The Social Pariah

Imagine a perfect society. A literal utopia where everyone is equal, everyone is happy, everyone is content. It is like living in the town of Pleasantville, only better. It is the very definition of serenity, except for one minor detail. In the middle of the town there is a boy in a cage. The town folk walk by him, they spit at him, throw rocks and rotten food at him. The boy is clothed in only rags, and has never been bathed. All anger and hatred is taken out on him. Why? For no other reason than the fact that he was born. He is the town's scapegoat. Is it still a utopia?
This was the premise for a short story I read when I was 10 or so. This is when I first understood the role of scapegoat in basic society. I have noticed that in every group I have been a part of, there is one scapegoat that actually brings the group closer together. It is by making fun of this person, for whatever reason, makes the rest of them feel better. I have often pondered on the reason behind this. Is this a uniquely American thing? Is it uniquely Western? Is it even uniquely human?
What is funny to me is no matter how large the group, there will always be the person who plays pariah. Freshman year of college, everybody who lived on my floor were essentially friends, and we all made fun of one person who we deemed was "inferior" in many ways. Sophomore year came around and we thinned the group to a select 12 to live in a cluster (which was 6 rooms adjacent to each other), and there was still one person we felt was inferior, and ridiculed him as such. Finally, senior year we thinned the group even more to 6, thinking all 6 of us were truly compatible and socially equal. Even in this truly selected group we had a scapegoat. It is very peculiar to me how this happens. It's not like we have a meeting and decided who was the scapegoat, it just happened, very organically.
Going back to my questions of where the idea of a social scapegoat came from, I have come to the realization that it is not an American problem, but that it comes from the depths of humanity. Throughout the history of the world different groups have always played the scapegoat. For a very long time the Jews played the part (and still do), later it became African Americans, and now today Muslims and homosexuals have taken over. More than anything this saddens me about the race of humanity. It tells me that happiness and peace can only exist at the expense of others. It tells me that there really is no such thing as pure happiness, because we are defining it within the context of suffering. Most of all it really tells me that humanity is unwilling to take responsibility for their own faults, and is only comfortable pointing out flaws in others. The only solution I see to this pariah problem is for us as a race to be introspective and worry only about the problems of yourself.
Then again, it is probably God's fault for making us this way...