In my industry (software development) they make a big deal about recurring patterns. Some people make a career out of distilling and naming patterns that recur in the world of software.
I personally like the idea of extracting the common patterns out of life and attaching catchy names to them. It aids discussion.
So, getting back to history, I would like to propose a new name for an old and recurring pattern in history: I call it Minority Scapegoatism. Following the tradition of software patterns, we also name to the pattern's chief ingredients:
- The Chief Scapegoater: A deranged but influential leader (or leaders) who rally the majority by scapegoating the minority (witches, Jews, blacks, communists, gays, undocumented immigrants, etc.)
- The Simpletons: A large number of simple people who get behind the movement. They find it comforting to blame others for their situation - to have such a simple and tidy answer to difficult problems ("it's the Jews").
- The Rhetoric: A large quantity of official sounding (but ridiculous) rhetoric, to make the racism or scapegoatism appear legitimate or legal to the simpletons.
- The Blind Eyes: A large number of less simple people who don't fall for the rhetoric and understand what's going on but turn a blind eye because it doesn't effect them.
What do you think? Is this really a pattern worthy of a name or am I talking crazy? Is there already a name that describes this pattern and I just don't know about it?
4 comments:
Dave,
You are thinking way too deep. You should make your kids some pancakes and lighten up a little:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PnCVZozHTG8
Max
History is generally written by the winners. Like Truth, the real story probably lies (no pun intended) somewhere between the "winners" version and the "losers" version of what happened. But even this may be distorted because despite what the Chief Scapegoater may want the Simpletons to believe, historic events are seldom binary. Can design patterns be applied to what ultimately equates to fuzzy logic? And when you start having to force people to accept a given version of history, can you even trust that your design pattern would be valid against the official version of any particular historic event? (i.e. people literally being imprisoned for questioning the accuracy of certain events that occurred in WW2) I imagine that there are design patterns that may even apply to why history frequently does repeat itself.
Like most radical leftists, your opinion is arrogant, condescending and wrong. The very title to your pompous little piece "Minority Scapegoatism" implies that minorities aren't actually the problem. Yet you offer no support of this argument.
To the contrary -- there is significant evidense that your little liberal myth that our "diversity" is our strength is actually false. The peak of American industrial domination and hegemony as a world power was roughly the Late 50's and early 60's. Right as your girly pinko predecessors were having their "dream" with the civil rights movement. One can easily correlate American decline with the empowerment of minorities.
We can also look past our own Nation's experience for further evidense that ethnic diversification errodes a nations power, not strengthens it. Does it not make sense that a nation comes to power through the strength of its people? Why should diluting the very source of its advantage lead to anything but decay? Western European countries have dominated the globe since the Rennaissance. Yet this power has eroded over the last generation. Similarly so has western ethnic purity. Who is gaining in world power today? Eastern civilizations that are closed to the outside world.
You slander those that recognize the truth as "Simpletons". Yet your ivory tower logic doesn't stand the test of history. You can even look back to the Romans. As they tried to "Romanize" their colonies and embraced homosexuality, their empire crumbled from the outside. Talk about a Design Pattern. The pattern of racial dilution and national decay has repeated itself countless times in world history.
I beg you, for the good of your children's future and for that of your nation, repent from this panty wasted liberal position, and recognize what has truly led to our greatness and what eventually lead to our fall.
This is actually a "historical pattern", not a design pattern.
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