April 03, 2019 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Understanding the Psychology behind Scapegoating
Psychological projections of such blames
not only appear in political rallies all across the world all the times but
also in the family and backyard gossips of small groups and few individuals.
Scapegoating in its larger forms appears in
societies or nations that have experienced prolonged negative experiences
especially in the form of inability in attaining the basic needs such as food,
housing, jobs etc in the form of some compelling and appealing ideology that
invariably besides other components has a group as target.
Such a compelling ideology gains momentum
by intertwining itself with the prevailing social and political milieu that themselves
find personal benefit in magnifying the fears of the masses inherent in such
ideologies.
Such kind of scapegoating when encountered
in large numbers at the level of states or nations and amplified up with the
voices of powerful and popular political leaders and orators end up in its
extreme form – inciting mass frenzy that eventually ends up in a systematic
genocide in complete collusion with the state machinery.
Such genocides keep on happening with
regular frequency even in modern times that is a powerful example that human
nature has essentially remained unchanged over thousands of years.
It is believed that the scapegoating and
eventually the murder of a target group or individual provide a psychological
relief for the majority.
Perhaps the greatest and the best example
of such scapegoating when it comes to a single individual would be Jesus of
Nazareth who is the central figure in Christianity, a major figure in Islam but
rejected and criticized by Judaism which perhaps becomes yet another reason for
the Christian Europeans to despise their brother Jews.
In 1938 Hungary under Miklos Horthy partly
or perhaps largely it was dependent on Germany economically because Germany was
its biggest trading partner and Hitler had secured trading guarantees to
Hungary.
Remember that post World War I and after
signing the Treaty of Trianon Hungary had become extremely vulnerable and
unstable both politically and economically.
You must understand that having faced the
Communist Revolution in 1920 for Horthy (or for that matter any Hungarian in
general) the greater threat was posed by the Communist Soviet Union than
Hitler’s Germany since until 1940 no one was certain or sure what Hitler was up
to.
I would even argue that until 1940 and in
spite of Third Reich’s total military industrialization and the power and law
being centralized to just one man and his words no major world politician in
their worst nightmares would have imagined what would follow in the next five
years.
Barely two decades following the World War
I which had witnessed colossal losses both in terms of wealth and human lives
and redrawn the map of Europe who could have ever guessed that any leader would
have any appetite left for second such major world war.
But on the other hand Soviet Communists had
revealed their bloody hand and their intentions through multiple bloody
revolutions, civil wars and fiery texts that condoned or even accepted violence
as a means to their ends.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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