The corpse in the closet. Families are great at it. Everyone hates aunt Bertha, attaches all blame to her, instead of addressing that feeling of hatred that has become the family.
Groups in general are good at that, pointing fingers that is. It is a well-rehearsed mechanism to build cohesion and create some kind of identity.
“Odd one out” is the name of the game, and not only families have perfected it. It happens in school yards, where it is luckily nowadays identified as bullying. It occurs at work and online, where it is known as mobbing.
Religion, gender, class, and the overhauled attribute of race have led to horrible violence throughout human history. Whether under Stalin, Hitler or Hussein, whether in Yugoslawia, South Africa, China or North Korea, war is often being waged against some assumed enemy to create cohesion of the group however vaguely that group is defined.
Shockingly rarely the question is asked, “Do I want to belong to such a group?”
Hannah Arendt wrote at lenghth about the strategies of totalitarian regimes to create cohesion among a small circle of leaders. Most importantly, she describes a reward system for compliance. And sadly, she is right. Most humans are sheep at heart.
