Scapegoat Quotes - Page 2

• I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and scared. And when you're desperate and scared you scapegoat people. It exacerbates latent tendencies toward - well, toward racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, Roots, Racism

  "Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. March 19, 2008.

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• I do not intend to be made the scapegoat of sacrifice, to be offered up as a victim to society.

  Victoria Woodhull

  Sacrifice, Victim, Made

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• Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, America, Russia

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.143, Penguin

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• Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate.

  Frank Herbert

  Democracy, Electorate, Fronts

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.145, Penguin

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• For some high-profile men in trouble, women, especially feminist women, became the all-purpose scapegoats-charged with crimes that often descended into the absurd.

  Susan Faludi

  Men, Feminist, Purpose

  Susan Faludi (1991). “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”

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• Donald Trump creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.

  Mitt Romney

  Cheer, Children, Mexican

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Political parties often take advantage of denial and fear in a moment of change. This is a well understood phenomenon that often leads to scapegoat-ism: blaming outsiders, such as immigrants, or racial and religious minorities. The phenomenon is behind Brexit and the violence in the political cycles in the US and EU.

  Graciela Chichilnisky

  Religious, Party, Political

  "Global Warming and the Future of Humanity: An Interview With Noam Chomsky and Graciela Chichilnisky". Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, truthout.org. September 17, 2016.

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• The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices . . . . And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

  Rod Serling

  Attitude, Twilight, Prejudice

  The Twilight Zone (television show), 4 Mar. 1960

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• It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Should Have, Political, Intellectual

  "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". Book by Richard Hofstadter, pp. 145-146, 1963.

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• The artist is the world's scapegoat.

  Jacob Epstein

  Artist, World

  Jacob Epstein, (2013). “Let There Be Sculpture”, p.221, Read Books Ltd

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• The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.

  John Bradshaw

  Stars, Powerful, Shame

  John Bradshaw (2010). “Healing the Shame that Binds You”, p.34, Health Communications, Inc.

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• This traditionally happens in Russia and in every other undemocratic country as well - the quest for a scapegoat won't be long, either. The easiest way to find a scapegoat is to ascribe that role to former governments.

  Garry Kasparov

  Country, Russia, Government

  Source: www.rferl.org

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• The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened.

  Wyndham Lewis

  Powerful, Equality, Suffering

  Wyndham Lewis (1969). “Wyndham Lewis: an anthology of his prose”

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• Fear is like a little garden spider that makes us jump back or the poor lost bee on the steering wheel that we blame for our automobile wreck. The problem in fear is our response - the way we treat animals or insects that frighten us. . . . Fear is also the universal scapegoat we blame when we take flight from intimacy or shrink up inside ourselves in a thousand little ways.

  Dan Millman

  Fear, Animal, Garden

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• The Red Sox are the local scapegoats. It's hard enough to play baseball without being the local scapegoat too.

  Michael Lewis

  Baseball, Play, Red

  "Michael Lewis on Moneyball". Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. June 16, 2003.

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• I think it's too easy often to find a villain out of the headlines and to then repeat that villainy again and again and again. You know, traditionally, America has always looked to scapegoat someone as the boogie man.

  Edward Zwick

  Men, Thinking, America

  "Featured Filmmaker: Edward Zwick" by Stax, www.ign.com. March 4, 2002.

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• All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysis and to foist their problems on to the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defence. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health.

  Germaine Greer

  Mom, Mother, Opportunity

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• Teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic but even Jesus was probably paid better.

  Lionel Shriver

  Teacher, Jesus, Kids

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.332, Counterpoint Press

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• The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus miracles attested to, and scapegoats - such as Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Prayer, Ignorance, Sacrifice

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.9, Da Capo Press

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• The homosexual is a scapegoat who evokes no sympathy. Hence, he can only be a victim, never a martyr.

  Thomas Szasz

  Victim, Evoke, Martyr

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.169, Syracuse University Press

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• The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Life, Way, Modern

  Marshall McLuhan (1964). “Understanding media: the extensions of man”

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• The president is the country's scapegoat more than the country's leader; the president has as much power as we think the president has. Whoever has the most money is the puppet master.

  Eric Andre

  Country, Thinking, Leader

  Source: www.complex.com

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• The courts are an easy scapegoat because at a time when everything has to boiled down to easy slogans, we speak in subtleties.

  Rose Bird

  Justice, Speak, Easy

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• Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.

  Monica Lewinsky

  Powerful, Order, Boss

  "NBC Uses Lewinsky Interview to Silence Talk of Clinton Scandals". www.newsbusters.org. April 18, 2016.

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• We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.

  David Sarnoff

  Science, Way, Sin

  "Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man?". Book by Marshall McLuhan, p. 11, 1964.

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