MIMETIC DESIRE AND THE IRRATIONALITY OF MODERN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

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 20^th 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 14^th 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.