I submitted this to the Indiana Philosophical Association in 2016. A Facebook discussion today prompted me to think it might be good to post to the blog. I think the last seven years have supported some of what I said here. One thing which I admit I didn't expect is the degree to which people have stayed loyal to Trump. I thought they would eventually throw him overboard but for the most part that has not occurred. I will say too, that because it was for an academic conference (the paper was not accepted--I found out later mine was the last one cut) I tried to deal with this in a non-partisan manner. The reality is nobody I know is any farther to the left than I am.
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The election
season of 2016 seemed like a crescendo of acrimony. Many people of every conceivable political
stripe have either vociferously pointed fingers at the other side, or simply
thrown up their hands in disgust. Most
of us have heard, or have expressed ourselves, the view that all politicians
are fundamentally dishonest and therefore cannot be trusted. It may seem at times like American society is
in a state of being the equivalent political brawl.
More
than one pundit has been offering the idea that the seeds of this political
discontent have been brewing for some time now.
According to the American Presidency Project at the University of
California Santa Barbara, the margins of the presidential elections from 2000
through 2012 was an average victory of 3%, while in the second half of the
twentieth century it was about 9.5%. In
short, this means, as we know from experience, that our country is about evenly
divided when it comes to political preferences.
We
could perhaps extrapolate from the election results since the year 2000 that in
any given presidential election, at least half of us will be unhappy with the
outcome. People are, even if they
believe in limited government, wanting the government to play a constructive
role in both society and individual lives, but the almost even political divide
has the process in a state of paralysis.
Notable in 2016 were the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders,
both of who had tapped into a growing discontent on the part of voters who are
unhappy with the lack of upward mobility, stagnant wages, and the perception of
little prospect for a brighter economic future.
Without
taking a political side, I want in this paper to examine this discontent
through the eyes of Rene Girard, who, for lack of a better term, I will call a
philosophical anthropologist. Girard’s
death last year led to an article in his memory in the National Catholic Reporter.
In the article, Bill Tammeus (2015) cites British theologian James
Alison’s characterization of the basis of Girard’s theory of mimetic desire:
Mimetic theory,
which Girard first hit upon teaching French literature and reading the great
novelists' psychological analysis of their characters, is the idea that our
desires are imitative. In other words, most of the things we want, we want
because others want them.
What I wish to
suggest in this paper is that our current political environment is rife with
mimetic desire. As people have the
realization that they are not moving up the economic ladder, it is only natural
to look for someone to blame, perhaps even someone to envy. This is not to say that peoples’ perceptions
are not accurate. Maybe someone did lose
a job to an overseas move, or cheaper, under the table labor. Mimetic desire may not be petty jealousy, it
may be grounded in reality. In no way is
Rene Girard in league with those who suggest that wanting a higher standard of
living is jealousy. The emotions involved in mimetic desire seem to be simply
part of human nature. The ethical
dilemma which is related to Girard’s thought is not mimetic desire itself, as I
see it, but that to which mimetic desire leads.
Handled ethically, mimetic desire can be a motivator to
self-improvement. At its worst, mimetic
desire can lead to behaviors which are quite unnecessary, and harmful to
society.
Girard
further developed this concept into what he expressed in his 1986 book, The
Scapegoat. The idea is that when
people have perceived deficiencies in their own lives, these perceptions end up
being projected onto others. Obviously,
he draws upon the thinking of persons like Freud here. When scapegoating
occurs, the scapegoated party may have nothing to do with the situation at
hand, but still serves as a seemingly acceptable recipient of blame for the
situation at hand. He suggests,
…rather than
blame themselves, people inevitably blame either society as a whole, which
costs them nothing, or other people who seem particularly harmful for easily
identifiable reasons. The suspects are
accused of a particular category of crimes….Ultimately, the persecutors always
convince themselves that a small number of people, or even a single individual,
despite his relative weakness, is extremely harmful to the whole of
society. (Girard, 1986, p.14-15)
Girard
sees two possible kinds of scapegoating.
One is where the scapegoat is chosen because of some character flaw or
trait which makes them unworthy of respect.
This first type he traces through ancient literature and historical
example, from the time before the Common Era until the 20th
century. The Oedipus complex of
stories, as told by more than one ancient storyteller, serve as a prime
example. Oedipus’ actions in killing his
father and marrying his mother serve to make Oedipus the perfect example of
this kind of scapegoat. The perception
is that it is morally acceptable to place blame for a community’s misfortunes
upon individuals or groups who, because of some perceived moral inadequacy, can
be presumed to have brought on the misfortune.
Girard
(1986) gives a modern telling of the Oedipus story in brief form:
Harvests are
bad, the cows give birth to dead calves; no one is on good terms with anyone
else. It is as if a spell had been cast
on the village. Clearly, it is the
cripple who is the cause. He arrived one
fine morning, no one knows from where, and made himself at home. He even took the liberty of marrying the most
obvious heiress in the village and had two children by her. All sorts of things seemed to have taken
place in their house. The stranger was
suspected of having killed his wife’s former husband, a sort of local potentate,
who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was rather two quickly
replaced by the newcomer. One day the
fellows in the village had had enough; they took their pitchforks and forced
the disturbing character to clear out. (p.29)
Girard offers other examples, as
the account of Guillaume de Machaut in France in the 14th century,
who considered the poisoning of local rivers by the Jews of the area as the
cause of the Plague. The Salem Witch Trials would serve as another example, and
of course, the Holocaust.
Another
aspect of this scapegoating is almost ritualistic. The scapegoat is revered as divine or
semi-divine, and seen as the protector of the people by virtue of some exalted
position held in society. Girard relates
how in some African tribes, the new chieftain was, in the coronation ceremony ,
expected to engage in sexual relations—in plain view—with the Queen
mother. Ritualistic incest is a common
theme he observed in societies and people groups from different parts of the
world. It is as if the people have need
to know that their king/priest/scapegoat is a sinful person, so the scapegoat
can bear the sins of society and thus be a protector from natural disaster,
invasion, and other misfortune. Perhaps
this is the root of the common tendency in societies to see their troubles as
the fault of government. People on the
right do this—suggesting the government is too involved in their lives. People on the left also do this—with the idea
that the government is involved too little.
The scapegoating tendency directed at the same scapegoat, the
government, with differing justifications and/or rationales.
The ritualistic
aspect of scapegoating, with its view of the sacrificial victim being
inherently flawed, may explain why sometimes leaders of religious traditions
endorse political candidates even when the candidate’s views or lifestyle are
at variance with the specific religious tradition involved.
The
second kind of scapegoating is a little more sophisticated, and involves the
choice of a scapegoat who is morally upright and innocent of wrongdoing. Girard identifies the Christian story, as
related in narratives in the New Testament Gospels, as history’s prime
illustration of this. Here is where
Girard’s Catholic faith (which I share) comes into play. Personally, I do not believe that this second
type of scapegoating is a theme running through our current political
discourse.
In
the first kind of scapegoating, the underlying rationale, according to Girard,
is that ritual violence, as in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”
serves to protect the community. It is
not uncommon for the scapegoat to be treated with awe and reverential
preference for a period of time prior to their sacrifice. Anything the scapegoat wants, the scapegoat
gets, until time for the ritual execution.
Inflicting
violence on the chosen victim is seen as inoculating the community for violence
on a larger scale. Girard (1972) states,
(referring to Oedipus) “In the myth, the earful transgression of a single
individual is substituted for the universal onslaught of reciprocal
violence. Oedipus is responsible for the
ills that have befallen his people. He
has become a prime example of the human scapegoat” (p. 77).
Girard also
notes that as societies have progressed, actual violence has at times seemed
less desirable. Therefore, some sort of
shunning or exclusion can take the place of actually killing the
scapegoat.
Essential to the
concept of the scapegoat is the element of societal misfortune. It could be the Plague, wars, the Great
Depression, or the economic and political anxiety and dysfunction of 2016. In the midst of such hard times, one with a
message of blame can arise to give people hope based on the sacrificial
offering of some individual or community other than themselves. Perhaps the operative word is “other.” In the 2016 political campaign the other has
been immigrants (specifically from either Mexico or refugees fleeing Syria), Muslims,
transgendered persons, the disabled, women, labor unions, Wall Street, the
Political Establishment, etc. By no means am I limiting this list to one
political party or one campaign. This
season political commentators have noted many times, for example, similar
themes articulated by supporters of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Not to be outdone are those at the other end
of the economic spectrum, who argue that paying higher wages costs people jobs,
and that many companies are not profitable because of the greed of the
employees. If mimetic desire is indeed
part of human nature, it seems there are plenty of scapegoats to go around.
For
the purposes of this paper, it is not important what side of the political
aisle one occupies. What is of concern
here is the dynamic, in which, in 2016, mimetic desire has become full blown
scapegoating. As one who teaches ethics,
and is concerned about ethical behavior in both public and private life, I am raising
questions for which I have, at the current time, no clear answer. Those
questions are as follows:
What do such scapegoating tendencies suggest about the overall ethical
understanding and developmental level of our society?
This
is a very complex question, at best.
Human nature and human behavior being what they are, no simplistic
answer will ever suffice. A paper such
as this one could never adequately address such a question. That complexity notwithstanding, there are
some basic observations which can be made.
First,
we could suggest that it has become the case that what may be considered normal
mimetic desire has progressed to the level of scapegoating, and this
scapegoating has successfully been inserted into our political discourse. One of the reasons to assert this is that
scapegoating is predicated on simplistic, either/or thinking. Girard likens this to magical thinking. In The Scapegoat (1972), he suggests
that such magical thinking is thought to have roots in the belief in
witchcraft, and ideas like Rousseau’s “noble savage”, who ponders nature but
lacks the sophisticated worldview to understand how causation actually works. Girard takes exception to this idea, stating,
“In reality magical thought does not originate in disinterested curiosity. It is usually the last resort in a time of
disaster, and provides principally a system of accusation. It is always the other who plays the role of the sorcerer and acts in an unnatural
fashion to harm his neighbor” (p.53).
Second,
the scapegoating is propelled by a worldview in which, while causation may be
present, operates at a level which does not easily accommodate explanations
which admit of multiple causes for events which occur. Both the political left and the political
right freely accuse one another of “dumbing down” American society. While this is also an act of scapegoating, it
compounds the problem even more because the reality of multiple causation gets
lost in the shuffle. As a result, by the
time campaigns like the one of 2016 begin, persons on both sides of the
political aisle are already conditioned to look for the most simplistic answer
they can find.
This
is not, in my view, Occam’s razor at work, because, as I understand Occam, we
are looking for the simplest answer, the least complex answer, which still adequately accounts for the
facts. In an age when people have
their preferred media outlets, correlating with their political persuasion, we
can easily end up with simple answers which
do not account for all the facts. How
many of us have read or listened to a news account with the feeling we are in a
fact-free zone?
Now,
perhaps one could argue that Occam is involved here. Maybe the concept of mimetic desire is one
which is a basic, simple explanation for times of extreme social unrest, and
the verbal and physical violence which often follow. What I am suggesting here, however, is
different. I believe that the very
violent tendencies I am discussing come, not from mimetic desire itself, but
from the lack of moral education and development of social skills which can
prevent mimetic desire from becoming scapegoating.
For those of us who
teach philosophy, ethics, or even theology to college students, what can we do
as a profession to stem this tide of scapegoating?
I would
like to suggest that the type of moral education outlined by Aristotle, which
is now commonly called Virtue Ethics, is the place to start. At some point, it is necessary for people to
accept responsibility for how they respond to social problems, in such a way
that they do not become compounded.
Violence begets violence, and as the cycle proceeds, it becomes more
difficult to disentangle the “original” violence from subsequent violence.
I have
been to Ferguson, Missouri a few times, and was familiar with the area when the
violent response to the Michael Brown shooting occurred in August 2014. I thought the shooting was not justified, and
am very sympathetic to the concerns racial minorities in our country have
expressed since then about policing. I
do remember watching the protests and thinking about the violence and
destruction of personal property, and the burning of a police car, and coming
to the conclusion that, as well-founded as the anger was, the protesters were
hurting their own cause.
At the
time of this writing it is not known who the next President of the United
States will be, but in recent days some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have
expressed discontent over the idea of a softening of Mr. Trump’s stance on
immigration. What, if any, outcome of
this on the election remains to be seen.
Also, as of this writing it is unknown whether Mr. Trump’s political
base will have any type of negative response, violent or otherwise. According to the theory espoused by Rene
Girard, it would not be unexpected to see some of the candidate’s most loyal
supporters turn on him due to this changed stance. When we look at the ritualistic aspects of
scapegoating, as Girard noted, sometimes the priestly/ruling/scapegoater
becomes a scapegoat as a result of the very process which the scapegoater
initiates. In the end, Oedipus, Jesus,
Julius Caesar, all are killed. People
who feel attracted to one espousing the scapegoating of another people group
sometimes end up being scapegoated by their own followers.
Virtue
ethics may offer alternatives to the resolution of extremely violent
scapegoating. Perhaps everyone
scapegoats. Growing up in a West
Virginia Coal Mining community I remember the strikes where the company blamed
the union, and the union blamed the company for the impasses in contract
negation. Sometimes it did get
violent. Such impasses will occur. Mimetic desire is part of the human
condition, and the big question is not how to eliminate it but how to channel
it into productive uses. Teaching non-violent
conflict resolution as part of character education is a useful tool in helping
mimetic desire to be constructive rather than destructive. For Girard, this is
still a form of scapegoating. He
suggests we project our violence on those at the fringe of our own groups, or
those who are members of other groups, and as such cohesion is created which
holds the in-group together. (Girard, 1972,
p. 249)
If it
is correct that mimetic desire is part of the human condition, then the blaming
aspect of mimetic desire, namely scapegoating, will probably never go
away. But I do believe he would agree,
that non-violent means of scapegoating are a big step in the right direction. Ultimately, there will always be a plethora
of human grievances because of a lack of agreement on what constitutes
morality. As one who has taught
“Introduction to Ethics” for the past decade, it seems that even discussing
hot-button ethical issues in the classroom can be an occasion for
scapegoating. Virtue ethics may help
address that issue by lessening the number of times offense is either intended
or taken in such discussion. It may
also lessen the tendency to respond in anger when mimetic desire is
aroused. Both of these would be
constructive steps in shaping our students to be participants in our political
discourse.
