leaders. This will certainly protect psychoanalysis and allow for its transmission. It is up to us to exercise the critical analysis that psychoanalytic tools equip us for so that we can detect such summons to perverse pacts and denounce them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will discuss current issues surrounding the administration of capital punishment in the U.S. with insights from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". The story itself shows the atavistic nature lurking beneath humankind's civilized surface and leads the reader to examine such notions as scapegoating, ritual cleansing, gender, class structure, arbitrary condemnation, and sanctioned violence. There may be more truth in Jackson's short story than the reader cares to confront. This opens the possibility that fiction can give us more insight into value issues than other sources can. Although fiction is made up of imaginary elements, it is true to reality and human experience. The legal historical reality of capital punishment and its subsequent implementation as it has existed and still exists in our culture purports to establish and maintain what amounts to a legal fiction of its own. In this story, Jackson presents us with a glimpse into humankind's past and brings the reader to question the justification and use of capital punishment in our culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes some of the history of in-patient psychiatric services and the main focus of recent policy development impacting on the organisational culture of high secure in-patient services. The social and political context for mental health services is located within the recent growth in public concerns about risk and the attendant expectations of professionals, culminating in the proposed reforms of the Mental Health Act (1983) and the development of services for patients diagnosed with severe personality disorders and assessed as being dangerous. Psychodynamic theory is applied to an analysis of working in such a setting, and the unconscious defensive processes, in the current social and political climate. The particular impact on social care services is considered. It is suggested that, in this context, the nature of the primary task challenges the management of boundaries with a resulting infusion of perverse projective processes that potentially undermine professional practices and the possibility of reflective practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family therapies which utilize the phenomenon of the identified patient do not clearly outline the process by which it occurs. This paper describes the clinical concept of Projective Identification as a basic mechanism that creates and maintains this phenomenon of the scapegoat or identified patient. The mechanism of Projective Identification is also presented as an integrative concept bridging the intrapsychic, interpersonal and systems dynamics in family therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]