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tealinBefore I move on with introducing new ideas, I think it's very important to go over the Single Victim Mechanism again, all in one place, just to make sure we've got it. It's important to remember that this is all unconscious, but once the pattern is explained it's pretty clear to see it happening all around. (This is a simplified version of Girard's model, which loses some of his subtleties, but is, I hope, easy enough to grasp.)
1. Mimetic Desire - You adopt the desires of those around you. This puts you in conflict with the others who desire the same thing.
2. Mimetic Rivalry - The conflict with your competitor becomes more of a preoccupation than the object of desire itself.
3. Transference - When animosity with your mimetic rival is uncomfortable or unresolvable, you transfer that animosity to another, easier target.
4. Alignment - Consensus grows as to which target is the most acceptable receptacle for everyone's animosity. Having one's animosity mirrored by others reinforces it and it grows.
5. Snowballing - One target proves to be the most popular and least problematic; like a snowball rolling down a hill it gathers mass and momentum from other animosities until it is the one overarching conflict.
6. The Scapegoat - When all of society is aligned against one common enemy, the chaotic crisis of mimetic rivalries is harmonised.
In some ways, this last step is an ideal state of being for a society, if it can be maintained, and history has seen many, many examples of leaders trying to engineer this state of affairs: give your people a common enemy and you can get them to do practically anything; plus, all that troubling internal strife goes on the back burner. You can scapegoat a specific 'them' (the Russians, the bourgeoisie, illegal immigrants, The Libs) or it can be 'anyone but us' (as seen in North Korea and isolationist religious groups) but it serves the same function. Everyone's compass of fear and hate is pointing the same way.
The trouble is, the longer this unified animosity is maintained, the more tension grows – you can strive for Tantric Scapegoating, but eventually the charge builds up too much and the lightning will strike.*
The violent expulsion of the scapegoat has an almost magical effect on the community. To reach that point, their animosity needs to have been so intense, and so unanimous, that the instant the target of their animosity is out of the picture there is a preternatural peace. The tension disappears, and for one glorious moment, all their petty quarrels are miraculously scrubbed out, and they are all one. Of course, in no time the mimetic rivalries start to buzz again, but no one can deny that the expulsion of the scapegoat transformed their lives for a time.
*Note of caution for would-be rabble-rousers: You cannot know if it will strike your intended target, or if the population you have been manipulating will decide, independently, in the moment of crisis, to transfer their animosity to you ...
Chapter 16: The Mimetic Scapegoat
1. Mimetic Desire - You adopt the desires of those around you. This puts you in conflict with the others who desire the same thing.
2. Mimetic Rivalry - The conflict with your competitor becomes more of a preoccupation than the object of desire itself.
3. Transference - When animosity with your mimetic rival is uncomfortable or unresolvable, you transfer that animosity to another, easier target.
4. Alignment - Consensus grows as to which target is the most acceptable receptacle for everyone's animosity. Having one's animosity mirrored by others reinforces it and it grows.
5. Snowballing - One target proves to be the most popular and least problematic; like a snowball rolling down a hill it gathers mass and momentum from other animosities until it is the one overarching conflict.
6. The Scapegoat - When all of society is aligned against one common enemy, the chaotic crisis of mimetic rivalries is harmonised.
In some ways, this last step is an ideal state of being for a society, if it can be maintained, and history has seen many, many examples of leaders trying to engineer this state of affairs: give your people a common enemy and you can get them to do practically anything; plus, all that troubling internal strife goes on the back burner. You can scapegoat a specific 'them' (the Russians, the bourgeoisie, illegal immigrants, The Libs) or it can be 'anyone but us' (as seen in North Korea and isolationist religious groups) but it serves the same function. Everyone's compass of fear and hate is pointing the same way.
The trouble is, the longer this unified animosity is maintained, the more tension grows – you can strive for Tantric Scapegoating, but eventually the charge builds up too much and the lightning will strike.*
The violent expulsion of the scapegoat has an almost magical effect on the community. To reach that point, their animosity needs to have been so intense, and so unanimous, that the instant the target of their animosity is out of the picture there is a preternatural peace. The tension disappears, and for one glorious moment, all their petty quarrels are miraculously scrubbed out, and they are all one. Of course, in no time the mimetic rivalries start to buzz again, but no one can deny that the expulsion of the scapegoat transformed their lives for a time.
*Note of caution for would-be rabble-rousers: You cannot know if it will strike your intended target, or if the population you have been manipulating will decide, independently, in the moment of crisis, to transfer their animosity to you ...
Chapter 16: The Mimetic Scapegoat
