Jeffrey Schaler

The Painted Bird is about man’s tendency toward scapegoating. The purpose of scapegoating is to expel evil and affirm the dominant ethic. See Thomas Szasz’s discussion at the end of his magnificent book entitled The Manufacture of Madness. The movie is equally powerful. In order for scapegoating to occur, there must be an “other” and this other must be a minority and less powerful than the majority. Trump is enacting the epitome of scapegoating. Hayek gives good examples of scapegoating in his book The Road to Serfdom.