AIG Scapegoats

[54anickel]

I thought of recent posts by MyCritters on Rene Girard and scapegoating when I came across this article. It also reminded me of my years with the Stock Market Watch group here on DU...this place certainly can help one stay ahead of the curve!

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6667

A lot of outrage, including threats of physical violence, has been directed at executives of the American International Group and other financial-services firms. The executives are perceived as having triggered the world wide economic crisis by their reliance on subprime mortgage-backed securities and on credit default swaps (something few people understand even after hearing them explained). And they are seen as having escaped the crisis unscathed—and in some cases with millions of dollars in bonuses.

The depth of the outrage, and the violence of the expressions, suggests that there is something to anthropologist René Girard's theory of scapegoating. Girard argues that societies attain cohesion by periodically identifying scapegoats—socially approved targets of violence. At least for a time, conflicts in society are suppressed as people's rage is directed at the designated scapegoat.

It is easy to forget, amid the outrage at these executives, that they were doing what their directors and stockholders wanted them to do—maximize short-term profit. This does not absolve them, of course. But the notion that markets are self-regulating and can do no wrong, and that they simply need to be freed from regulation to create more wealth that benefits everyone, was not confined to Wall Street executives. It was repeatedly touted by politicians, taught in schools, celebrated on talk shows and endorsed by voters over several decades.

In the same period, universities and business schools sent their top graduates off to investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms, where they were employed in creating and selling innovative financial products. It might seem strange that the best and brightest young Americans would want to spend their days repackaging loans and investments rather than, say, researching the causes of cancer. But investment banking was where the money was to be made. Few people argued against the dynamics of the market or complained about salaries in the millions.

The economic crisis has reminded us that the market can go terribly wrong and that it is directed not by an invisible hand but by fallible people who may not think beyond immediate rewards and what their peers are doing. In other words, it is directed by people like us.

more...

[supernova]

1. It's very true

that the CEOs of companies like AIG are just the visible heads of a whole culture of "we do whatever we want, whatever makes us money," and to hell with the effects it has on anyone outside of our cozy leather high-back and walnut wainscoting club.

While I do think these people do need to serve jail time, they were appointed leaders after all. I do think we shouldn't lose focus on the atmosphere that created them and definitely address that. We could start with an update of Glass-Stegall to account for all the new tools and financial instruments. It's obvious now that the people who played in the sub-prime and derivatives markets didn't really understand those instruments as well as they thought they did either. Well, there were probably a very few who did, but they took some of their industry doofuses along for the ride.

But I fail to see how these people serve a theological purpose. The sacrifice is part catharsis, that is , if we sacrifice this animal/person/ we will be freed from the (percieved) wrath of the god-head. We will have placated Him/Her. But I don't see that happening in this event. :shrug:

[Critters2]

2. It's classic Girardian scapegoating. Right out of the pages of

_The Scapegoat_. Girard says cultures used scapegoating to focus the violence in which they wanted to engage. It keeps the violence from becoming generalized by aiming it at one person or group of people. Seeing that this prevented more general violence, and thus protected the majority of the community, people credited this with being the will of God, assuming God was pleased by the scapegoating violence. Then, they ritualized the violence, to keep God (or the gods) happy all the time.

Girard also says that, because cultures are inherently violent without some moderating influence, society will become more violent as it becomes more secularized (just the opposite of what you'll read in R/T or Hitchens, but he presents a strong argument). He points out that Jesus offers a new way of confronting scapegoating violence. Rather than ritualizing the violence as a way of keeping it under control, Girard says that Jesus teaches empathy for victims, concern for the scapegoat. If a society teaches that everyone, even scapegoating victims, are worthy of respect, dignity, or at the very least, sympathy, violence can be ended altogether.

Instead, we're still scapegoating AIG execs, illegal immigrants, the president, someone, anyone for our problems.

A friend of mine recently pointed out how different our response to 9/11 would've been if, instead of saying "Someone should feel the pain we feel today!", we had said "No one should ever feel this kind of pain again".

That's the response that ends scapegoating.

Now that the sermon is ended, let's sing a hymn! :)

[54anickel]

3. Thanks Critters2. I've noticed Girard's theory mentioned in quite a few articles since

you first introduced me to him here on DU in some of your posts. I recently pulled out my old copy of Wink's _Engaging the Powers_ to reread the chapter on Breaking the Spiral of Violence. Still planning on reading some of the other books we've discussed in the past. It's making more and more sense to me all the time. I've just been blown away by how many times Girard's views on scapegoating and imitating have come up. I'm sure they've been there in the past and I'm just now noticing them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. I think that there's something to religion being a potentially civilizing influence

This is not to say that atheists can't be moral and civilized, far from it. But I think that we're seeing people who have moved beyond non-affiliation to nihilism. And with nihilism comes the law of the jungle.

I met some pretty scary street kids when I was volunteering in Portland. They had come out of chaotic, dysfunctional families. Some had been moved from one bad foster home to another before taking to the streets. In other words, no moral or ethical guidance of any kind, just "be tough, fight back, and do whatever it takes to survive." They never did anything harmful to us volunteers and in fact greeted us in a friendly manner if they saw us downtown, but if anyone crossed them, watch out.

One of these very damaged kids incited some friends to kill a boy who had damaged her leather jacket. Another time, the center had to buy a bus ticket out of town for a boy who was in danger of his life because another kid had accused him (and later admitted that the accusation was false) of being a pedophile. Such is the history of these kids that any one of several of them would have killed him without a moment's hesitation or guilt.

For some, "getting religion" was the first structured way of life they'd ever had. The place that I volunteered at was run by the Salvation Army. (The people who ran it were NOT anti-gay. During our training, they told us that about 1/3 of the kids were gay or transgendered, and that anyone who was bothered by that needed to quit immediately.) They had no religious requirements, but they did hold an informal Sunday service to which about 30 kids came every week and provide counseling to anyone who asked.

From what I observed in the four years I volunteered there, the kids who took advantage of the center's spiritual offerings turned out better than the ones who didn't. Perhaps they were less damaged to begin with, but having a spiritual center made it easier for them to resist the temptations to fall into the criminal underclass.

I think we've all heard about how African-American drug users have been salvaged through association with the Nation of Islam, and I'm sure that the storefront churches have their success stories as well.

I guess my point is that if young people are not getting moral and ethical guidance at home, someone has to do the job, and in poor neighborhoods, the religious institutions are most poised to do so.

If you seen and/or read about the "council estates" (public housing projects) in Britain, you'll know that these places have problems similar to those of public housing projects in the U.S. Like the U.S., the U.K. has undergone deindustrialization, leaving a whole class of people who have no place in mainstream society. This has occurred in tandem with the loss of influence by the Church of England (the example of Western Europe as a whole suggests that nothing kills religious faith like making it a compulsory school subject). The result is two generations of people outside the mainstream of society, a rising crime rate across racial lines, and a culture of public binge drinking and violence.

Secularism in the U.K. seems to work for people who come from stable families but disastrous for people who have no other source of stability in their lives.

Marxists would say that a disenfranchised proletariat should serve as a revolutionary army, but the residents of the projects are so outside the mainstream and so lacking in hope that only criminal gang leaders seem to have much sway with them.

Japan got along well as a mostly secularized society (with Buddhism and Shinto observances reserved for special occasions), due to its extremely hierarchical organization and broad consensus about how a person should behave. But this is breaking down, for reasons that are too complicated to explain here, and sad to say, the Japanese Christian churches, very cliquish, using language that is either classical or awkwardly translated from English, and clueless about the fine old tradition of adapting indigenous cultural practices for their own purposes (e.g. Why not take Shichi-Go-San, the Shinto festival for blessing children, and turn it into a service highlighting the Gospel story about Jesus blessing the children, or adopt customs from O-Bon for All Saints' Day?), are not up to the task of influencing Japanese society. I hope that one of the Buddhist sects (NOT the cult-like Soka Gakkai) can wake up, develop some strategies, and promote a new direction for the country.

[54anickel]

4. Critters2 gave a much better response than I ever could to your post. I found this article

interesting in that it's a bit of turn-about on the usual aspect of scapegoat theology in that the AIG CEOs aren't part of the financially poor and oppressed class.

That and the fact that I'm fascinated by what seems to be an increasing popularity of Girard's scapegoating theory. Though, as I stated up-thread it's probably been there - I've just not noticed it before. There's been a focus on historical context in theological studies for quite sometime that's been made more mainstream. Girard's theory introduces the anthropological context to the study of theology. I'm far from being a theology scholar but I do find it a very interesting topic to study as time and finances allow.