Category Archives: Psychology and the Scapegoat (Girard)

Girard’s theory concerns the psychology and historical ‘coming to consciousness’ of the scapegoat. These blogs review Girard inspired works with concepts in An Archaeology of the Fall in mind.

08/11/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AX

[Progressive television – ideological broadcasting – redefines ‘freedom’ as ‘without obligations’.

Yet, when the hero saves the victim (standing in for the disempowered viewer), the victim is emotionally obligated to the hero (standing in for the television producers and their Progressive religions).

These redefinitions produce an idol of unreal love (where television elites and disempowered viewers are united in hatred against a foe).

These redefinitions produce differential freedoms (the television elites are not obligated to the viewer victims, but the viewer victims are emotionally obligated to the elites).]

08/9/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AV

[Clearly, the televisionaries redefine the term ‘love (agape)’ so that ‘it no longer proceeds from grace and no longer requires conversion’.

Such a redefinition allows a person to use the word ‘love (agape)’ along with the word ‘free’, where ‘free’ means ‘without obligation’. The movie ‘hero’ is ‘free’ to ‘love the victim’. But this is not a love of equal standing. The victims can never repay their obligations.

Again, this expresses the attitude of royalty.

The hero obligates the victims by rescuing them. Plus, the hero reduces the victim’s freedom, or, should I say ‘self-esteem’.

Even stranger, the rescued victims are less obligated to defend themselves. The hero will take care of them.

Ah, royal patronage.]

08/4/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AT-1

[Schoonenberg’s translator used the word ‘love’ to indicate, foremost ‘agape’.

Yet, “he” did not rule out ‘eros’.

To me, this implies that ‘love’ is rooted in the realm of possibility. Contradictions are allowed. Real love, in contrast, is actual. It emerges from and situates agape and eros. Real love cannot be reduced to ‘brotherly affections’ or ‘feelings of attraction’.]

08/3/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AS

Summary of text [comment] page 72

Real love proceeds from grace. Conversion is crucial to love. The inability to love is an immediate sequel to sin.

[However, as noted in the previous blog, televisionaries and their fellow travelers repackaged ‘the inability to love’ into ‘television broadcast love’.

Of course, the word ‘love’ has been redefined in two ways.

Television viewers now associate the word ‘love’ solely with ‘eros’ (love between male and female, in the broadest sense of the term).

Television producers usurp the other word for love, ‘agape’ (love of friends, kin and fellow believers, in the broadest sense of the term). They substitute the union of the hero and victim against the (imaginary) victimizer. Here is ‘a union in hatred of another’.

Are either of these ‘real love’?]

07/27/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AO-1

Summary of text [comment] page 72

[There are three figures in many Progressive TV programs.

  1. The hero stands for the producers and the institutions of Progressive TV.
  2. The victim stands in for the viewer, who watches yet cannot talk back to the television. The viewer believes that “she” is aware of what “she” is doing. “She” is watching TV. Yet, “she” empathizes with the victim because “she” subliminally knows that “she”, as viewer, is a victim of an apparatus that deprives “her” of a voice.
  3. The victimizer stands for the person who does not watch Progressive TV. Why aren’t they watching? Do they have better things to do? People who apparently are minding their own business are cast as scary, evil, malicious and obsessed. At no point does the truth about the victimizer becomes clear. The victimizer comes from the Progressive’s imagination. It is a projection.]
07/26/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 AN-2

[The golden calves have always enticed their admirers into surrendering their small golden ornaments.  They melt the donations down and fashion a statue in the image of themselves (the golden calves).

Unfortunately, television is an ideal medium for this exploitation. TV is an imagistic way of talking (which is far more emotionally salient than radio (pure voice) or writing (pure script).

In America, the exploitation of the television viewer sustains a falsehood that is so foundational that it must be presented as the truth itself.

What is this lie?

The golden calves, who produce Progressive TV, and the viewers, who watch yet are not empowered to reply, are on the same side, the former as hero and the latter as ‘someone who sympathizes with the victim’.]