ABSTRACT
One of the most clear-cut regularities of social behavior is the scapegoat principle: When things do not go well, people blame the difficulty on individuals or groups who are innocent but defenseless. Through this moral exchange, the scapegoat becomes guilty, and the scapegoater innocent. The persecution of the scapegoat and the ideology and rhetoric that justify it authenticate this moral inversion so irresistibly that the “problem” and its “solution” become obvious or self-evident. To the German people in the 1930s, it was obvious that the Jews were a problem. To Americans today, it is obvious that drug addicts are a problem. These problems and the solutions built into them can thus be challenged only by challenging the ideologies that support them—a task most people, perhaps wisely, prefer to avoid.
