[Schoonenberg never mentioned ‘unreal love’.
He pushed to the edge of postmodernism, but he could not break through a barrier.
That barrier persisted in the 1960s. It was long gone by 2015.
That barrier was the concept that ‘reality was Real’.]
[The first two figures are allied against the third.
The first accuses.
The second is an accomplice to the accusation.
The third is is the receptacle of their projection.]
Summary of text [comment] page 72
[There are three figures in many Progressive TV programs.
[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’.]
[ThinkProgressive_TV does not follow the standard ‘golden calf scapegoats victim’ storyline.
As such, it may appear to be an exception to Rene Girard’s theory
But it is not an exception. Progressive TV merely expresses scapegoating in a new medium.
The medium is the message.]
Summary of text [comment] page 72
[ThinkProgressive_TV is not Christian.
It loves its gods … er … celebrities (the golden calves).
It pretends to love its victims (the ornament-bearing but silent target audiences).
It hates evil, twisted, and immoral exploiters.
Therein lies the fraud.
The exploiters turn out be projections by thinkProgressive_TV onto people minding their own business.
As such, thinkProgressive_TV parodies of Schoonenberg’s concept of ‘real love’.]
[Progressive TV calls the golden calves and their ornament-bearing, yet unknowing, victims into a mimetic contagion. Both are called to turn against the unwitting scapegoat, the one who is trying to mind her own business.
This is precisely what Paula Dean and George Zimmerman had in common.
Both were trying to mind their own business. One minded a cooking show. The other minded his own neighborhood.
Then, they stumbled into stereotypic events, placing the golden calves and their ornament-bearing viewer-victims on the same side.
What opportunities!
Both events were made for TVProgressive.
The golden calves could proclaim their concern for the victims (standing for the true victims, the television viewers, who cannot talk back and are, therefore, disempowered).
The viewers could be shocked and outraged (thus, acting out frustration and anger at their own disempowered condition, even though they are accomplices to their own disempowerment).
Both Dean and Zimmerman were labeled thinkanti-object and conscienceanti-object.
Both were destroyed by scapegoating.]
[Rene Girard framed these phenomena in terms of the anthropological importance of the mimetic contagion.]
[The bad ones are often portrayed as crazed serial killers.
After all, who is more anti-victim than a crazed serial killer (especially, one who is a projection of thinkpro-victim‘s tortured phantasms)? ]
[Who are these monsters?
They are competent people who do not consider themselves either golden calves or alienated victims. Plus, they do not watch Progressive TV.
These competent people are the true scapegoats.
They are often portrayed as incredibly greedy business people. They are depicted as swindlers so greedy that they will cheat any victim out of her ornaments in return for nothing (in the same way that television cheats the viewer-victim’s time).
These “businessmen” are only projections of thinkpro-object‘s covetous imagination. Since they are imaginary, they can be totally improbable.
Have you ever seen one?
TelevisionProgressive teaches the viewer how to be stupid.]
