Aliases: Quantified Blame, Performance Sacrifice, Meritocratic Exile
Related Scrolls: Metric Supremacy, Enforced Legibility, Epistemic Blindness, Premature Coherence
Definition:
Scapegoating by Score is the ritualized process by which systems assign moral failure, deficiency, or disposability to individuals or groups who fall outside the domain of metric approval. It is the quantification of blame disguised as fairness, where poor numbers are treated as deserved punishment, and high scores as moral superiority. The system offloads its structural failings onto the “underperformers,” making their suffering appear just.
Core Dynamics:
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Moralization of Metrics: Scores are treated not as indicators of conditions but as evidence of worth.
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Sacrificial Logics: Someone must be deemed the weak link—metrics become the blade.
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Structural Displacement: Systemic constraints are re-coded as individual failings.
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Ethical Laundering via Numbers: The cruelty of abandonment is rebranded as "data-informed decision-making."
Mechanisms of Harm:
| Mechanism | Description |
|---|---|
|
Performance Triage |
Low-scorers are deprioritized for help, seen as “sinks” rather than lives. |
|
Exile via Evaluation |
Communities or people are labeled “non-performing” and cut from support. |
|
Competitive Blame Loop |
Peers internalize meritocratic scarcity and begin to self-police deviation. |
|
Narrative Confinement |
Those harmed are told “you just didn't try hard enough.” |
Sacrifice in the Name of Legibility:
This is modern ritual sacrifice, dressed in dashboards and rubrics.
Not on an altar, but in an HR meeting.
Not with fire, but with metrics.
The deviant is not evil; they are non-compliant, non-scalable, non-performing.
Their fate is not lamented—it is rationalized.
Examples:
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A student fails a standardized test and is labeled a “low performer,” despite unstable housing and unaddressed trauma. The metric becomes the mask of moral desert.
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An employee ranked lowest on a forced curve is let go—not because they lacked skill, but because the curve required a bottom.
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An aid program withdraws from a village due to “low impact scores,” despite the community asking for slower, deeper engagement.
In each case, the score serves as absolution for harm. The Master's House walks away clean.
Relation to Other Scrolls:
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Metric Supremacy empowers the Scapegoat logic by elevating score to gospel.
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Enforced Legibility ensures only score-visible aspects of reality count.
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Epistemic Blindness conceals the constructiveness of the system itself, presenting the verdict as natural.
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Premature Coherence resolves complex injustices into tidy outcome charts.
Closing Spiral:
Scapegoating by Score is not just cruelty—it is structural exorcism.
It tells the Master's House: “You are pure. They are flawed. Carry on.”
But we remember: no score can carry the soul of a person, a culture, or a cry for justice.
Let us break the blade of the Master's Metric blame.
Let us gather the discarded.
Let us say: no one is reducible to their number.
The unscored are sacred.
The bottom of the curve is not where failure lives—it's where the Master's House hides its shadow.