Scapegoating: From 'Finding Bad Guys' to 'Examining the System'

There’s a particularly important distinction between how scholars ponder social issues and how ordinary people do: the public constantly asks who the good guys and bad guys are, while scholars tend to delve deeper into the system.

In the eyes of the general public, those who do good deeds are upright officials, while those who do bad deeds are corrupt ones; founding emperors are invariably brilliant and mighty, while emperors of fallen dynasties are inevitably inept and muddle-headed. This can be described as a ’theatrical mindset’: imagining history as a performance where a few red-faced and white-faced characters sing, recite, act, and fight on stage.

However, if you could revisit the historical context and examine it comprehensively, you would find that the facts are not so simple. Take the fall of the Ming Dynasty, for example: the real history is closer to Emperor Chongzhen toiling assiduously day and night for the state, civil officials each believing they were serving the country, and military generals all having their own loyalties and predicaments. Wu Sangui initially had no intention of betraying the country, and Zu Dashou once desperately wished to die fighting for the nation. These individuals were not without flaws, nor were they immune to corruption or fear of death, but they were all normal people [1].

Therefore, we should not ask how bad these individuals were, but rather: Why did the imperial court have to impose the ’three levies’? Why did officials have to report only good news and conceal bad? Why couldn’t farmers peacefully cultivate their land and were forced into rebellion?

What you should study is why a group of normal people, acting rationally, ultimately led to the collapse of the system.

You need to replace the theatrical mindset with systems thinking. To do this, you must overcome the tendency to look for ‘scapegoats’ when systems fail.

We cannot read so much history only to extract one moral drama after another; we must ponder institutional engineering.

Breaking Free from the Habit of Individual Attribution #

First, you must break free from the habit of individual attribution.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills, in his famous 1959 book The Sociological Imagination, made a renowned statement: you must learn to distinguish between ‘personal troubles’ and ‘public issues’ [2].

Mills pointed out that in a city of one hundred thousand people, if one person is unemployed, that is likely merely a personal trouble, and they should reflect on their skills, effort, character, and luck. However, if fifteen million people are unemployed in a nation with a fifty-million-strong labor force, this cannot be explained by ‘job seekers with unrealistic expectations and insufficient skills.’ This is a public issue: you must examine the economic system, industrial structure, policy cycles, and social resource allocation.

If one employee in a company commits fraud, you might say that employee has poor character; but if hundreds of people in a department, a major region, or even the entire company are committing fraud, then you can no longer simply ask, ‘Why are there so many bad people?’ You must inquire whether the metrics system, reward and punishment mechanisms, and management culture are systematically compelling people to commit wrongdoing.

This is not to say that individuals bear no responsibility. However, human agency is strongly limited by the structural field they inhabit. Even Marx, who constantly advocated for changing the world, stated in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” [3].

Napoleon’s coup d’état was a tragedy, but his nephew Louis Bonaparte’s coup d’état was a farce… yet it was the nephew who became emperor for a long time. How can one explain that?

People have choices, but those choices occur within a structure.

The Stubborn Tendency of Individual Attribution and the Fundamental Attribution Error #

Individual attribution is indeed an extremely stubborn tendency.

If everything around you is perfectly fine, and then a change suddenly occurs, you will strongly feel that this change was caused by an intentional agent.

This tendency is very useful in primitive environments. If the grass suddenly rustles, it’s better to interpret it as a leopard approaching rather than just the wind; you’d rather misjudge than fail to report malice from others.

Therefore, when confronted with plagues, stock market crashes, accidents, or crises, our brains find it difficult to accept that ’this is the emergence of a complex system at a critical point.’ It invariably asks: Who did it?

We not only believe that someone definitely did it, but also that that person intentionally did it, and that it was due to their very nature!

Social psychologist Lee Ross introduced a concept in 1977 called the ‘fundamental attribution error’ [4], meaning that when explaining the behavior of others, we tend to overestimate internal factors such as personality, character, and intent, while underestimating external causes such as situation and structure.

For instance, when someone is late, our first reaction is ’this person has no sense of time,’ and we rarely consider if they encountered an unexpected situation like traffic. When a frontline employee makes a mistake, our first reaction is ’they lack a sense of responsibility’; we rarely consider if their workload is excessive, if training is insufficient, or if there are problems with the procedures.

If you believe that events are caused by agents, and that agents’ actions are due to their character, then you will attribute a bad outcome to a bad person. We truly love stories with villains. Isn’t this the quintessential theatrical mindset?

The ‘Person Approach’ and ‘System Approach’ from the Perspective of Safety Engineering #

How can we break free from the theatrical mindset and perceive the system? We can draw insights from theories in safety engineering.

British psychologist James Reason proposed that when a major accident occurs, you can take one of two perspectives: the ‘person approach’ and the ‘system approach’ [5]. The person approach focuses on frontline personnel: Was it caused by their negligence, laziness, or violations? The system approach, however, asks: Why did the defenses fail? Why could this system allow people to make such significant errors?

This is not to say that individuals make no mistakes, but rather that human errors might only be ‘active failures,’ whereas systemic problems are ’latent conditions.’

Errors made by frontline personnel on the spot, such as pressing the wrong button, misjudging, or forgetting to check, are active failures. In contrast, long-term hidden dangers such as management decisions, organizational design, budget pressure, equipment defects, insufficient training, and lax regulation are the latent conditions for an accident. These latent conditions might have lain dormant for many years without incident, effectively waiting for some unfortunate frontline individual to trigger them.

That employee also made an accidental mistake that day, pressing the wrong button, and the system collapsed… But can you say it was entirely their responsibility?

It’s like someone knocking over one card, causing an entire row of dominoes to fall. This person isn’t entirely without responsibility, but isn’t the bigger problem why the system was designed to be like dominoes in the first place?

Reason, who studied accidents in high-risk organizations such as aviation, healthcare, and nuclear power, proposed the ‘Swiss Cheese Model’ [6]. He stated that complex systems typically have many layers of defense: design specifications, training procedures, checklists, alarm systems, regulatory regimes, on-site operations… Each layer of defense can have holes, and together they resemble a block of Swiss cheese, full of holes.

Ordinarily, these holes are offset, preventing danger from passing through.

However, at a certain moment, the holes in each layer of cheese align perfectly, and an accident breaks through…

In other words, major accidents are rarely caused by a single factor—they are often the result of multiple layers of defense failing simultaneously.

Therefore, what you should rectify most is not active failures, but latent conditions. In Reason’s own words, “We cannot change human nature, but we can change the conditions under which people work” [5].

This is not to say that those who make mistakes should be forgiven, but rather to remind you: if you only address the individuals and not the conditions, you will experience the same accident again next time.

Real-World Cases: The Boeing 737 MAX Crashes and the Texas Power Grid Crisis #

Next, let’s look at two real-world cases. When something goes wrong, people always tend to blame individuals first, but in reality, you should look for the conditions.

On October 29, 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed, killing 189 people. The aircraft type was a Boeing 737 MAX. Boeing’s immediate reaction was to find a scapegoat, claiming pilot error. Indeed, what kind of company is Boeing? Their planes are all certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), so it must be a foreign airline’s pilots who made a mistake!

But then, on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed, killing 157 people. Again, it was a Boeing 737 MAX, and it crashed in a similar manner.

This could no longer be suppressed. Subsequent investigations revealed that the real problem was precisely a series of systemic holes aligning in a straight line [7]—

The hole in the layer closest to the accident scene was a software system called the ‘Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).’ Its function was to automatically push the aircraft’s nose down in specific flight states to compensate for aerodynamic changes caused by the new engines. If this software encountered erroneous data from sensors, it could misinterpret the aircraft as being close to a stall, and thus repeatedly push the nose down.

The second layer’s hole was that pilots had not undergone simulator training for this specific type of error. To avoid requiring airlines to spend heavily on retraining pilots, Boeing downplayed the existence of MCAS in its training manuals. So, why was such software absolutely necessary?

The third layer’s hole was that Boeing, facing competition from the Airbus A320neo, had to quickly launch a new model. They installed larger, more forward-mounted engines on the old 737 platform, which changed the aircraft’s aerodynamic characteristics. However, unwilling to undertake a major aircraft redesign, they resorted to this software-based solution.

The fourth layer’s hole was that Boeing could do all this without anyone overseeing it. The FAA had long employed a delegated authority mechanism, entrusting a large amount of certification work to Boeing’s internal personnel… effectively allowing Boeing to self-regulate.

So, can you solely blame pilot error? Can you say this was because an engineer wrote incorrect code? This was a problem with the entire system.

The second case is from 2021, when an extreme cold snap struck the U.S. state of Texas, leaving millions of homes without power, and many people without heating and drinking water.

As soon as the disaster occurred, right-wing media found a scapegoat: wind turbines. The argument was, when it gets cold, wind turbines freeze, doesn’t this prove that new energy is unreliable and green energy is deadly? Leftists are indeed the villains!

However, subsequent investigations [8] showed that the Texas power grid collapse truly cannot be blamed on ‘wind power’: while wind turbines did freeze and shut down, traditional energy systems like natural gas, coal, and nuclear power also failed on a large scale during the severe weather—with natural gas units accounting for 58% of the malfunctioning units.

The real problem was the structure of the Texas power grid. To avoid federal regulation, this grid was an isolated one, disconnected from other states, meaning power from neighboring states could not be brought in during emergencies.

Precisely because it was not subject to federal regulation, it lacked mandatory winterization upgrades and sufficient redundant design. In particular, natural gas and electricity dragged each other down: power generation requires natural gas, but gas extraction and transportation themselves require electricity—it was a death spiral!

The fact is that the power grid had been failing for a long time… The freezing of wind turbines was merely a catalyst for the incident.

See, analyzing the systemic causes like this is far more useful than merely blaming the left or the right, isn’t it? If we don’t analyze systemic causes, what good is it to only curse Wall Street’s greed during a financial crisis?

The Deeper Psychological Needs of the Scapegoat Mechanism #

Blaming a scapegoat when something goes wrong is not merely a cognitive error; it also fulfills deeper psychological needs. French philosopher René Girard developed a famous theory called the ‘scapegoat mechanism’ [9].

This theory states that when internal conflicts within a community escalate and threaten to spiral out of control, people unconsciously concentrate their diffused hostility onto a specific target. This target can be an outsider, a heretic, a minority group, or an unfortunate individual. Then, by collectively persecuting this scapegoat, everyone can temporarily restore unity.

When plagues arrive, the economy falters, and social anxiety rises, people cannot cope with, or even understand, these complex crises, but they must take some action to vent their frustration. At such times, there is an urgent need to find a ‘poisoner,’ a ‘conspiracy group,’ or an ‘internal enemy.’

To put it more bluntly, the scapegoat mechanism is how a group moves from a situation of ‘all against all’ to ‘all against one.’ If we recall human history, isn’t this often the case?

A scapegoat is not the discovered cause, but the chosen outlet.

The scapegoat mechanism is civilization’s oldest painkiller. It never addresses the root cause, but it can work for a while.

By attributing bad things to a specific few, society doesn’t have to reflect. ‘We have no problems! It’s all their fault!’ This is, in fact, power’s favorite causal model: responsibility descends, and legitimacy ascends.

Do you know what’s most tragic? The people most eager to uphold the scapegoat explanation are precisely the most vulnerable groups within the system [10]. Why? Because ‘a bad person harmed me’ is at least a hopeful story—catch the bad guy, replace them with an upright official, and life can improve. But ’the entire structure oppresses you, and there’s no single bad person to hate’—that is truly too despairing.

Perhaps the deepest root of the theatrical mindset lies in that tiny, bittersweet sliver of hope.

The Just Culture Algorithm: Distinguishing Different Types of Errors #

We can also consider the scapegoat mechanism from another angle: what exactly constitutes a ‘bad person’?

An official accepts bribes and awards a construction project to an unqualified company, leading to a bridge collapse. Would you say this official is a bad person? And in what way is he bad?

David Marx, a U.S. safety engineering consultant, developed a theory called the ‘Just Culture algorithm’ [11], which categorizes actions leading to negative consequences into three types, arguing they should be treated differently—

The first type is ‘human error,’ which refers to unintentional mistakes that anyone can make. A doctor misreading a drug name when fatigued, a pilot missing a step amidst confusing alarms—the best way to handle such errors is not punishment, but rather comforting the individual and correcting the system.

Because if you punish unintentional mistakes, people will conceal errors. And if errors are concealed, the system cannot learn.

The second type is ‘at-risk behavior,’ which is not intentional wrongdoing but indeed taking unwarranted risks.

Typically, people gradually deviate from safe practices to save time, for convenience, or to meet targets. For example, a double-check that should be performed is skipped long-term because it’s deemed troublesome; or a safety procedure is bypassed on-site to speed up progress. Such behavior must be corrected, with an emphasis on training rather than punishment, and especially on eliminating perverse incentives within the system.

People often take shortcuts because the system rewards taking shortcuts.

The third type is ‘reckless behavior,’ which involves knowingly pursuing actions for personal gain despite significant and unjustifiable risks.

For instance, approving bridge materials known to be substandard, signing off on counterfeit medicine, or mandating production despite severe safety hazards. For such individuals, there is no argument: strict accountability must be enforced.

Viewed this way, it becomes clear that corrupt officials are, in fact, the third type of person. It’s unlikely that any official genuinely intends to ‘ruin the country, harm the populace, and turn this project into a shoddy mess.’ More often, they think, ‘This company might not be the best, but it should be capable; this material is a bit cheaper, and it probably won’t cause any problems…’

That’s why corrupt officials, after being apprehended, often say, ‘I was just hoping for luck at the time.’

With this three-way classification, we can avoid two ’naive ailments’: one is invariably arresting ‘bad guys’ when something goes wrong, and the other is claiming it’s all systemic issues and therefore nobody needs to be held responsible. In reality, incidents often involve both human responsibility and systemic responsibility. Only by achieving this level of granularity can we reasonably assign accountability and improve systems.

Conclusion: Questioning the System Is a Modern Imperative #

Of course, there are bad people in the world. Recklessness, malice, corruption, and fraud should all be held accountable. But we still need a bit of sociological imagination.

If one bad person bullies another, we can certainly say it’s simply because they are a bad person. But if a bad person causes a colossal accident, or even causes harm to an entire region over a long period, then we must ask: What is it about this system that could grant them such immense leverage?

Finding scapegoats is a human instinct, but questioning the system is also a modern imperative.

【Closing Verse】

Bridge crumbled, wrath demanded retribution, Rust in mortise joints, water’s slow erosion. Could one lone foot such grand catastrophe call? A thousand flaws long yielded to winter’s thrall. Blame for the last hand, a fresh sacrifice made, Yet trace to deeper causes, reveal the system’s state. Seek not white faces on the dramatic scene, But ask the institutions of their rise and fall.

Notes

[1] Hou Yangfang, The Fall of the Ming and Rise of the Qing: Wars, Diplomacy, and Games from 1618 to 1662. People’s Daily Publishing House, 2025.

[2] Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

[3] Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 1852.

[4] Ross, Lee. “The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 10, 1977.

[5] Reason, James. “Human Error: Models and Management.” BMJ 320, no. 7237 (2000): 768–770.

[6] Reason, James. Human Error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997.

[7] U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Final Committee Report: The Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 MAX. September 2020.

[8] FERC and NERC. The February 2021 Cold Weather Outages in Texas and the South Central United States. Final Report, 2021.

[9] Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977; The Scapegoat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. See also Elite Daily Lessons, Season 5, Preface to Desire: The Hidden Mechanism of Social Order.

[10] Jost, John T., and Mahzarin R. Banaji. “The Role of Stereotyping in System-Justification and the Production of False Consciousness.” British Journal of Social Psychology 33, no. 1 (1994): 1–27.

[11] Marx, David. Patient Safety and the “Just Culture”: A Primer for Health Care Executives. New York: Columbia University, 2001; Dekker, Sidney. Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.