Paroxysm
French philosopher René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred and other works are required and recommended reading for anyone struggling with the cyclical nature of human violence in general. In this difficult-to-follow book, Girard guides us through his Mimetic Theory, which provides an interesting origin story or theory of human paroxysm (spontaneous acts of violence).
“Human beings are driven by mimetic desire, constantly imitating the desires of others and getting caught up in a cycle of rivalry.” – R.G.
“Violence arises from the mimetic desire, as we imitate the violent actions of others to assert our own power.” – R.G.
“The scapegoat mechanism is a way for societies to temporarily alleviate the tension and rivalry caused by mimetic desire.” – R.G.
Girard’s Mimetic Theory argues that society, whether a group of two or three primal individuals or a civilization of hundreds of thousands of citizens with structured governing bodies, experiences a crisis, and, in light of this crisis, they imitate one another in that collective anxiety. One of the mediums utilized by the collective mind to “alleviate” itself of this social anxiety is by singling out an individual or a group and dispersing the blame for the crisis on them. When this blame is shifted from the collective to the single entity, something must be done to the guilty party. Historically, in primal-tribal communities, the consequence of this mimetic effort was to round up the “responsible” party and then execute them by stoning them to death or burning them alive. Other cultures, those within the pre-colonial Central and South American communities, sought to sacrifice virgins to their gods by cutting their hearts out on top of pyramid structures while the victim was still alive. In other cultures, like that of the Medo-Persian and later Roman empires, the preferred method of executing their most notorious criminals was by crucifixion. If you recall, a prominent and influential first-century Rabbi by the name of Jesus of Nazareth was executed by this method by the local Roman court in Jerusalem at the request of the Jewish Sanhedrin. In more recent history, Black Americans, once emancipated from slavery, were rounded up by former slave owners or disgruntled White agitators, and strung up on trees, shot, burned, and quartered through what is infamously known as lynching. If you recall, the young boy Emmett Till was executed by the husband of Carolyn Bryant for supposedly whistling at Bryant, a White woman in a convenience store. Black people interacting with White people without permission in the Jim Crow Deep South was considered a faux pas worthy of death. Her husband and a friend later found Emmett Till in his family’s home and dragged him out in the dark of night, where they beat, tortured, shot, and killed Till. His body was tossed in the river to be found some time later. Carolyn Bryant’s story was fabricated, and this lie got a young boy killed for nothing.
We inherit a bitter taste, Girard argues, because the victims of mimetic violence are often, if not always, innocent. You read that correctly. Girard argues that only an innocent party can be selected by the community and eliminated; they become, as Girard states, the scapegoat.
The collective mind must find the most innocent in their midst to serve as the sacrifice, as the scapegoat, for all their social ills and natural catastrophes.
In 1930s Germany, Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Black Germans, and people with disabilities were all innocent of any wrongdoing against the German state. Until the state determined that their innocence was sullied by their supposed crimes against the state. Their mere existence was contradictory to the German national party and its constituents. And once mimesis started, where people began to mimic or copy each other’s behaviors and the means to alleviate that tension in mimicry was to utilize violence to quell further unrest, the victims, the vulnerable, were readily available as scapegoats.
Perpetrator-induced post-traumatic disorder kicked in on a national scale and Germans rationalized and moralized the singling out of these vulnerable groups, their loss of civil and political rights, their dehumanization, their deportation into ghettos, initially, and finally, their extermination in concentration camps.
The mimetic sequence and cycle are undeniably evident when they begin. A crisis is experienced by the collective conscience body, the innocent entity is goaded into a position of guilt by the greater collective, and then that entity is removed, excluded, publicly humiliated, imprisoned, publicly lynched by the collective body, or their execution is sanctioned by the state and carried out behind prison walls.
Historical Context
Historically, exclusionary acts and mass displacement, and deportations have served as arms of the body politic to appease the social unrest of a society. The United States is not innocent of this modus operandi. Consider U.S. history in its relation to Indigenous groups, who, according to the federal government of early settler colonial bodies, saw them as unruly, violent savages who would be the end of White settlers if they were not removed or killed. Eventually, the American federal government succeeded in “relocating” several Indigenous tribes from their historically recognized lands through sporadic paroxysms and codified actions like the Indian Removal Act.
“CHAP. CXLVIII. – An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there; and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from every other.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to exchange any or all of such districts, so to be laid off and described, with any tribe or nation of Indians now residing within the limits of any of the states or territories, and with which the United States have existing treaties, for the whole or any part or portion of the territory claimed and occupied by such tribe or nation, within the bounds of any one or more of the states or territories, where the land claimed and occupied by the Indians, is owned by the United States, or the United States are bound to the state within which it lies to extinguish the Indian claim thereto.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in the making of any such exchange or exchanges, it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guaranty to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them; and if they prefer it, that the United States will cause a patent or grant to be made and executed to them for the same: Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.
APPROVED, May 28, 1830.”
Some estimates dictate that over 100,000 Indigenous people were forced to relocate from their historic lands to make way and room for White settlers migrating from Europe to America or from New England deeper inland. Out of that 100,000 people, approximately 15% or 15,000 men, women, and children, perished from violence, starvation, dehydration, disease, and more on what is known as the Trail of Tears.
A crisis emerged. The collective found a victim/scapegoat. The blame was shifted. A consequence or several consequences were meted out on said victims/scapegoats. Social appeasement attained.
A similar crisis unfolded in the United States from the mid-1800s until the early 1920s. The United States government and its private partners sought to build the Transatlantic Railroad, a trek that would connect one side of the nation to the other to transport resources and people via trains. Because the nation had so few human resources willing to partake in the grueling and poorly paid exercise, numerous internationals were sought to initiate and complete this multi-million dollar endeavor. The Irish found their way from Europe to the American west-coast for this exact kind of work, where they faced ostracism and hate from locals but no other group in the United States, save the Indigenous and Black African-American populations, faced as much animosity in the railroad labor industry as did the Chinese and Asiatic immigrants sough to construct the railroads in California.
Surprisingly, the population of Chinese Americans thrived through intermittent acts of violence and mass lynchings it endured at the hands of White Americans and later, competing Irish Americans who fought for their place in the local social hierarchy to become not just Irish but White Irish Americans. Numerous Chinese American communities and neighborhoods were razed to the ground, local authorities often helping local radicals in the acts of violence and murder, or willing to turn a blind eye to these crimes.
As a result of the increase in Chinese Americans in the country, the increase in competition for work between Chinese Americans and White Americans, and the outright prejudice against Chinese Americans, the leaders of the nation began their mimetic cycle once more, experiencing national collective social anxiety, finding a ripe victim to choose from in the nation, and to enact a collective form of violence against them to appease their conscience.
“The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
An Act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese.
Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof: Therefore,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or having so come after the expiration of said ninety days to remain within the United States.”
And to follow this law, the U.S. government passed another act in 1924 known as the Immigration Act of 1924:
“Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson–Reed Act) Lowered annual immigration quotas of all foreign nationalities living in the United States by 2 percent based on population determined by the 1890 Census. Established a strict apportionment system based on country of origin. Authorized strict quota of a minimum of 100 immigrants from Asian and African countries to the United States and reduced total immigration limit to 150,000 per year. Passed by the 68th Congress (1923–1925) as H.R. 7995.” – History.House.Gov
The Immigration Act of 1924 solidified the immigration quota system, which determined which immigrants could enter the country, how many, and from which countries. The number of immigrants allowed into the United States of America from China, Japan, Italy, and Slavic nations plummeted. Non-Whites or unrecognized Whites from the Mediterranean regions of Europe and Northern African nations were considered second-class citizens and deemed unfavorable for the social progress of a uniform White European class of American racialized society.
The presence of minorities in a White majority nation structured on race and racial classism worked fine as long as the subaltern, the lesser classes, were reduced to their appropriate sections of society, rightly asking for nothing and giving everything. But once these groups began to increase in numbers, their work ethic was as qualified and recognized as that of White groups, tensions began to arise because if another group could compete in the professional field for jobs alongside White Americans and in time, the political sphere, there would be a loss of social hierarchical power and influence by the same.
White Americans could not cope with this reality and enacted the mimetic process of scapegoating not just the Chinese, as these numerous acts entail, but dozens of countries and nationalities to appease the conscience of local White Americans in power. Once the exclusion and quota acts were passed, the social and economic maladies did not resolve themselves as a result. The problems were still there, and some of them worsened as experienced by the American Great Depression of the 1930s. But a resolution to the social problem isn’t necessarily the goal with mimetic violence. Violence is the goal.
Trumpian Mimesis
And that brings us to modern-day mimetic sequences and cycles under the current political administration.
Donald Trump is known for his affluent demeanor in public but flawed business practices in private. He has failed in numerous business ventures, declaring bankruptcy here and there, blaming whomever for said failures, except himself. He has mimicked such flaws in his personal life by cheating on all three of his wives. I don’t believe he has ever reconciled with the women he betrayed. The woman he is now married to is either soulless or too afraid to leave him. And, this same man now leads the United States government for a second time. His strategy, when things hit the fan, isn’t to tackle the issues head-on diplomatically, with the assistance of competent advisors, economists, ethicists, and scholars. No. Donald Trump likes to enact mimesis with a hyper populist bend. He calls anyone out who attempts to hold him accountable for his failures disgruntled hacks who want his head in a witch hunt.
Trump is possibly the best model of mimetic genius we can reflect on in the 21st century. And this is not a title one ought to be proud to hang around his neck.
Donald Trump began his political career by singling out Mexican citizens and Hispanic American residents, citizens, and immigrant by calling migrants murderers, rapists, and violent fiends. The choice of words here was intentionally selected to restart the mimetic cycle within the collective conscience of anxious White Americans.
As the United States transitioned from the kind, intellectual, and charismatic presidency of Barack Obama, a man of character who held the country together through several wars he inherited, a crippled economy he inherited, a man who dealt with racism growing up, and an uphill battle to prove his competency time and time again in the public and private sphere. We transitioned from this form of government to one of a garrulous, vitriolic, hate-mongering, incompetent, greedy, morally compromised, perpetually lying megalomaniac, Donald Trump.
Whatever the anxieties the United States experienced at the end of Obama’s presidency, it sought the help of this populist buffoon to qualm its worries by singling out an innocent group and sacrificing them on the altar of displacement and deportation.
Of course, genocide or mass terror, as enacted on the Chinese, Indigenous, and Black communities of antiquity would not be acceptable to the modern sensibilities of many Americans today, but the mass gathering, removal of rights, and deportation of not just immigrants but American citizens to other nations is a form of violence easily accepted and promoted by White Americans today. Donald Trump operates like a priest who points out the flaws in society, identifies the wrongdoers, and casts society’s faults on that group, and the collective agrees to his form of “justice” by segregating and expelling said groups from the country. Trump, the acting priest, then absolves the nation of its collective guilt.
What is happening in the United States of America today is not new. It isn’t a fresh theory pulled from a hat of tricks by the current administration. The current wave of mass and indiscriminate denial of due process and the immediate deportation of tens of thousands of people is but the accepted form of violence that the collective wants to enact on an innocent class of people to appease their social anxieties.
This mimetic act will not resolve the present economic and social issues the United States is experiencing. These issues will be exacerbated by corporate oligarchs who will want to profit from the disarray, confusion, and tension. And these same entities will then fund the cyclical nature of mimetic scapegoating innocent groups for profit.
Girard dictates that for us to avoid mimetic violence, we must commit as a collective to identify and denounce violence. We must refuse to participate in any violent act whatsoever.. Period. And once we have acknowledged our propensity to mimetic terror, we can determine whether we are attempting to resolve our social anxieties or if we’re relying on social priests, per se, to scapegoat the innocent for our temporary alleviation.
When we round up hard-working immigrants, human beings, to then separate them from their local communities, to deny them due process, a voice in the courts, and then discard them to foreign governments and nations where they have even less of a voice and fewer resources by which to defend themselves is cruel, inhuman, and barbarous.
However, until we acknowledge that this current administration, as others have, is utilizing our baser fears and attitudes against an innocent and unassuming group to distract us from the real and present issues we must deal with together, we will continue to repeat this traumatic cycle of terror and violence, until we are selected as the next victims of an ensuing mimetic event.
P.S.
A note to my Christian friends/readers on the subject of immigration/migration.
I do not subscribe to the Old Testament theory of conquest and displacement. What the Hebrews did in Canaan is a historical description of acts of violence that took place in history. I do not see the Israelite conquest as a prescription of how we, Christians, ought to live and interact with the world in our respective nations.
I believe Christian ethics condemns colonial and imperial behaviors, conduct, laws, acts, codes, etc. When Christianity was born in an upper room in first-century Roman Palestine Jerusalem by the surviving followers of Jesus, it operated under Empire. And, as a result, Christians had a difficult time challenging and dismantling state-sponsored behaviors (slavery), and when Christians became the dominant religious and social influencers of their respective governing bodies, many of them were heavily influenced by the cultures in which they operated and therefore became lax in their fight for equalizing society as their religious texts demanded. Many of them benefited from structures of inequality, and this financial benefit further delayed the moral progress of society. This is to our shame.
In light of this, I believe Christians still hold sway over the moral and ethical framework of much of Western society, in a cultural sense and not so much, anymore, in a religious sense. Sadly, I believe many people in our society, Christian and non-Christian, or of other religious affiliations or none at all, believe it is acceptable and economically feasible to condemn and deport immigrants who are not violent and who have not committed any crimes. These unfortunate and innocent souls are then sent to hellish places to suffer untold horrors.
A racialized and xenophobic culture has influenced our ethics and morals, much of which we, as a Western society, have inherited from Christianity. We must divest Christian influence from the public square if that influence has been corrupted by certain phobias and isms. If we are to have any influence, and that influence being ecumenical with all forms of beliefs and no belief at all, we must make sure that such systems of moral rectitude are not based, founded, or built on prejudice and animosity against “the other.”
Christ has called us to love. He said the world will know us by our love for one another. And in a world ripe with mimetic cycles of violence, one which took our Lord and crucified Him as “an other” deserving of violence to appease local social consciences, we ought to know better and treat the foreigner in our midst with compassion.
If the state believes it is a Christian imperative to harm these people in the name of national security and lawful conduct, it is our responsibility to denounce this form of Christianity and our imperative as followers of Christ to resist and subvert this government body to the best of our abilities.
“God has no other hands than ours. If the sick are to be healed, it is our hands that will heal them. If the lonely and the frightened are to be comforted, it is our embrace, not God’s, that will comfort them.” Dorothee Solle, a German liberation theologian who coined the term, “Christofacism,” and condemned and survived Nazi German rule. A member of the Confessing Church in Germany, which stood at odds against the state-sponsored Positive Christianity movement, which, with time, provided the moral backing for the Holocaust.
Be like Dorothee.
Be like Dietrich, who gave his life for this way of thinking.
Be like the sea of unnamed dissenters.
Be like Christ.
Understand and then resist the mimetic impulse.
Yours Truly,
An Immigrant
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. – Proverbs 31:8 NLT
Currently Reading
Best Work
Display photo.
Olivet Theory 