Rene Girard and scapegoat mechanism

[KSA]

It's been awhile since I was here. :) Many things happened. I'd like to drop one name here - Rene Girard - whose work really helped me to understand the dynamics of social interactions and especially how they were manifest in LC. :)

You can find his books, if you are interested. Here I would provide a quote of Michael Harding who develops Girard's views. )

Here is a quote:

I don’t take myself all that seriously. There is no need to. I don’t have a direct hotline to God. God doesn’t do divine downloads into my brain as to what constitutes TRUTH. The fact is, God doesn’t work that way.
Some preachers act as though they are the only ones who have the TRUTH. They condemn everyone else who doesn’t think like they do. They take themselves too seriously.
Let’s get real.
All any of us has is our own experience. Yet, there are those who would take their experience and turn it into a model for everyone else’s experience. Worst of all are those who take their experience of God and make it THE model for how one ought to experience God. The only figure that Christians claim can do this is Jesus.
So why are there so many people out there turning out theology as if they alone possessed TRUTH and why are there so many out there who claim to have the ultimate experience of God?
I’ll tell you.
It’s all about mimesis.
It’s all about being validated.
If a person is insecure in their theology or their experience they have a deep seated emotional need for others to validate them, so they make themselves models of how to relate to God. However, when those who follow this model also have theological thoughts of their own infallibility or when models have more spectacular experiences than those whom they model, a situation is created which Rene Girard calls ‘scandal’ or the ‘model/obstacle’ relationship.
This is why pastors, teachers, prophets and others end up getting rid of those closest to them eventually. They cannot abide competition. It depletes their validation and creates an emotional abyss.
Pastors and preachers who depend upon numbers are stuck in the cycle of negative mimesis. Sycophants who follow these ‘popular’ preachers and teachers routinely bring up how many followers they have as though numbers were a metric of God’s favor.
If God was about numbers, Jesus was a failure. So was Paul.
If Christianity is going to survive in the 21st century it has got to loosen its grip on empire building. It has to take itself far less seriously than it does. It must inject a healthy dose of humility in its theology and claims of experience. It must learn to laugh at itself.
If it does, then the intense mimetic conflicts we see over all sorts of issues be they theological, political or moral will be transformed into mutual conversations.
This does not mean we can be irresponsible in our God talk. Nor does it mean that anarchy is to prevail in our theological thinking. It does mean that when we talk about God we do so in terms that reflect our awareness that we do not have the final word.
Jesus is the Path, not the Rest Stop, and theology done on the path is a pilgrimage theology. It is always changing. The sooner we get this the better off we will all be.

[KSA]

And yes, I plan to write on scapegoating here ))

For now wiki article will suffice ) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Girard

[aron]

It's been awhile since I was here.... I'd like to drop one name here - Rene Girard - whose work really helped me to understand the dynamics of social interactions and especially how they were manifest in LC.

Always nice to see your moniker pop up KSA. Girard I read some years ago and it was an impressive presentation. Not sure I understand or agree with him, but was really impressed nonetheless.

Here's what I remember: that shaming is intrinsic to our social structures, and we develop mythologies to support them. We persecute, then deify. Like what Jesus said, we kill the prophets then we build shrines to them.

All of which seems to strike down Christianity in the myth-making business, as well, except Girard points out that the testimony of Christianity is not built by the oppressor, but by the oppressed. The one "silenced by death" rises again by the power of the Holy Spirit to testify of God's saving love.

So our myth-making voices are stilled, as God has now spoken to us in the person of the Son. And our social structures of shaming no longer work in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now some religious structures like in the LC, under the guise of "good order in the church", and "training, or discipling the saints", still practice shaming. If you ever saw WL and TC in public it was pretty obvious. And with the blendeds I've seen it to a lesser degree. But with WL and TC it was, like, wow; like you were watching MB "disciple" WN all over again.

And we need to beware lest we in turn scapegoat WL, and the blendeds, and pretend they are the source of all our troubles. No, it is our own nature, which has been dealt with on the cross of Christ, and new creation now awaits to flourish in its stead. So we should have peace with all, especially those whose behavior has troubled us. "Pray for those who persecute you." Forgiveness and peace, and reconciliation, are the order of the day.

I am babbling, I know, but just wanted to give an "amen" to KSA. Hopefully I didn't miss the thrust of Girard's work by too much.

[aron]

The other thing about shaming and scapegoating in the LCs. It also periodically led to the "rebellions" and "storms" and "turmoils" that have plagued the movement. Because if you shame and shame and shame, eventually someone is going to say, Wait a minute here. And then the shame-based system has its "rebellion" mechanism activated.

I am saying that shaming and scapegoating have an individual and a collective manifestation, and the storms and turmoils we saw were the collective manifestations.

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" (NIV) War without comes from war within, which we impose on the system. Lee built a system which was subject to his every whim (i.e. the unsatisfied war within), which whims (e.g. "leadings") each of us received as the individual-level internalization, cognitive dissonance and all. And the "rebellions" which arose when some of the underlings couldn't take it any more -- those were the collective external representations.

I'm perhaps not accurately representing M. Girard; my usual m.o. is to read something on a superficial level, then pontificate on it, superficially, years later, as if I got it, and it were now part and parcel of my operating instructions. But occasionally I do get lucky and sound intelligent. Anyway, I did read Girard years ago and loved it; thought it very impressive. It was both original, and carefully thought out; both aspects indicating the work of the Holy Spirit.

[KSA]

Hopefully I didn't miss the thrust of Girard's work by too much.

No, actually you did a nice presentation :) Of course, there is much more, but it is a very nice foundation for discussion. :) Girard's theory is basically based on his mimetic theory - that we imitate each others' desires. It leads to competition, and then to violence. Scapegoating mechanism was devised to ease violence in the society. "One should die lest we all die". Myth is basically a story that covers up a collective murder. In the minds of persecutors a victim should be guilty for scapegoating to work. The cross exposes this mechanism. Resurrection justifies the victim (and that's why the cross abolishes all the sacrifices). :)

[aron]

Girard's theory is basically based on his mimetic theory - that we imitate each others' desires.

yes I remember him talking about two children playing with toys. Suddenly they both want the same one. We learn by imitating others, and we develop values based on what others value. This leads to problems in an environment of scarcity, and thus we build social structures, complete with sacrificial victims and mythological histories, to support them.

[KSA]

yes I remember him talking about two children playing with toys. Suddenly they both want the same one. We learn by imitating others, and we develop values based on what others value. This leads to problems in an environment of scarcity, and thus we build social structures, complete with sacrificial victims and mythological histories, to support them.

Yes, and the verse from James you quoted earlier sums it up nicely.