- resolves pressure that builds up due to social paradoxes (don't like you but have to pretend to, have desires but can't admit to them)
- reminds everyone that it could be worse, normal problems are no big deal compared to actual violence
- and promotes bonding over a shared enemy
If it's just a civilised form of scapegoating, then gerrymandering could potentially reach insanely high levels, as long as it provides a good show (à la Russian Federation elections?) of ritual conflict.
Avoiding burning everything to the ground all the time might be the main reason democracies tend to be wealthier.
I wonder how solarpunk continental europe might've been now if it had somehow avoided the "short 20th century (1914-1991)".
> normal problems are no big deal compared to actual violence
Even democratic pro-human-rights societies tolerate quite a lot of violence towards their scapegoats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
People are people, so why should it be
They often treat each other so awfully(if you'd like, have a 1927/1984 mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctqMIkrqCj8 )
Something like the more we become the same , the more we become engulfed in mimetic rivalry.
I suspect it sheds quite a bit of light on the modern divide in the US. Not a divide because of differences but because of similarities.
Not a fan of Trump to say the least but it also seems rather obvious who is functioning as a the scapegoat mechanism for a large group of people.
As to being an actual scapegoat, I doubt it: scapegoats are innocent.
He is accused of being a racist (Central Park 5) misogynist ("Grab em") bigot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA#t=16)
We are apparently a long time removed from 'quoniam meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere'.
lighter: https://www.theonion.com/trump-takes-out-full-page-newspaper...
darker: http://apps.frontline.org/clinton-trump-keys-to-their-charac...
Note that even in Russia, the death penalty theoretically no longer exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country
And the CP5 almost certainly were out there assaulting strangers in the park. What they (probably) didn't do was rape the lady. They just knocked her out so that someone else could come along and rape her.
- he is a rich billionaire but also a broke failure
- he is the most hated, but also the most popular
- he has been a ny elite (insider) for decades, but his base is rural and blue collar (outsider).
- he is dumb and unsophisticated but also a cunning planner and schemer
Supporters are not immune from the scapegoat effect. They also believe one man can control the universe.
The social dynamics are too powerful to perceive anything real about them.
We are experiencing capulets vs mortigues.
Girard is also describing ancient origins. He argues the effectiveness and violence of scapegoating is reduced in modern context.
see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelphs_and_Ghibellines
or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots#Background
My theory is that any hegemons (lacking significant exterior scapegoat possibilities) sooner or later divide into factions.
When I was growing up in the States, there was a significant overlap between the left R wing and the right D wing. Since I left the Old Country, it seems (from afar) like that overlap has disappeared, and maybe there's even unoccupied space where the middle used to be.
I'm not getting this, tbh. One would think that the closest to a 'scapegoat' would be Brandon, not Trump.
What you're describing sounds like a variation of what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of small differences.