Hidden Scapegoating Ways

Not long ago, over coffee, an acquaintance and I talked church and theology. I would describe him as affable, well-intentioned, someone who might be referenced as “a good guy.” We chatted about a variety of things, including work, which is when he volunteered the information that he was tired of his job and not giving it his best effort. Then he added that he had been “lazy.” The final remark, punctuated with a short uneasy laugh, communicated something. Discomfort? Embarrassment? Surprise that he had disclosed something so personal? I didn’t know and didn’t think much of it until later. 

Eventually, the conversation turned to thoughts about his pastor. (Cue the pensive and restless music.) He gave me his unsolicited assessment: There were “things he liked” but also some “things he didn’t like” about the pastor. In general, he was frustrated because he wanted him to be clearer about what the bible says around the topic of sexuality. He wanted him to “land on something,” to say “what he really thought,” and to be a “stronger leader.” 

I tried to help him process some of these thoughts, offer guidance, and give input on the difficulties of being a spiritual leader. I pointed out that in a culture that demands leaders to be hyper-opinionated, we often misrecognize strength. In other words, building spaces where others are allowed to form their opinion might be stronger than forcing dogmatic ideas.

It was only later, with the conversation echoing––conscious to subconscious back to conscious––that mimetic tension and scapegoating patterns began to materialize for me. And I began to wonder: Was his admission of laziness a clue? Was this a way to decode frustrations about his pastor? Was there something deeper going on? 

I offer the following interpretation in the spirit of Rene Girard’s mimetic theory. I’m not saying it must be this way. Girardian concepts aren’t necessarily scientifically falsifiable (any more than concepts proposed by Hegel, Freud, Erickson or others are falsifiable). Still, the ideas have caught the attention of many people, and they have certainly caught my attention. They have given me evolved ways to think through desire and motivation, conflict and peace. In this case, they gave me a reasonably intelligent way to connect the dots from my acquaintance’s embarrassed thoughts around laziness to the judgment he handed down to his pastor.

Consider…

• The layperson (the subject) feels shame about what they are doing, or in this case, not doing at their job.

• They see their pastor (the model) offering opinions that lack conviction, ideas that seem less than clear. The subject projects their internal uneasiness onto the model.

• They live with this for a while until they make a judgment: The pastor is not a strong leader. It's not the same as lazy, but it's close. And with this pronouncement, the subject “offloads” their problems onto the model. Now they can speak poorly of the model because their frustration feels justified: I mean, look at the pastor. He is not landing on specific issues. He should be stronger. The sense that his pastor isn’t working hard enough to be more clear incenses the subject, for it seems to be true that we are never more frustrated with people than when we see our issues within them.

• The subject begins to imitate what he thinks he sees in the model. Maybe subconsciously thinking something like,If someone like the pastor can be lazy, I can certainly be lazy. Doubling the model only increases agitation that builds into resentment. Not knowing what to do with such a feeling, ultimately, he blames the model.

I hope that in this simple interpretation that the reader can see the scapegoating mechanism materializing. There’s probably even more involved. I speculate… 

Maybe the subject is dealing with suppressed questions. Perhaps what’s pertinent here is that he has never worked through biblical passages around sexuality. This could be true in part because up until that moment, he had been able to insulate himself within a group of people that shared the same presuppositions. Of course, if everyone has the same idea, there is no compelling reason to look deeper into Scripture or think critically about a topic. In these environments, the pastor usually assimilates the issues that diverge from community norms, finessing them back into an acceptable intrepretation.

However, when the pastor seems out of alignment with the presuppositions, the subject experiences agitation. In this instance, he cannot deny his anxious thoughts: Wait, what do I believe? What do I think? How come I’ve never taken the time to get a handle on this? This is really important, isn’t it? Maybe these are the questions he’s been suppressing while absolving himself of the need to figure out responses. Again, this works fine when the model affirms prefabricated thoughts. But in the absence of such affirmation, the subject becomes frustrated.

Looking at this conversation in this light might help us locate the source of his frustration: the perception he has of himself. He doesn't feel equipped to figure out complex problems. This induces anxiety. Unwilling to own such anxiety, he scapegoats. 

I guess I should add that it really is possible that the pastor was a poor leader, but as the day wore on and the conversation echoed in my mind, I suspected something else was at play, something telling us that we all live downstream of a river polluted with negative mimetic desire. From a Girardian standpoint, this misdirected desire always leads to conflict and to our scapegoating remedy.

What would it take for this gentleman to take a different route, to do something other than blaming his pastor? It would take the same things it takes for any of us to turn from scapegoating: vulnerability, courage to admit culpability, willingness to be open to new ideas, and grace. Grace for others, but mostly, grace for ourselves. Grace is the antidote to our own anxiety, and if we had churches full of people who had experienced grace, we would have churches full of people who were ready to hear something new. 

Is our world not desperate to hear something new?