Thoughts on Sin by Ted Peters (1994) Cruelty 7A

Step 6 on Peters seven steps to Radical Evil is titled Cruelty: Enjoying My Neighbor’s Suffering.

Cruelty is one level above Pride.  Cruelty takes place on a plane that puts the situational plane of “doing” of “justification^self(concupiscence())” into context.

At the moment, I do not name this plane.

The words “willful” “inflicting” “causing anguish and fear” describe a situation of willful “ignorance” or “blindness” of “the victim” while, at the same time, a “knowledge” or “agency” of a “higher force of righteousness”.

Cruelty is like concupiscence.  It is pleasurable.  It is addicting.  But unlike concupiscence, which is all about “me”, cruelty is all about “my treatment of you”.  Cruelty is inherently relational.

Peters said that cruelty is a “perverse pleasure”.  In saying this, he inadvertently uses a term that figures in the writing of the Slovene Postmodernist Slavoj Zizek, whose foundational works were written between 1989 and 2000.

A “pervert” is “a person who becomes an instrument of a Power”.

In the remainder of Chapter 6, Peters wrote about justification of faith.

Justification^God refuses to co-opted by our habits of justification^self and scapegoating.

In order to appreciate the richness of Peters’ intuition, I associate “sacrifice” with the divine point of view and “scapegoating” with the human.

Now, consider a general formula for the nested form in the plane of “doing”:

Justification^X(state of being^Y(with desire^Z)

Apply that general formula to the divine and human points of view:

Human justification^self:  The rhetoric of “sacrifice” identifies the good (Pharasees, Saducees, and Roman players) and damned (Jesus, alleged King of the Jews)

Divine justification^God:  The rhetoric of “sacrifice” identifies the good (Father) and the damned (Son of the Father) in a relation of infinite love

State of being^human: the joys of mob action and political intrigue in the spectacle of a public crucifixion

State of being^divine: the accomplishment of an incomparably unique yet intimated theodrama that realizes – or fulfills – many Old Testament prophecies and resonates with – or redeems – many pagan themes

With Cupid^human: The craving to steal the life and authority of the scapegoat Jesus for their own

With desire^divine: The craving to reveal Jesus as the Messiah.  That is: Jesus is the Way That God Recognizes and Loves Himself and The Mediator For All Humans through taking and redeeming the mantle of the Scapegoat.

Girard argued that his scapegoat formula gives a coherent reading of the New Testament.

Certainly, his formala gives new impetus to Jesus’ command to “turn the other cheek”.

For Girard, Jesus was a scapegoat, not a sacrifice.  Christians went wrong when they interpreted Jesus’ death as “sacrifice” (and thereby consciously identified themselves as the justifying^self “good”).  Interpretations of Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews 9:26 often have this character.  But, Peters argued, not all interpretations do.

Peters concluded, in his typical chatty tone, that St. Paul’s characterization of Jesus as the “final sacrifice” and Girard’s characterization of Jesus as the “final scapegoat” are the same.

What does that mean?

By Peters’ accounting, Girard’s analysis starts when the Moral Breakdown truly begins.  That is, the Moral Breakdown arrives when a cultural crisis obliterates the stable social differences produced by punishing the “representatives of the Moral Breakdown”, that is, the scapegoats.

Does this mean that the Moral Breakdown is always postponed, even at the moment of its arrival, by changing the “type of person” who goes into the empty slot of “scapegoat”.

Let us say that some Christians have convinced enough people to admit that the Bureaucracies of Modern Law and Welfare are travesties.  Then the Bureau and its attendant outlets in the Conformist Progressive Media will blame these Christians for – well, any number of things – in order to show that these Christians embody the Moral Breakdown (it would not be happening if not for them).  Mob action ensues. The Christians become scapegoats.

Justification^self(“state of being”(“with Cupid”)) becomes:

“The nominal ‘missions’ of the Bureaucracies of Law and Welfare are identified as ‘good’ and the questioning by Christians ‘bad’ in a rhetoric of sacrifice(the state of joy that comes from mob action (while craving for respectability))”

Girard’s model suggests that the Moral Breakdown has been going on since the beginning.

The drama of Modern Law and Welfare portrayed in the previous blog – not only parallels the Lord’s curse on the serpent, but – substitutes a “scapegoat” (the norm-deficient daughter of a welfare mother) for “the real thing” (the Spiral of Violence that would occur if the Bureaucracies of Modern Law and Welfare were both accepted for what they are: cruel failures of compassion and justice).

As long as the victim (the criminal child of a fatherless welfare family) is identified as the representative of a Moral Breakdown, the Moral Breakdown will be postponed.

Consider Modern Western Law and Welfare.

Modern welfare produces “children without fathers” in the effort to compassionately assist “mothers who have ‘lost’ their husbands”.  This effort embodies the rhetoric of “sacrifice”.

“Justification^self(concupiscence())” is “sacrifice to assist mothers(state of purchasing votes with taxpayer’s money(while craving to appear compassionate))”

Each child grows up not knowing how to generatively “modify her relation to her mothers and adopt the norms that come from relating to father” (ah, the shopworn Oedipus complex).  Instead, the modification comes when the child tries to make “friends” with her equally “Lord of the Flies” cohorts.  She adopts the norms of the Lord of the Flies.  She shoplifts.  She sells drugs.  She sells her body for drugs.

Enter the Law.  The Law is prepared to sacrifice this “victim” in the course of establishing order.

The “victim” settles out of court for a couple of years in jail.  The lawyers say that she owes a “debt” to “society” for her crimes.  But is she not rather a scapegoat – a substitute – for the real consequences of a failed policy of the Progressive central government?

Modern Law answers Modern Welfare with another nested form:

“Pay the debts for your crime, which contains a rhetoric of sacrifice (the state of shifting attention from the real consequences of a failed Progressive policy (while craving to appear to serve justice))”.

In this example, the Progressive government has exacted the livelihood of the other.

The Law – a product of a history of conscious awareness – strikes at the head of the criminal-victim-serpent while the Welfare-Serpent – a product of the history of unconscious cravings for an ideal world – strikes at the heel-weakness of the lawyers: their ability to use the law to shift attention from failed Sovereign policies and in doing so, appear to be serving justice.

Weirdly, Girard’s ideas call to mind the story of the Fall envisioned in An Archaeology …

God’s curse on the serpent fits Girard’s model of “scapegoat”: “Her seed” tracks the history of human conscious awareness and “the serpent’s seed” tracks the history of reified human unconscious desires.

The victim (who is sacrificed) substitutes for the guilty one, the one who strikes at the human’s heel; that is, the concupiscence that exploits human weakness.

The guilty one is the one who sacrifices the victim and in doing so, strikes at the head of the serpent’s seed; the concupiscence that exploits human weakness.

Humans (in justification^self) sacrifice a substitute in order to satiate humans (in concupiscence).

Does this “stem the spiral of concupiscent violence”?

Yes, by offering concupiscent cravings a scapegoat – a substitute – for the real thing.

No, when the spiral can no longer be contained.

Scapegoating is another sign of justification^self.

Peters discussed the ideas of Rene Girard in this regard.

Girard’s Violence and the Sacred was published in 1977, 17 years before Peters book and 35 years before this blog entry.  Girard may be an important figure when it comes to understanding the nature of sin, so the next few blogs are devoted to Peters’ treatment of him.

Peters framed Girard’s ideas in this fashion:  Some regnant values in every society are concerned with preserving the peace and maintaining “social” order.  At the same time, concupiscence expresses a secret desire to steal the livelihood of others.  After all, cursing, ideology and hypocrisy all aim to steal the livelihood of others by permitting fear and loathing, self-serving “righteous” action, and crass deception.

In order to reconcile these two points, societies adopt a rhetoric of “sacrifice” (which sets the stage for “scapegoating”).  Sacrifice-scapegoating establishes “social” order.  Sacrifice-scapegoating suspends the tide of violence that concupiscence unleashes.  It does so by stealing the life of another, where the victim’s life serves as a substitute for the guilty one’s.

Hypocrisy is another sign of justification^self.

When a person pretends to be justified^divine but acts according to her own justification^self, that person is ready to take her sin to the next level.