Of course, the idea of the scapegoat is that you reunite the tribe by casting out the scapegoat as the symbol of all our troubles.
Somehow it didn’t work when our lefty friends decided to make Trump the scapegoat — on in an earlier time, Thatcher.
I wonder why?
Because they’re too big for the process to work. The problem is that the same strategy is lethally effective against almost anyone else: the failed no-platforming of JK Rowling over trans-rights, though harming JK Rowling herself to no real extent, did reveal in sharp contrast the awkward fact that she is an exception, not the rule: almost nobody else is in a position to assert the obvious truths in question without severe reputational risk which typically ends a career, never mind just a job.
I thought the scapegoat was the creature that bore all our sin and was ritually killed as an offering to God in the synagogues (so that all the true beleivers could feel good/virtuous / in control) – sounds like a good psychological plan ! maybe it will catch on……………
Technical: Scapegoat was expelled into the desert, not ritually killed.
Peter LR
2 years ago
I don’t know when we lost the moral compass expressed as “Let the person without fault be the first to throw a stone”. This loss has historically been found in politicians and more brazenly journalists (do only moral journalists write about infidelities?). Maybe the internet has turned us all into journalists: people whose views are read by those who don’t know them and their hypocrisies personally. When hearing or reading what someone has said, instead of the default position being one of trying to understand what they mean, it is to deliberately misrepresent what they mean: and somehow this is viewed as virtuous!
“I don’t know when we lost the moral compass expressed as “Let the person without fault be the first to throw a stone”.”
We haven’t lost that moral compass, we simply surrendered control of it to a secular agenda that has rewritten the moral laws in question as a political weapon. In effect, the ersatz and fatuous new moral code is one in which a self-appointed modern clerisy has crafted intentionally so as to easily condemn anyone not signed up unquestioningly to Liberal-Orthodox dogma.
Many people today think they are without fault! Tom Holland addresses this in his book ‘Dominion’ and his podcast, ‘The Great Awokening’. So does Carl Trueman in ‘The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.’
Graham Stull
2 years ago
“…we can examine a person’s relationship with the truth based on how well an idea has served them, or how much they’ve had to suffer for.” That’s the money quote from this essay. Very good.
Philip LeBoit
2 years ago
“Disruption came — but not in the way anyone, including Thiel, probably imagined.” Some of us who have tracked the Donald since the 70s (I’m from Queens) were incapable of imagining anything else.
Lloyd Byler
2 years ago
Every culture needs a scapegoat.
A S
2 years ago
Great article and I am so glad someone has written something thoughtful about a very thoughtful and brilliant person. If anyone has carefully listened to what Thiel has to say and think, without preconception, they would be struck by his earnestness. Some of his early talks are pretty darn prescient https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9iG0cSjbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esk7W9Jowtc&t=204s
If anything is contrarian about him, it is most so how carefully he thinks through and analyzes difficult things and how he expresses his thoughts in a measured and affable manner. It is a tragedy of American politics that smart people like him would never run for office. We consistently prefer appearances – looks, words, posturing – and side stories over genuine substance.
If I could choose one inspiring and authentic living person for my 8-year old daughter to meet, Peter Thiel would be in the top three.
Of course, the idea of the scapegoat is that you reunite the tribe by casting out the scapegoat as the symbol of all our troubles.
Somehow it didn’t work when our lefty friends decided to make Trump the scapegoat — on in an earlier time, Thatcher.
I wonder why?
Because they’re too big for the process to work. The problem is that the same strategy is lethally effective against almost anyone else: the failed no-platforming of JK Rowling over trans-rights, though harming JK Rowling herself to no real extent, did reveal in sharp contrast the awkward fact that she is an exception, not the rule: almost nobody else is in a position to assert the obvious truths in question without severe reputational risk which typically ends a career, never mind just a job.
I thought the scapegoat was the creature that bore all our sin and was ritually killed as an offering to God in the synagogues (so that all the true beleivers could feel good/virtuous / in control) – sounds like a good psychological plan ! maybe it will catch on……………
Technical: Scapegoat was expelled into the desert, not ritually killed.
I don’t know when we lost the moral compass expressed as “Let the person without fault be the first to throw a stone”. This loss has historically been found in politicians and more brazenly journalists (do only moral journalists write about infidelities?). Maybe the internet has turned us all into journalists: people whose views are read by those who don’t know them and their hypocrisies personally. When hearing or reading what someone has said, instead of the default position being one of trying to understand what they mean, it is to deliberately misrepresent what they mean: and somehow this is viewed as virtuous!
Interesting. I sometimes wonder whether we are returning to a pre-Christian state where forgiveness and understanding were the watchwords.
“I don’t know when we lost the moral compass expressed as “Let the person without fault be the first to throw a stone”.”
We haven’t lost that moral compass, we simply surrendered control of it to a secular agenda that has rewritten the moral laws in question as a political weapon. In effect, the ersatz and fatuous new moral code is one in which a self-appointed modern clerisy has crafted intentionally so as to easily condemn anyone not signed up unquestioningly to Liberal-Orthodox dogma.
Many people today think they are without fault! Tom Holland addresses this in his book ‘Dominion’ and his podcast, ‘The Great Awokening’. So does Carl Trueman in ‘The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.’
“…we can examine a person’s relationship with the truth based on how well an idea has served them, or how much they’ve had to suffer for.”
That’s the money quote from this essay. Very good.
“Disruption came — but not in the way anyone, including Thiel, probably imagined.” Some of us who have tracked the Donald since the 70s (I’m from Queens) were incapable of imagining anything else.
Every culture needs a scapegoat.
Great article and I am so glad someone has written something thoughtful about a very thoughtful and brilliant person. If anyone has carefully listened to what Thiel has to say and think, without preconception, they would be struck by his earnestness. Some of his early talks are pretty darn prescient
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9iG0cSjbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esk7W9Jowtc&t=204s
If anything is contrarian about him, it is most so how carefully he thinks through and analyzes difficult things and how he expresses his thoughts in a measured and affable manner. It is a tragedy of American politics that smart people like him would never run for office. We consistently prefer appearances – looks, words, posturing – and side stories over genuine substance.
If I could choose one inspiring and authentic living person for my 8-year old daughter to meet, Peter Thiel would be in the top three.
What’s described isn’t scapegoating and even if it was Thiel deserves a roasting for his own media censorship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker
Thiel deserves to be lauded for that.
Maybe he does but what he did was perversion of the truth. I wonder what Girard would have thought.
The Gawker episode was genius in so many ways. Riveting & audacious.
So according to you, everyone has the legal right to secretly record you having sex and then broadcast it.
It is what makes the modern world go round