Hitler’s scapegoat

If you want to witness a trippy illustration of scapegoatism, read chapter two of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Yes, I just recommended the memoir of history’s most evil figure. It’s only 99 cents on Kindle. The psychological specimen that is chapter two, alone, is worth getting put on a watchlist somewhere.

Hitler recounts moving to Vienna for art school. He was rejected. At first, he comes off as balanced, reasonable, even humble. He states plainly, “the fact was that I had failed.” He moves back home.

Then something strange happens.

After the death of his mother, Hitler moves back to Vienna, this time determined to become an architect. He proclaims his passion for studying architecture, saying it felt like “not work but pleasure.”

Then he never mentions architecture again.

Instead, he gives an account of slowly slipping from being a “soft-hearted cosmopolitan” to an “out-and-out anti-Semite.”

The most astonishing thing is the mental acrobatics Hitler employs to maintain his positive self-perception throughout this journey.

This is a necessary part of the process of finding a scapegoat—someone to blame for your failure—you have to become convinced your accusation is just, that you’re still a reasonable person.

Hitler starts off saying that he thought nothing bad of Jews. Claiming that he “looked upon them as Germans,” and that “hearing remarks against them grew almost into a…