If only… Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Remember the big scene in On the Waterfront, when
former boxer Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando) confronts his
brother Charley about a fight Charley had him throw. Terry is adamant
that he could have won the match. "I coulda had class," he says. "I
coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which
is what I am, let's face it."
Charlie Campbell doesn't mention that speech in this otherwise sweeping history
of the blame game, but there can be no doubt he'd give short shrift to
what he'd see as Terry's shameful mewling. In the end, he believes, few
of us have anyone but ourselves to blame for what befalls us. Like the
teacher almost everyone seems to remember, Campbell is forever telling
you you're your own worst enemy.
Not that we ever listen. That deafness, Campbell argues, explains our unending need to pin the rap on someone else: "a pattern of behaviour that has always been with us… reflecting a deep and universal human need for purification and expiation… The one thing we will not do under any circumstances is accept ourselves as we are. We prefer to find an explanation for why things are not perfect, and these rarely
stand up to close scrutiny."
And so, starting with Adam's dissing of Eve, Campbell proceeds to take down everyone from Marx (who blamed everything on capitalism) to Freud (sex), from Larkin (parents) to Dawkins (religion), for assuming that the fault, pace dear Cassius, is not in ourselves but in our stars. And if the fault can't be up there, well then it simply must be found down here – hence those two most reliable of scapegoats: Jews and women.
On the Jewish question, Campbell kicks things off with the Catholic Church, which "over the centuries… has done more than its fair share of demonising". And of slaughtering, too, of course. Indeed, the book reminds us, the first Crusades were actually paid for with money borrowed from the Jews of Rhineland – a debt the Crusaders promptly settled by killing the moneylenders before embarking on their murderous mission proper.
Given Europe's back catalogue of such killings, Campbell argues, Hitler's rise isn't as mysterious as some believe: "Eighteen centuries of stereotyping [Jews]… lent considerable weight to his attempts to dehumanise them." Campbell might have found room to add that Hitler and his henchmen's capacity for violence lent weight to the average German's need to dehumanise himself – the better to keep quiet about matters he would normally loudly condemn – but the point stands. The Jews were an easy target because they'd been a target for so long.
It is women, though, to whom Campbell devotes most attention. Fully a fifth of the pages in this admirably slim book are given over to an account of the witch hunts and trials of early modern Europe – an account that brooks no argument with its contention that the trials were always and only motivated by men's fear and hatred of women. Familiar though much of this material is, it gains from the historical compression brought about by Campbell's clipped, cross-cutting style. And anyway, there is always something shocking about the duckings – for which read drownings – our forebears believed would differentiate the good woman from the bad.
That shock is the real point of Campbell's book. Far from wanting you to scapegoat those who have hunted and killed their own scapegoats, he wants you to admit to your own instinctive need for presuming superiority over everyone who is not you. Having done so, you'll realise it follows that everyone else must feel superior to you. If we all think we're superior, we must all be the same. And if we're all the same, we're either all of us – or none of us – scapegoats.
- Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People
- by Charlie Campbell
Not that we ever listen. That deafness, Campbell argues, explains our unending need to pin the rap on someone else: "a pattern of behaviour that has always been with us… reflecting a deep and universal human need for purification and expiation… The one thing we will not do under any circumstances is accept ourselves as we are. We prefer to find an explanation for why things are not perfect, and these rarely
stand up to close scrutiny."
And so, starting with Adam's dissing of Eve, Campbell proceeds to take down everyone from Marx (who blamed everything on capitalism) to Freud (sex), from Larkin (parents) to Dawkins (religion), for assuming that the fault, pace dear Cassius, is not in ourselves but in our stars. And if the fault can't be up there, well then it simply must be found down here – hence those two most reliable of scapegoats: Jews and women.
On the Jewish question, Campbell kicks things off with the Catholic Church, which "over the centuries… has done more than its fair share of demonising". And of slaughtering, too, of course. Indeed, the book reminds us, the first Crusades were actually paid for with money borrowed from the Jews of Rhineland – a debt the Crusaders promptly settled by killing the moneylenders before embarking on their murderous mission proper.
Given Europe's back catalogue of such killings, Campbell argues, Hitler's rise isn't as mysterious as some believe: "Eighteen centuries of stereotyping [Jews]… lent considerable weight to his attempts to dehumanise them." Campbell might have found room to add that Hitler and his henchmen's capacity for violence lent weight to the average German's need to dehumanise himself – the better to keep quiet about matters he would normally loudly condemn – but the point stands. The Jews were an easy target because they'd been a target for so long.
It is women, though, to whom Campbell devotes most attention. Fully a fifth of the pages in this admirably slim book are given over to an account of the witch hunts and trials of early modern Europe – an account that brooks no argument with its contention that the trials were always and only motivated by men's fear and hatred of women. Familiar though much of this material is, it gains from the historical compression brought about by Campbell's clipped, cross-cutting style. And anyway, there is always something shocking about the duckings – for which read drownings – our forebears believed would differentiate the good woman from the bad.
That shock is the real point of Campbell's book. Far from wanting you to scapegoat those who have hunted and killed their own scapegoats, he wants you to admit to your own instinctive need for presuming superiority over everyone who is not you. Having done so, you'll realise it follows that everyone else must feel superior to you. If we all think we're superior, we must all be the same. And if we're all the same, we're either all of us – or none of us – scapegoats.
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