Revenge of the Scapegoat | with Luke Burgis
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- I talk with Luke Burgis, an author and expert of René Girard. He's written a book called 'Wanting: the Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life'. Today we discuss Girard, the problem and solution of sacrifice, Christianity, desire and rivalry, our modern concern for victims after the World Wars, the formation of Antichrist, cancel culture and more. Enjoy.
Luke Burgis' book, 'Wanting: the Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life': www.amazon.com/Wanting-Power-...
Luke's Substack: read.lukeburgis.com/
Luke's website and newsletter: lukeburgis.com/
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Coming up next...
00:01:00 - Intro music
00:01:24 - Introduction
00:01:47 - Girard and desire
00:03:27 - The desire for transcendence
00:06:22 - Mimetic desire
00:09:12 - The Influencer: the desire vortex
00:11:01 - Love/hate rivalry
00:12:42 - Different kinds of transcendence
00:14:01 - Sports
00:15:13 - Collapsing hierarchy and difference
00:18:24 - Girard and sacrifice
00:23:03 - How to understand Christian sacrifice
00:30:13 - Cannibalism and suicide
00:33:48 - A familiar enough sacrifice
00:37:50 - The sacrifices of WW2
00:42:21 - Things hidden since the foundation
00:46:54 - The concern for victims
00:49:44 - Girard's Antichrist
00:51:13 - Honoring the scapegoat
00:58:25 - The personification of evil
01:00:58 - The scapegoat mechanism evolving
01:09:21 - Hypocrisy
01:10:08 - The miracle of breaking the cycle of scapegoating
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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.
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The most interesting thing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki to me is the yawning chasm between the way it's currently justified and the professed intentions of the Americans who pushed the figurative button.
Given that virtually every argument on the matter tends to result in the same conflict between utilitarians who think that ending the war with less casualties was worth sacrificing civilians and virtue ethicists who insist that sacrificing civilians is always morally wrong, I'd never actually considered that people at the time might not have held either position. Then I found out that the Americans actually airdropped leaflets that both warned of the attack and clearly sought to justify their actions via the Law of Double Effect: "We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives."
In other words, the Americans apparently saw the Japanese civilians not as a necessary sacrifice, but as collateral damage -- innocents whose survival would have suited the Americans perfectly fine had they simply left before the bomb fell. (This makes a ton of sense once one considers how counterproductive so-called "morale bombing" is at demotivating enemy populations. Bringing the front lines to the civilians just tends to make them even more motivated to drive you out.)
The logic of collateral damage is, in a lot of ways, almost diametrically opposed to the logic of the scapegoat. Collateral damage implies innocence where scapegoating assumes guilt; collateral damage implies pointlessness where scapegoating assumes necessity; collateral damage implies rational pragmatism where scapegoating assumes an irrational mob. Which makes it all the more telling that almost all discussion about the matter -- whether criticizing or defending America's choice -- assumes that sacrificing an enormous amount of civilians to end the war was America's intended purpose. The figure of the scapegoat looms so large in the human psyche that it demands to be treated as the framework for discussion even where it distracts from the issue at hand.
In contrast, the idea that Hitler was a scapegoat that provided America's two warring factions with a mutual enemy to unite against has a lot to commend it. Right from the very beginning, America's been split between those who seek to neuter centralized power and those who seek to build an egalitarian utopia, but /both/ of those factions had every reason to despise the Nazis. Hating Hitler (like hating Putin, but not at all like hating the supposed egalitarian utopia that was Communism) was one of the few things that could put them firmly in the same camp. Well, as long as he was around, at least. Now his specter just gets summoned up whenever they want to attack each other.
There is always an issue with victim idolization, and that is the compassion fatigue that happens when too many people try it. There can be a hatred of victims by the public and a paranoia about cheaters. An organized movement of victims will recognize the backlash and overload. They will deliberately downplay and degrade other suffering people who try to take their spotlight. That's why the homeless, disabled, and elderly can get shoved in a corner when their usefulness is over. An organized movement will shuffle the grieved like cards and keep them in a state of competition and resentment over who is getting more attention.
Partiality is the problem. When the lower wants to be the higher is the problem, instead of being loved by the higher and forgiving them. They want to dominate the higher.
@@bradspitt3896 loved by the higher? Herrenrasse? Eugenics?
Reminds me of the trailer sword fight in Kill Bill. The fake Black Mamba got her good eye snatched up and she basically fell on the ground throwing a tantrum before dying🤣
Absolutely agree. It’s evil undermining of genuinely vulnerable people.
I’m 150% sick to the back teeth of it. I had an ex friend who is a narcissist and she was a sex addict. No judgement whilst she appeared to not be making problems for me but she was triangulating me all along in an elaborate three way dom/sub dynamic between her, the guy she’s engaged to who is an oldest brother and a guy that at one point I had feelings for (that’s changed he’s way way too tolerant of toxic behaviour that I cant get involved with you can’t protect and hold someone’s heart when they are intent on tearing it up themselves and the woman IS the rib cage.). This woman didn’t want a female friend AT ALL. She didn’t know how to be friends with a woman who she’s not either dominating with care so anyone uglier, less intelligent, etc or friending someone above her in or to extract from them. All this time they have been engaging with people who want to see me destroyed. The woman looks like the added extra guys older brother. They all believe in satanic inversion as a path to spiritual development. He literally thinks getting pegged, fucked by men is a path to enlightenment and removing fear. ALL these people are using Orthodoxy/Christ as a sex prop to get off. It’s because anything goes in secular society so it’s no fun. It’s only REAL fun if you feel like your immortal soul is at true risk. Newsflash,I don’t think god gives a shit about what you stick up your butt and who with when you are treating other people like they are stupid,worthless, meat sacks with nothing valuable about them other than how good your orgasm is when you imagine duping them. It’s all about supers delight and an inability to be human amongst humans.
In the OT ceremony - Jesus is the scapegoat. After His baptism He is sent out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. As Psalm 103 says, He removes our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. Jesus' cry of derelection from Psalm 22 is also a fulfillment of this.
What blind spots do we create by pitting Hitler as the supreme archetype of evil?
No coincidence that Nagasaki was a booming religious center for Christianity in the East in the XVI century and reborn in the early XX before the bombing.
They were the sacrificial lamb that ended the war.
The Eucharist as the ending of scapegoating. It’s a beautiful conclusion to this entire talk. Sometimes i forget why the Eucharist more important then I even know. Thanks 😊
Quick summary of the video:
This video discusses the concept of human desire and how it is related to religious quest and transcendence. It looks at how models of desire can lead to rivalry, envy, and conflict, and how the need for transcendence can lead to a hierarchical structure in society. It also looks at the two types of sacrifice: the scapegoat sacrifice and the vertical sacrifice, and how Christ's sacrifice on the cross subverted the scapegoat mechanism. It looks at the concept of sacrifice and how it has been transformed into an act of love, and how the scapegoat mechanism is becoming less and less effective. It also looks at the concept of a "founding murder" in culture and how it is related to the scapegoat mechanism, as well as the concept of Christianity and how it is related to sacrifice. Finally, it looks at the power of memetic contagion and how it can be used for both good and bad, and how participating in the Eucharist and sacrificing oneself for others can help to give a different perspective and can be a healing mechanism.
More detailed summary of the video broken into 8 chunks:
Summary of chunk 1:
In this section, Luke Bridges talks about how Gerard's work on desire helped him to understand his own religious quest and the nature of human desire. He explains that human beings are religious creatures and that the desire for transcendence is a thread that runs through all of Gerard's work. He also talks about how memetic desire is formed through social processes and how models of desire can affect us in positive or negative ways.
Summary of chunk 2:
In this section, the speaker discusses how models of desire can lead to rivalry, envy, and conflict. They also discuss how the need for transcendence can lead to a hierarchical structure in society and how collapsing this hierarchy can lead to confusion and hyper-sexualized identities. Finally, they discuss Gerard's theory of the scapegoat mechanism as a form of sacrifice that can lead to atonement and unity.
Summary of chunk 3:
In this section, the speaker discusses the two types of sacrifice: the scapegoat sacrifice and the vertical sacrifice. They discuss how Christ's sacrifice on the cross subverted the scapegoat mechanism, and how the early Christian martyrs modeled self-sacrifice. They also discuss how the Christian liturgy is a participation in Christ's self-sacrifice, and how Good Friday is a remembrance of the scapegoat mechanism and our tendency to engage in it.
Summary of chunk 4:
In this section, the speaker discusses the concept of sacrifice and how it has been transformed into an act of love. They discuss how Gerard talks about the killing part of sacrifice, but not the eating part. The speaker then talks about the fascination with cannibalism and how it has to do with self-causation and circular causality. They then discuss the idea of the noble sacrifice of the best and how it works, as well as the symbolism of twins and how it leads to conflict. Finally, they discuss how the scapegoat mechanism is becoming less and less effective and how it has been revealed to humanity, preventing it from being effective.
Summary of chunk 5:
This section of the transcript discusses the idea of a "founding murder" in culture, which is a violent act that leads to the formation of a culture. It also discusses the idea of a "scapegoat mechanism" which is a ritualized form of violence that is meant to prevent further violence. The discussion then moves to the example of World War II and how the United States was born out of it. It is suggested that the war was a calculated human sacrifice, and that the Russians played a large role in ending it. The discussion then moves to the idea of Christianity and how it is related to sacrifice, and how it has been subverted in modern culture. Finally, the discussion moves to the idea of the Antichrist and the "culture wars" which is a secular attempt to be more Christian than Christianity itself.
Summary of chunk 6:
In this section, the speaker discusses the concept of a "scapegoat" and how it is used in various cultures to unite people in a shared contempt and hatred of a single figure. The speaker also discusses how this figure is often deified after their death, and how this has been seen in recent history with the death of George Floyd. Finally, the speaker talks about how this same concept may have been used with Hitler, and how the scapegoat mechanism still runs rampant throughout the world.
Summary of chunk 7:
In this section, the speaker discusses the scapegoat mechanism and how it is related to mimesis and the diversion of attention. He talks about how the Christian world is vulnerable to the "blackmail of contemporary neopaganism" due to their own failings and charity. He then talks about the difference between true self-blame and weaponized compassion, and how the accuser is never the truth. He also talks about how the accuser often hides their own sins, and how this is seen in the story of Judas and the woman caught in adultery.
Summary of chunk 8:
In this section, the speaker discusses the power of memetic contagion and how it can be used for both good and bad. He uses the example of the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John to illustrate how Christ was the only person who was not susceptible to the memetic process of accusation and was able to defuse it. He also talks about how it is difficult to remove oneself from the memetic process and how it can be dangerous to talk about it. He suggests that participating in the Eucharist and sacrificing oneself for others can help to give a different perspective and can be a healing mechanism. He also mentions Peter Thiel's review of his book, Wanting, and how it is important to understand the mechanisms of memetic contagion in the age of social media.
This summary generated by AI (or more specifically by the text-davinci-003 large language model)
That was not quick.
@@bradspitt3896 quicker than 1 hour 18 minutes of video
Thanks for the summary!
Thank you
Pointless at best, at worst an act of utter disrespect for human conversation.
What a lovely gift for those of us who have walked the Scapegoat path, and feel the pain especially at Christmas.. The Lion who comes to devour us is Himself a Scapegoat. He leads us beyond those who betrayed us, into a place of Peace.
"Black sheep black sheep (scapegoat) have you any wool? Yes sir yes sir 3 (Trinity) bags full. One for my master (God Father) one for the dame (Holy Spirit) and one for the little boy (Jesus, God Son) who lives in the lane (narrow path)." 🙏
@@jasonscholl2945 Beautiful ! Thank you. Where did you learn that ? Or is it your own insight ?
@@mondopinion3777 🙏 just my insights. I have never heard another express this particular idea.
I like to ground myself in the reality I live in when reading stories no matter how powerfully crafted to disconnect the reader from reality the story is. The Bible, is inspired and that is obvious. But what few understand is inspiration is born from love or hate. And more often man's hate is stronger than his love.
@@jasonscholl2945 The mystic Blake saw evil as part of the plan of Creation. Perhaps we need to look within ourselves to come to terms with his view.
@@mondopinion3777 indeed. We are like magnets attracting and repelling ideas, people, places, etc. Love and hate are two energetic poles of one magnet. 😀
Great ep. One possible tension: Girard said that the attunement to the victim is correlated with a reduction in scapegoating. However, in modern wokism (victim worship), the scapegoat is any person who is the intersectional opposite of every oppressed group. In a turn of vengeance, the paradigmatic oppressor (by colour, gender, ability, sex, sexual orientation, etc.,) becomes the scapegoat. If such a person, by accident of birth, lands inside that definition, he is lesser, deserving of harm, and is the sacrifice to the Gods of equity. The degree to which this happens varies wildly based on geographical area, level of education, and industry of employ. But there are places where this is nakedly visible.
Remarkable concision
So interesting! I often have wondered about this… if the new woke ethos isn’t Christianity run amok… like the flagellants of old… it is some sort of corruption of Christianity.
@@directinprint It's a heretical offshot of a heretical offshoot of a heretical offshoot of Christianity. Heretical movements will only pay attention to particular parts of Christianity that they like and ignore the rest of it. Without the other virtues and doctrines to moderate it the one part the heresy likes will run wild and out of control.
Well, ya know ultimately there’s an implosion in which the argument of victim hood collapses all around you. Not to be that guy. But, crying wolf all the time doesn’t always get the job done.
I appreciate your intellectual honesty, however I disagree with your interpretation of Girard, you see there are two parts to this quote, one the attunement to the victim, basically would mean imitating the victim because proximity affects the capacity and tendency to imitate. The second part is how this correlates to the reduction in scapegoating, I choose to interpret reduction as a reduction in quality rather than quantity. Hope this helps!
I'm reading Michel Graulich's "El Sacrificio Humano Entre los Aztecas" and he spends a good amount of time talking about the theme that the sacrificial victim cannot be so Other as to invalidate the offering nor so Self as to cause disruption within the community. Captured soldiers were adopted as "my own son" and integrated before being sacrificed.
The accuser,
is the liar.
Wow, on point.
The accuser is often hiding his (their) own sin.
Accusation is a memetic process,
nice insights
Thank You for the premiere and the VOD! ❤ ❤ ❤
This is a great Christmas present. Thank you for the upload 👍
Great conversation, I loved it!
Can’t wait to listen again as wasn’t able to sit through the whole live. So excited to see how more Girard gets integrated into your analysis. This was the best and most interesting I ever saw Luke too, what a great conversation.
This is one of my favorite episodes so far! I loved it!
Great conversation. Thank you both!
Fascinating conversation. Thank you.
Really relevant to listen to in light of trending themes of narcissism, scapegoating and family systems. As always the microcosm is the macrocosm. And the fact that secular culture has no answer to these generational, problems except "no contact".
Eye-opening insights. Thank you, Jonathan, for hosting this discussion
I just watched his interview with Bishop Barron. Glad this is still on your horizon.
Very enjoyable and informative interview. Thanks for the upload!
This is a wonderful conversation! For me, the most significant moment was the call back to embeddedness at the end. These are tremendous lenses to make sense, but we are always within it.
Wonderful talk as usual… Thank you! Let us all be mimetic for embodying the truth in love.
Being a great Girard admirer and a follower of your work via Jordan P, this is really a huge joy 🤗
Very interesting! 🤔 I just recently decided to get to know Girard's thought better, watching and reading things. And now you post the video. Coincidence? I think not! Deo Gratias! 🙏
this was super helpful, will watch it multiple times for sure. hopefully Luke and Jonathan will be able to continue this conversation at some point
Great convo
We cannot be outside Mimetic Desire. It is our fundamental humanity. We can only direct it to the good - positive mimesis of some kind - there are many kinds.
Just finished the book “wanting.”Enjoyed very much! I have hoped for so long that someone would bring Rene Girard’s work into the mainstream, discovering him changed my life. Thank you Mr Pageau for hosting Mr. Burgis. (Also happy new year! I gave one of your beautiful prints to my husband for xmas!)
00:11:01 This part was very interesting for me. On the day that I watched the first half of this (and God does this with me very often), I came to a realization about my relationship with God, in which it appears that in doing work for the Lord, it does seem that I actually want the honor for myself, and not that God should have it. I am unsatisfied about having very little results, but I realized that I would be equally unsatisfied about myself if thousands were to be saved in a single day, because it would be so obvious that this would be God's work, that I would still feel irrelevant. By realizing this, I figured that there was some sort of jealousy towards God, where I want to be like Him, but somehow He seems to ruin that by already being Him. Enter this video, where you highlight this exact tendency, to somehow hate your great example, because by being the example He becomes your ultimate rival. This discovery is very helpful for me in pinpointing where my problem is. Thank you.
I keep saying," thank you". Because that's how I feel after listening to your podcasts and I appreciate you taking the time and being willing to explaining. I appreciate you.
This is really good, lots of insights.
I am trying to unpack the idea of the anti-christ, how it will offer everything Christianity promised, but serving different masters, namely false idols,
the classic benign benevolent dictator, until the rug is pulled, and his successor brings the tyranny.
Interesting stuff.
26:07 - it’s so difficult to talk about because it’s so meta. It impacts all the layers of reality.
Really enjoyed this episode, JP. And thank you, Luke. FWIW, Girard was always hot on John 8: 3-11 (the woman caught in adultery) but Luke's analysis in light of the modern world was particularly lucid and perceptive, I dare say even better than the master himself.
Anyway, a great hour's worth of brainfood. Thank you and Merry Christmas to you JP, to you LB, and to all who read.
To me , the part about Jesus writing in the ground with his finger , is the most fascinating part of this story - since you are staring at the story of this event , I would like to share it with you . The truth is , first , Jesus spoke all the time , mouth to ear . Never is it said that Jesus wrote words down for us to read . But in this verse , he is writing , but writing in the dust , which in the next rain wind or passing donkey , will totally erase . I believe that Christ was comparing the ridiculousness of keeping a tab on who fucks who is as ridiculous to him as writing thoughts in the sand -- That to Christ , the biological reality that we are all experiencing is as transient as the sand that he was writing in . Yet , it was HIS finger that was pushing the sand around . And for me , that is a gift , because for those of us whose lives have not matched up with a perfectly drawn lineage and outcome , one can trust that even though sand is sand , the hand of the master was in it . making it be . IN a way , the very sins that were being discussed , were created so that this day could be , Just like the story of the blind man , whose blindness was not because his parents were sinners , but so that the say that his blindness could be removed by obedience to the words of Christ .
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Bob Marley said that in a song.
The most important video I’ve ever seen. Jonathan Pageau I am blessed to have found this content. I have found a lot of your stuff pretty scary lately. Exciting times!
Thanks!
This was v.good well done!
Super duper good stuff!!
Really profound discussion. Thank you Jonathan for re engaging with Girard and being open to the ideas. Thank you Luke - hopefully you will flow safely within the increasing storm of Girard mimesis 😆
As for the confusion causing chaos- that’s the point.
The storm precedes the norm.
Things have to get conflicted and heated before they’ll change. It takes a long time and the process is messy.
Thanks
Laudetur Iesus Christus! 🙏 I wish everyone a Blessed Advent/Nativity Fast ✝️ 💜💛 and Merry Christmas! 🌠 🎄🎅
Christians missing this during covid was the most jarring. Many were making scapegoats and calling it Christ-like.
59:10 - WOW! This discussion is 🤯
If you see this pattern in it's most simple form you will see how all of it's implementations are reconciled without reduction of one patterns to others
always amazing stuff. what can we make of Guadalupe and this history?
This was wildly interesting 🧐 thank you 🙏 Jonathan. One could say that Aristotle understood mimetic desire or at least the importance of modeling the behaviour of a moral exemplar such as his Nichomachean ethics suggest as a path to virtue.
The idea that Luke talked about the institutions that follow from a founding violence having as a function to prevent that same founding violence I think agrees with what Jonathan said about the USA using nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagazaki being a sort of founding moment. For example, the idea of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons being basically enforced by the countries that have that power, something in this sense.
I feel better when I have certain ideas and I hear other people discuss them.
On the movies, i look at them as someone not always just an expression of story telling but to introduce an invasive idea as a viable expression.
What if someone were to take shock comedy seriously from the mid 90's to early 2000's and applied it as a philosophy for happiness.
Are we awake yet🕊
In it's totality the inversion of the scapegoat mechanism means mimetic suicide. An adulation and persecution of the Self, culminating an the ultimate act of "self love" as elimination of existence, in everything but the act of death itself. Leaving being devoid of itself, that the adherent must be evil for any act of being, to constantly flagellate yourself for any feeling, expression, or independence of thought.
Just catching up with this now -- would love to see more Orthodox interact with Girard's thought. There is some strong resonance between his view of the Atonement and that of Eastern Christianity.
Good shit
I like the part where it was discussed that the sacrifice of Christ is sort of the 'ultimate' form of sacrifice and that nothing can go beyond it as the sort of "supreme" scapegoat act. This is true because Christ is not just any other scapegoat, he is the monogenes of God, he is God Incarnate basically. Any other parallel scapegoat acts would indeed lead to false transcendence and may only serve to shed more light in revealing the meaning and significance of the sacrifice that the Lord suffered for us rather than draw us away from it. We are also not just passive recipients in the Lord's sacrifice but are in fact active and "conscious" as well not just in the pain and suffering it requires but also in the benefit we derive from his sacrifice - reliving the same sufferings daily in our lives - at the same time, being aware of the rewards that we reap through our Faith in him. Apparently, the Apostle Paul and in some passages from Christ as well, they already laid this all out.
Jonathan PLEASE read “secrets hidden from the foundations of the world” Girard did nothing but increase my understanding of the depth and width of Gods love and added so much understanding
I’d like to see Jonathan symbolically dissect Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “The Phenomenon of Man.” Teilhard’s nominally-Christian propositions are possibly the most idiosyncratic I’ve ever encountered.
Grist for the Mill on THIS central aspect of The Scapegoat Philosophy, Psychology, and as Perennial Problem: check out and maybe explore some of the short stories by the deeply Catholic 20th century author Flannery O'Connor. I'm very much reminded of her works, The Displaced Person AND A Good Man is hard to Find, ESPECIALLY at a few points in the discussion herein. Strong resonance between yours and her words. PERHAPS worthwhile unpacking...
Thank you for this brilliant chat. I’ve got four young adult kids and throughout all my years raising them up I often mentioned this story of Jesus and the woman who was caught cheating. I always explained it in this same way that Luke did. Yes, what she did was, indeed, very wrong but it’s incorrect to surround her and end her life for a sin when they all have sinned. God commands that we not morality judge or else we will also be harshly judged on our own morality and it likely isn’t anywhere as up to par as we know it likely ought to be. That’s not our place, it’s God’s place. Our place is to always try our very best to do our very best to be our very best. That was what I always thought Jesus was trying to teach us all, on behalf of Our Beloved Heavenly Father, since us dumb little humans were (are) clearly still just not understanding. I say this as a fascinated observer only and not as a morality judge on humanity, btw😅
I know God has got this and I’m not about to sit here and start trying to micromanage Our Father In Heaven, as He Does His Divine Work and carries out His Divine Plans. I know my place and I’m grateful for it and I know my job and I will continue to serve God.
Now it makes sense why Kanye would say something like "I love Hitler" I think he sees, at least unconsciously, this scapegoat mechanism taking place in the world and is trying to break with it. Also because of the things he went through on his life, he has become very sensitive to manipulation, but the problem IMO is that he reacts explosively to it. His wounds are still bleeding.
Gods favorite scapegoat is the Devil.
love the conversation on cannibalism and suicide so interesting
What is the difference between "transcendence" and "inheritance"? Must one "transcend" in order to "inherit"?
Some interesting hand-signs you've got there, sir.
what are some examples of how we can sacrifice parts of ourselves for others, as John talks about towards the end of the video? I guess a small example might be giving up some time to help someone out, but I feel like there's forms of this I can't put my finger on rn.
The mimetic race to be the perfect victim is a sign that we live in the time of the anti-Christ. Girard is truly panoptic in scope for me. I can keep dogmatic religion at arms length, yet adopt the bedrock values which are necessary to be a good and decent person. Values i learned from my Dad, who lived them always. I used to think ideas of apocalypse and anti-Christ were archaic and simple. Outmoded symbols of an ancient religion. Girard redefines what is going on and provides the portal to explain this chaotic, collapsing, ever disturbing world. I suggest reading Battling to the End. His conversation on Clausewitz, and a poignant commentary on war and violence.
“Jesus is both goats”
I want that on a t-shirt
Hence the Orthodox emphasis on repentance.
Probably one of the most salient pieces of evidence of the reversal that the revelation of the scapegoat mechanism has had is what happened to Japan after World War II. If, hypothetically speaking, a kingdom in the ancient past was nuked and forced into unconditional surrender, there's basically no way that kingdom would have survived afterwards. It would have been wiped off the map.
By contrast, Japan is now one of the wealthiest nations in the world. And this wealth did not come as a result of a grueling struggle uphill against the will of the oppressors who forced Japan into a complete defeat. On the contrary, it was arguably those same people who defeated Japan that pulled Japan out of it's post-war state and allowed it to be where it is now.
While the people who were killed by the bombs are still dead, and those injured were still injured, the fact that the country as a whole was, not only not scarified, but instead made better goes to show how our relationship to the scapegoat dynamic has changed.
The intention of dropping the nukes after Japan had surrendered was to tell the Soviet union; " look at our power....you are next". Operation unthinkable was planned.
If the Soviet union didn't develop their own nuclear bombs they would have been destroyed, with the country being split up and resources stolen.
Don't blasphemously brag about saving Japan.... You destroyed it.
I thought this discussion was very insightful, thank you! However, it begs more questions. Has anyone done extensive research regarding mimesis within the Bible itself? That is, can mimesis be found between the various Biblical books themselves, or between OT and NT? Also, what about mimesis occurring between older texts and the Bible? Such as the Epic of Gilgamesh (to Noah's Ark story), the Egyptian Book of the Dead (to Ten Commandments), Akhenaten's Hymn (to Psalm 104) and Homer (to Gospel of Mark as detailed by author Dennis R. MacDonald)?
My dose of fearless idiocy for the day: Whenever I hear someone speak of Soul or Inspiration, I feel a sinking in my heart, like the feeling of watching another fatally miss the mark. The exception to this is was my first reading of Jung. It was not Jungs teleology that lit the fire in my heart, but the teleology of my Soul, passed through the filter of dialect and written by the hand. This is not an admission of madness, just an observation that most live as though they and their Soul are one in the same, and while I feel this is true in a way, its much more like a man and his Soul are two halves of the same whole, both occupying the same space.
Some say a more exact translation to the word we know as "soul" is "breather".... That the Soul is literally the breath of God blown into our earthen frames. It is our allotment of "Co-creation Power", so to speak... How we spend it is up to us.
@@jeremiahshine Breather; i like that understanding. Thankyou for that thought, It will no doubt produce interesting musings as I continue to write my fairytales.
@@DudeRanchDan I'm working on a few myself! With cartoon movies to follow, then live action! The crew I need to make the films happen is currently working for Stephen Crowder! 🤣
Tl;dr
@@nana-booboostickyourheadin4169 Is that ancient Hessian script?
For clarity about Girard that was not presented in this discussion read, "Reading the Bible with René Girard. Conversations with Steven E. Barry"
The Q&A format between Girard and Barry will totally eliminate the confusion this video has provided you with. It was enjoyable but created more questions than answers concerning the meaning of sacrifice.
I thought that's what feast days were that the town or culture society or whatever they would decide the sin that had to be purged put it all on one person and then have the feast day which the body of the saint was consumed yes the scapegoat would be nade a saint I guess as a thank you to the sacrifice but then the feast day the sin or whatever would be consumed and then of course expelled...that's what spirit told me idk if I repeated it totally but basically that's what spirit told me
Cannibalism is the next step beyond consuming the flesh of the animals. With the Gross Restores becoming more expensive than people can afford, it's an alternative choice that some will choose because it's "normal".....so is gardening and growing our own food that doesn't involve spilling blood to enjoy.
I wonder if the banning of Adam and Eve from paradise is the primordial scapegoat sacrifice or if it has something to do with it. I couldn't help but to have that image of both of them leaving paradise and the cherubim standing at the gates making it impossible for them to reenter
The circular nature and abhorrence of the notion of Self Creation is creating a disconnect of the fabric of humanity leading to unconscious interest in incest, cannibalism, mass shootings, self annihilation. This is due to too many Narcissists at the top of leadership as role models. Empty, mentally ill narcissists. One after the other. I see the connection now after this conversation. It's all a circular error. An ouroboros of narcissism without accountability or moral fabric.
I think with the sacrifice of others in the case of war and the captives of the enemy, in someway the other tribe or nation becomes the similar one to the one who they are fighting. so like person is replaced with like group or tribe or nation......
It felt like my business textbooks kept pushing Zappos as this progressive golden boy.
“Drive all blames into one.”
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YASSS
I wish he would have addressed Girard's criticisms of sacrifice. In Things Hidden, Girard clearly says that the sacrificial reading of the Gospels is wrong and not indicated by the texts at all. Girard seems to be radically anti-sacrificial, even self-sacrifice.
What many don't know about Hiroshima & Nagasaki is that the Japanese were already preparing to surrender & our Gov't knew. They went ahead in order to show the world the power of the weapon in order to hold the world hostage. So yes in a way it was a sacrifice.
And yet . . had the world not witnessed that horror, the Cold War between Russia and the US might have led to atomic holocaust. Twice a Russian military officer refused to push the button.
Really? Where can one read about the Japanese planning to surrender?
You must sacrifice your "victim status" on the altar of "forgiveness" to be saved.
Was the Mark of Cain his way of asking to be exempt from the scapegoat cycle?
The struggle for me is whether this account of a scapegoat means that Christians are called to never do violence. Are we to be totally pacifist?
yes.....suffer forever on earth
If you are not pacifist I would suggest, you have not understood mimetic desire or the scapegoat.
The point is, every despot runs on the fuel of, a little violence to prevent violence,
but as we know, that is not how it ends. It ends with escalation of violence until the world burns.
@@tensevo well I just think pacifism sublates the scapegoat mechanism into another level... Where all the problems of the world get put onto the violent, who are, in effect, left to their own devices. Then we scapegoat them by letting them be sacrificed. I mean, I've read an interview with Girard where her said he was not a pacifist in an ultimate sense.
He mentions how even non-violence can be used to scapegoat, so no, pacifism is not the answer by itself.
Perfect band name = Scapegoat Sacrifice.
I find the Atomic bombings very interesting in the topic of sacrifice. The war up to that point had already lost many millions of innocent lives before the bombings so... the real difference I see is that the bombing offered a greater example of obvious sacrifice to the world, bringing it more into our focus, which was on a greater level and shorter amount of time. It was new and great in terror and awe, so it leaves a greater impact. This brings me to think the same regarding Jesus, THE SON OF GOD. Killing Him was likened to such a great thing that the world had never seen and never would again. It's too great to ignore and it impacts every facet of existence.
Re. Hiroshima - Sacrifice binds the perpetrators not only because they ‘expel the cancer’ (ie expel their projected troubles) but because they *communally* commit murder. This binds them in a shared transgression (latterly sin). Like any gang who have ended up committing group violence, they bind together to protect their illusion of the righteousness of that action or simply to protect themselves - each individual has an investment in that illusion or in keeping the fact of murder secret. And because if it has given them victory or power - they do not want others to realise that power - ie do the same back to them (reciprocate - revenge)
The desire is the desire of the Other: Jacques Lacan
What is the role of non-human scapegoats? The word itself comes from a sacrificial animal.
What about COVID-19 or climate change, are they scapegoats that can unite people? Or are they bad events that we choose to blame on particular people who then become our scapegoats?
I wonder about our willingness to sacrifice the poorest in the world who rely on wood and dung for energy by denying them modern 'dirty' energy sources with which to lift themselves out of poverty. It's mainly environmentalists on the 'compassionate' left who consider this necessary. They never mention it, though. It's just assumed that their goddess mother Earth requires it.
I want to know who Luke yelled at after the video ;)) Haha!
To pray at the altar of "forgiveness" requires you to kneel and humble yourself before God.
Modern man's knees don't bend very easily. Like children that have been "parentified".
I am a regenerative farmer and have literally a chest freezer full of my own grown meat 😳🤔
I have had strong feelings that Ukraine is a kind of sacrifice, that feeling has grown. I feel like we are moving towards a murder to found a new order.
Maybe so
Iran Korea Vietnam Iraq Afhanistan Libya Syria kinda sacrifice also
Almost seems to imply that the Antichrist, if manifested as an individual, would be akin to shrek or Quasimodo … and would be celebrated for their beauty
There are always many explanations for significant and (relatively) enduring policies, they are overlaping. Here is one more for the victim culture. International and connected societies reduce the transparency of people, different cultures, religions, ethnicities, languages, customs, beliefs, etc. + the sheer numbers of such people to each other, and the relatively fast fluxes and changes in such people compositions as time passes. People are rather blind about the nature of other people, and dont understand them (Compare to Babylon and tower of Babel in the Bible). Also in cosmopolitan societies people compare themselves and see themselves competing with large numbers of diverse peoples. Internet networks and virtual connections increase these inclinations. Narcissistic tendencies and exaggerations increase, because it is a good strategy in business, dyadic relationships, social circles, friendships (virtual or real), etc. You have overstate your qualities and quantities to be heard, seen, accepted, wanted, sought after, chased, included, hired, etc. among the large and noisy diverse masses.
Hence increasing narcissism + lack of transparency means people dont know what they get when form friendships, etc. How to increase transparency, how to get all the 'rotten eggs' to advertise their undesirable qualitities publicly, so 'the wise' can avoid and reject them before they even know it? Create a victim culture, where mental illness, obesity, sexual deviance, etc. is rewarded somewhat politically and socially, celebrated publicly, and given little privileges and handouts. And now when 'the rotten eggs' advertise their deficiences, deviances and faults publicly in social media, dating profiles, in business circles, etc., 'the wise' can eliminate them pre-emptively from their circles and relationships, or at least corral to them to safer outer circles. People's increasing narcissism is used against them. I would say this is a version and offshoot of 'Let thousands of flowers bloom' -policy from Maoist cultural revolution China.
Excellent conversation, many thanks. Just to touch on the subject of sacrifice. Isn't biblical sacrifice meant to highlight the difference between Yahweh and the other gods? Pagan gods were the ones that required sacrifice from humans whereas Yahweh provides sacrifice for humans. God never actually requested sacrifice from Cain and Abel, they inititated it themselves. Similar to Abraham and Isaac. The point is that Jesus was the tithe/chastisement/sacrifice for us because humans required it, not Yahweh.
It's Saturday morning, Christmas Eve. Is it a bicycle or a puppy under the tree? No! It's Pageau and Burgis talking about Girard! So, for once, I played a video at normal speed. Having my weekly feast breakfast, I feel like I'm wearing footsies again. Joy! Joy!
I must be sure to go to bed early tonight to see if there might be a VanderKlay on this talk under the tree tomorrow!
41:00 the two twins then that founded the United States were "Fat Man" and "Little Boy"? The names of the two nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 😳
15:37