In the film, Steve Carell’s character, I believe, has a short speech in which he talks about how the crash is really about the collapse of authoritative institutions in American society. You could not trust the banks. You could not trust politicians. And you still can’t, though you have to trust them to some extent, because you cannot live otherwise. Me, I see the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church as Catholicism’s version of Wall Street’s 2007-08 crash (and by the way, I am told that the recent indictments of Franciscan priests in Pennsylvania on charges related to sex abuse are just the beginning there).
.. If Trump were turning his big guns away from immigrants and onto Wall Street (and, by extension, on the big business lobby that wants to keep the immigrant flood rolling across the border), he would be a lot better off. People want an accounting. I don’t believe Trump will give it to us, but the inchoate desire is there.
.. The bigger thing is — I regarded this crisis at bottom as a problem of incentives. People behaved badly because they were incentivized to behave badly, and the incentives haven’t really changed that much.
India’s Deadly Superstition
Even as India modernizes, witchcraft accusations are common, leading to the murders of over 2,000 people, mostly women, in the last 15 years. One woman in Assam State in the country’s northeast is confronting accusers and demanding government action.
Rene Girard’s Theory of Violence, Religion and the Scapegoat
In this way, Girard takes issue with the dominant conflict models that focus on aggression or scarcity as the sources of conflict. Such models propose that “many of our problems are the direct result of concentration of wealth and power” as well as “exploitation and colonialism” (Farley, p. 17-18). While this perspective goes a long way in explaining various types of conflict that societies experience, Girard believes they are insufficient to explain the diversity of situations around which we find conflict. He believes that these insufficiencies are avoided when conflict is, instead, modeled on acquisitive mimesis, or “appropriative mimicry” (Girard 1979, 10). He sees aggression as part of the problem of conflict, not part of the cause.
.. Hegel’s idea that desire desires the desire of the other. For Girard, however, desire is imitative and acquisitive: it does not desire the desire of the other as such but imitates the other’s desire for an object.
.. Their desires intensify because desire is mimetic
.. As our two actors increase their efforts to get the grant, they begin to focus on each other and their focus is shifted away from the grant itself. This becomes an “internally mediated” event, because Sylvester is now hiding the true focus of his desires–to beat Dr. Arnold.
.. They both become the model and obstacle for the other person and their desire is no longer simply for the object, but for the prestige of winning over the other person. The situation has now progressed into “conflictual mimesis”, since they are no longer focused on acquiring the grant but on competing with each other.
.. The subject is torn between two opposite feelings toward his model–the most submissive reverence and the most intense malice. This is the passion we call hatred.
.. Only someone who prevents us from satisfying a desire which he himself has inspired in us is truly an object of hatred. The person who hates first hates himself for the secret admiration concealed by his hatred
.. Dr. Arnold, Dr. Arnold sees Sylvester as becoming an equal, who now is transformed into a rival, as well as a double of himself. Both are struggling with the internal conflict of loving and hating the other. This dissonance they also want to dissolve, which they believe they can ameliorate by eliminating the other. Both Sylvester and Dr. Arnold are now contemplating the destruction of their doubles, thus at the same time, the destruction of themselves. Once the level of conflictual mimesis or internal mediation, is reached, because of the process just described, violence may erupt between model and rival. However, because they are “mutually intimidated and identical”, they rediscover the object of their original desire and “deflect their destructive energy from one another onto a substitute”
.. Normally they are an outsider, but on the border of the community, not fully alien to the community. This victim belongs to the community, but has traits that separate him/her from the community. Several common victims are elucidated by Shea, summarizing Girard’s list in The Scapegoat (1986): children, old people, those with physical abnormalities, women, members of ethnic or racial minorities, the poor, and ‘`those whose natural endowments (beauty, intelligence, charm) or status (wealth, position) mark them as exceptional”
.. But these classes aren’t arbitrarily chosen as victims simply because they stand out and are vulnerable. They are chosen to be the victims of persecution “because they bear the signs of victims”
.. Just as the Disciples asked of Jesus in John 9 regarding the man born blind, “Why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?” (The Book paraphrase), history is filled with communities who accuse the sick, gifted, disabled, etc, of being the propagators of evil (Alison 2001, 3-15).
.. The process, however, isn’t orderly and logical, as the sacrificers believe. While they believe the victim is obviously the cause of social disorder and their course of action unquestionable, their determination of the victim is, as described above, arbitrary. However, as the first sacrificers begin the process, mimesis spreads rapidly through the community and coherence is achieved (again, in a manner unspecified by Girard).
.. For example, Girard describes the process by which Jews were blamed for the presence of bubonic plague in many medieval cities who subsequently massacred their Jewish populations based on those beliefs (Girard 1986, 1-5). Girard also describes the commonality of various witch trials, also in the medieval cities, where women were blamed for ills in the community and executed as witches (7-9).
.. Girard notes that those individuals who did break from popular opinion, whether heroes or rogues, tended to be the victims of scapegoating if social problems arose within a community that forced the scapegoating mechanism to become activated
.. Girard describes, at a behavioral level, what he has discerned as patterns in history, mythology and classical works: when communities face great stressors, they have the potential to collaborate as if having one mind, in believing that one individual or group of people are the cause of their problems. Despite having no rational evidence of guilt the community frequently proceeds to victimize the individual or group as scapegoats. Arendt, and the theories of group psychology provide a mechanism for the behavior that Girard describes.
.. Third, the victim often does not disagree with the charges laid against him/her, and the scapegoaters themselves believe the charges. Part of the nature of the scapegoating mechanism is that, not only do the scapegoaters not know that they are scapegoating, but often the scapegoat believes the charges to be true. For example, during the medieval witch trials, “the accused may well believe herself to be a witch, and may well have tried to harm her neighbors by magical proceedings
.. The compelling element to Girard’s theory is that, as he presents his survey of the data, this process can be observed throughout history in the world’s great literature, in mythology and in history itself. When violence escalates in a community, if there is a ritual sacrifice of an innocent victim, the violence in the community immediately ceases.
..Paradoxically, this victim is often deified. Not only was the victim the cause of the violence, but, since this victim was sacrificed, s/he also becomes the salvation of the community, since sacrificing the victim becomes the method of ending the violence. So the victim is surrogate because s/he was sacrificed instead of the entire community being sacrificed.
.. But as culture progressed, and specifically with the introduction of the Jewish religion into the world’s culture, symbols–animal sacrifices and sacred rituals–were used in place of human sacrifices. Thus Girard claims the origin of religion is rooted in violence.
.. Girard’s unique perspective as a post-structuralist who affirms religion, despite its violent and deceptive ontology, separates him from many of the other analysts of religion from the earlier 1900’s.
.. Opposing substitutionary atonement theories of Jewish sacrifice as well as Jesus’ death, Girard proposes the idea that sacrifice was never meant to atone, to reconcile humans with God. Rather, he claims that sacrifice was always part of the human attempt to eliminate violence. Jesus’ death wasn’t a sacrificial atonement, but God revealing once and for all the fallacy of the GMSM and revealing to us the roots of human violence and the ultimate failure of all of our methods, specifically the GMSM to eradicate that violence
.. As the theory predicted, now that the JCS has exposed the mechanism and society is seeing GMSM for what it is, there remains no way to prevent the violence that GMSM for centuries had prevented (Bailie 1995). Some writers, like Bater have picked up on an apocalypticism in Girard’s writings and feel he may believe that there is no alternative to this cycle than the complete mutual destruction of humanity (Wallace 1994, 287-304)
.. Rather than imitating our neighbors and falling into the trap of desiring what they desire, we should imitate Christ, who imitates God.
.. One of the criticisms lodged against Girard’s work is that he is simply a Christian apologist trying to give the Christian texts credibility to the academy and to evangelize in the name of Christ. While he has stated as much in interviews (Williams 1996, 286-288), that doesn’t mean that Girard’s work must necessarily be interpreted using his own hermeneutic and agenda (Mack 1985, 160).
.. Further, Girard himself does not espouse a particular brand of Christianity that must be used as an hermeneutical framework through which to see his theory. In fact, Girard seems to radically overturn traditional ideas about the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross, by rejecting the idea of an atoning blood sacrifice as the reason for Christ’s crucifixion. Girard redefines Christ’s death as a self-sacrifice by Jesus to allow the world to see the scapegoating mechanism as a futile effort to end violence. This, in opposition to the contemporary view of the crucifixion as a necessary requirement of a wrathful God who must have a blood sacrifice to avenge God’s justice and goodness. In this way Girard’s reinterpretation represents a contribution to the socially rejuvenating path out of substitutionary atonement theory.[4]
What is Mimetic Theory?
Pursuit and defense of an acquisitive desire mimetically reinforces the desire of the rival/model/obstacle and vice-versa, leading to an escalation of conflict unless something external to the conflict (like a taboo or a legal authority) intercedes or unless one of the rivals submits or dies. Girard calls this mimetic escalation scandal, after the Greek word skandalon, suggesting a “trap” or “snare.” A chief characteristic of scandal is that attempts to escape a problem only makes the problem worse (analogous to pulling against a snare). An example is the behavior of a nation-state perceived to be threatened by another nation-state. (A familiar situation?) Its defensive preparations look to its rival like aggressive provocations, which only increase the perceived threat. The rival then arms itself defensively, which is interpreted as aggression by the other side, and so on and so on. Therefore, the actions that were undertaken to secure each nation from threat have actually increased the threat and have fed a dynamic that is dangerously self-reinforcing (e.g. Europe, circa 1914.)
.. Since mutual interest in the object of desire is generated by human interaction, objects of rivalry can be manufactured out of thin air by mimetic conflict. Examples might include prestige, fame or success. (T.S. Eliot calls such things “shadow fruit”. They may also be called “vanities.”)
.. In eliminating my obstacle, I also eliminate the originator and sustainer of my desire and therefore the substance of the object in question. This leads to the paradox of success aptly expressed in Groucho Marx’s quip, “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.”
..And predictably when the rival falls away, the cherished thing no longer has its luster.
..The new contagion is catalyzed not by an acquisitive gesture, but by an accusatory one.
.. The violence of “all against all” is replaced by the more economical violence of “all against one”
.. The peace that results from scapegoating violence will occur at blinding speed since, unlike the antagonistic tugs on the mimetic object, the accusation encounters no resistance (other than the increasingly outnumbered and feeble objections of the single victim).
.. The accusation has been pragmatically justified by its predicted effect — the pollution having been purged, the society is now restored to health. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
.. The scapegoat is also the only one in the culture who grasps the lie at the heart of the founding accusation — the only one who knows the “truth” of the culture — making him/her doubly threatening. Andrew McKenna has coined the term “the epistemological privilege of the victim” to name this phenomenon.
.. Girard is the first to adequately explain the widespread existence of sacrificial rites in human cultures.
.. Girard points out that it is similarity, rather than difference, that encourages one human to imitate another. (This accounts for the primitive fear of twins in many early cultures.)
.. Loss or weakening of such taboos/distinctions (what Girard calls the crisis of distinctions) can lead to new spasms of mimetic violence.
.. Girard’s anthropology implies that human subjectivity is essentially de-centered. The Mimetic Theory replaces the notion of the individual as the first principle of social analysis with the radical notion of interdividuality
.. The foundation of order has throughout most of history been through scapegoating violence and the mimetically attractive power of accusation. One could say of accusation what Heraclitus said of war — that it is “the father and king of all, and has made some as gods and others as men, and has made some slaves and others free.” Jesus calls Satan “the ruler of this world” in John 12:31. Satan, although very much a reality, is not a person in the strict sense but what Robert Hammerton-Kelly called the “Generative Mimetic Scapegoating Mechanism,” a feature of all human societies.
.. The success of the sacrificial system rests on a general belief in the validity of the original accusation and justifying myth. Since the guilt of the original victim is a lie at heart, any narrative that unmasks the lie will weaken/destroy the Power and unmake the culture founded on it. Again, Girard distinguishes between (1) a narrative that masks and propagates the founding lie and (2) one that unmasks and deconstructs it. The former he calls myth and the latter gospel.
.. One of the species of innocence is structural innocence — the idea that even a forensically guilty person can be an “innocent” victim of scapegoating violence — especially if the purpose of the violence has more to do with maintaining social distinctions than with punishing crime. In this sense, a black man lynched in the Old South for horse thievery should be viewed in the light of “structural innocence,” independent of whether he stole the horse. Likewise, the victim of judgment is structurally innocent if the point of the accusation is to preserve an appearance of relative righteousness in the accuser at the expense of the accused.
.. modernity exposes the victimization implicit in the hegemony of ecclesial power; postmodernity discloses the sacrificial nature of modernity’s foundational meta-narratives, etc
.. given the specter of apocalyptic violence made possible by the weakening or loss of those mechanisms, it seems more necessary than ever for our survival as a species to discover and model non-rivalrous, non-sacrificial ways of living. Auden: “We must love one another or die.”
.. The cure for mimetically produced violence will be a mimetically transmitted desire for peace. The model/cure will have to be someone who has transcended the lure of scapegoating violence, but who?