Itinéraire d’un bouc emissaire

Abstract

Sacrifice is an important part of religious, ethical and political life. In addition, the term;sacrifice’ has several meanings; one of them denotes a victim of crime. In this paper, we focus exclusively on victims of scapegoating. Scapegoats – individuals or communities – may be victims of others, or otherwise they may experience themselves in this way. This paper explores both possibilities. It, primarily studies the psychology of scapegoating based on the premise of the innate human need to discharge tensions, and then presents several paths out of the scapegoating mechanism. It also illustrates scapegoating dynamics in the media and explores the example of Slovenia based on its history and the current situation with respect to transferring of blame.