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.

Ideology is another sign of justification^self.

Peters talked about the witness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in this regard.

In order to do evil, one must first convince oneself that one is doing good.

That “feeling that others recognize me as good” is concupiscence.

Besides Contemporary Art, public cursing is another sign of justification^self.

The typical – spontaneous – curse indicates either “That hurt!” or “This is totally frustrating!”.  The spontaneous curse is completely situational and has nothing to do with justification^self.

The public expletive plays on the spontaneity of the curse, but it’s intent is to express a state of fear and loathing.  The expletive indicates a false hurt and a false frustration because – in the cursing – the speaker obtains pleasure.

Fear and loathing never felt so good.

This brings us to the righteous (justified^self) rage (concupiscence()) that follows humiliation (an injury to one’s pride) and  opens the floodgates to violence (cathartic reduction of anxiety(faith^UnChristian)).

In many ways, the individual examples that Peters mentioned are exceptions to the rule.  Typically, the ones most likely to exhibit righteous rage are certain that no-one will strike them back.

This is precisely why Progressives can act publically outraged at the moronicity of Christians for any affront.  Their righteous rage aims to humiliate Christians, who are stupid, superstitious, out-of-touch, sexually repressed, women suppressing, fearful of homosexuals, and … did anyone see that Broadway Hit: The Book of Mormon?  What about Angels in America?

Progressive Art beats the drum of righteous indignation all the time.  Walk into any Museum of Contemporary Art and pay your $20 to see million dollar artifacts of “justification^self(concupiscence())” as “my intent is to offend, because if you take offense, I have humiliated you(my state of being a Progressive artist(craving to rage against you, damn common Christian and capitalist fools)”.

God is righteous.  In order to justify^divine any act as righteousness, one has to step out of oneself and weigh the act using criteria established by a Total Other: God.

Revelation establishes God’s criteria.  The revelation itself cannot be questioned, especially when it comes as a Book.  The Book is what it is.

On the other hand, the interpretation of the Book can be questioned.  For example, Moderns interpret the Bible as “myth” (“fable”, “conjured” and so on).  One cannot prove or disprove this interpretation, or any interpretation, for that matter.  One can, however, find consensus.

Each consensus-interpretation constitutes an element in a symbolic order that, in turn, supports particular social constructions.

The Modern consensus that “the Bible is myth” undermines the social constructions of Christianity and overmines the social constructions of various alternate cults, especially the Public Cult of Progressivism and the private cults of New Age and Satanic Magic.

Modern enthusiasts say “abandon the Bible as Revelation” and “accept Das Kapital as Revelation”.  But which is more mythic, “the Stories of Eve and Adam” or “the theory of surplus capital”?  See Thomas Sowell’s book, Marxism, on that one.

At this point, we have learned that concupiscence defines itself in the context of justification^self.

Plus, perhaps because we can step back and observe “what we have done” with our justification^self(concupiscence()), there is a sense that our self-serving words and impulsive actions are somehow “outside ourselves”.

I now return to Peters text: Chapter 6 of Sin: Self-Justification: Looking Good While Scapegoating Others.

Peters told several stories that recall the essence of these lessons.  In each case, the justification^self came from the outside, or at least seemed to, and empowered the person to do follow her concupiscent desires.

Peters’ stories tell us that justification^self can even adopt the symbols of justification^divine, in order to steal the goodness of God for ourselves.  Perhaps, instead of “goodness”, Peters should have written “righteousness”.

Peters mentioned a book by Jack Katz (Seductions of Crime, 1988) which argued that, after a humiliation, justification^self(concupiscence()) can escalate into righteous rage and violence.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, Keller craved to have the Divine Presence play according to His own script, which Keller had made his own.

The Divine Presence played along, until that one point where It broke with the script. He raised His staff as if it were to strike serpent(Eve’s justification^self ).

With that gesture, It pointed to Keller’s horror:  Keller was trapped in his own concupiscent skin.

The Divine Presence did not need to deliver the crushing blow.  Helen ended the session.  That was enough.

In the next session, Helen was not so fortunate.  She could not break with the script and delivered the crushing blow herself.

Keller’s concupiscent skin was somehow bound to his deal with the jinn.  What the Divine Presence accomplished, by playing along on His own terms, was the separation of Keller justification^self from his concupiscent self.  When Rachel realized what the deal was, the separation was accomplished.

Like the Divine Presence, she loved the sinner, and revealed the sin.