A little more guilty

When a culture cannot come to terms with its shadow (the parts of itself that are undeniably true but not yet admitted), it points its finger and forces individuals to carry the full weight of our cultural collective fear and guilt.

Many different people can serve the role well: criminals, teachers, CEO’s, foreigners, minorities, the poor, the young, politicians, then police, and many more. These individuals must only seem the slightest bit more guilty that the rest of us to stand out enough to become our scapegoat - and this is why we pounce when someone reveals themselves to be a little worse than the rest of us.If we can blame them for our cultural problems, then we don’t all have to be part of the problem… we don’t all have to be responsible.

Our scapegoat brings us short term peace, but we cannot point fingers and blame our way to a better world.

I previously developed this idea here: