The Cycle Of Blame And Scapegoating

History appears to run in cycles. When a given group finds themselves at a disadvantage, the first instinct, for some reason, is not to look within and see if any faults can be fixed, but to attach all blame to some "other" group and claim that to punish, banish, exterminate, etc. that group will solve all their problems. It never does, and indeed, causes more. We still see this to this very day in politics and almost every societal interaction, and this reaction dates back probably literal millennia. People don't like taking responsibility, and thus find it far easier to pin the blame on someone or something else. Bad people in the world? Blame evil spirits and influences. Your area of the world getting kind of crappy? Blame some insular group that probably has nothing to do with what's going on, but whom people know so little about that they can be persuaded is responsible. If these accusations are exposed as the con-job that they are? You've got a ready-made point you can double-down on until the universe explodes, claiming the influence of the "enemy" goes deeper than you thought. Missing funds in your military budget? Pick the most widely (and unfairly) scapegoated group in the entire world and claim some guy along the military structure is a part of it and use that as an excuse to say he did it (As happened to Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes.) Lost an election? Well, the first accusation of almost any politician these days is to immediately accuse their opponents of cheating (Which, to be fair, would be a lot harder if we'd go back to paper ballots and actually followed the damn rules regarding the chain of custody every now and again but hey, I suppose convenience is more important than the results of our damn elections...) regardless of if those accusations have any legs to stand on whatsoever. It's becoming like a videogame, where Democrats and Republicans alike immediately accuse their opponents of rigging the election just to see if that tactic will work, because for some reason, that accusation has few if any consequences. Indeed, consequence is something we seem to be seeking to remove as a culture worldwide, regardless of if that actually improves human actions. Certain actions must have consequences, or at least the potential for consequences, otherwise people will just keep using the same failed tactics over and over again, content in the knowledge that they will not be punished for the attempt. While in some cases, this can make lives easier, in others, it makes life harder, and people seem to be on some kind of all-or-nothing pendulum, rather than looking at things from an objective angle and figuring out what works best when and where.