What is Scapegoating? Why are we blamed and why do we blame?
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The billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel considers René Girard “heroic and subversive.” He was a student of Girard at Stanford University. In 2011, J.D Vance met Thiel at a lecture that Peter Thiel gave at the Yale Law School. Thiel later hired and mentored the future VP . He also introduced Girard’s theory of mimetic behaviour and scapegoating to Vance who then used the concept in the last Presidential election. So, who is this obscure French-American scholar, Rene Girard, who died in 2015?
Girard’s mimetic theory says that we do not know what we want on our own, so we copy what others desire. When we desire the same things, we become rivals, stop being friends and start competing for the same limited resources, status, or power or love. The rivalry spreads; some people get frustrated, angry. Others start imitating these anger and frustration until this becomes widespread.
This leads to conflict and violence on a large scale throughout a community. This chaos threatens to destroy the entire community or society. No one wants to accept responsibility for the conflict; instead, we take out their frustrations on someone; someone weak and vulnerable, someone who cannot fight back, a scapegoat.
In ancient days, we sacrificed virgins, children to the gods; nowadays, we blame our problems and anxieties over limited resources on someone who can’t fight back.
It's an interesting theory. Even if you disagree with it, Girard’s mimetic theory is worth considering. It digs deep into our psychic and unearth an unpleasant aspect of our human nature that we should confront.
Have you been scapegoated and how did that feel like to you? Have you scapegoated someone and how did that make you feel about yourself? Have you ever been bullied and have you ever been a bully yourself? Why do we need to have scapegoats? Who are historically the scapegoats? Who are the people you choose to scapegoat and bully?
What is scapegoating to you?