Mencius Moldbugman

For Girard, Christianity is unique in that it asserts the innocence of the scapegoat, and this is in some way supposed to reflect positively on Christianity. By affirming the innocence of the scapegoat, by creating sympathy for him, Christianity supposedly sublimates violence

I find this line of thinking to be extremely dubious, in part because I see Christians and Christianity engaging in quite a bit of the old fashioned kind of scapegoating, both in history and in contemporary society. The tendency is innate.https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1020322404751441921 …

But supposing the innocence of the scapegoat is an important feature of Western culture. Where does society-level mimetic desire to be Christlike figure into the metaphysics of social justice?

The obvious and kneejerk take is that social justice activists are mimicking the desires of more successful demographics, & their mimetic desire has metastasized into metaphysical desire, and they now make a scapegoat out of white men, who they are in the process of sacrificing

But isn't the perpetual cry of social justice identity groups that they are victims, that they are hated, that they are sacrificed, even, for the sake of what they perceive as their oppressors? Maybe the desire in the SJW soul, though obscured, is to be Christlike

I think the innocence of the scapegoat in Christianity is far less important than his divinity. In Christianity the scapegoat is WORSHIPED, the scapegoat is GOD. Many people, I notice, desire to be objects of worship, and I do not think this desire springs purely from mimesis

We have innate desires, too, desires which spring from biological necessity. Girard makes the point that a man can desire a woman purely because another man, or many other men, desire her also. And yet desiring a woman requires no third party

It's safe to say that desire springs from necessity, though the specific objects of desire come from mimesis, or convenience. In a vacuum, you would still want attention, food, and sex, though you might become the object of your own desires, perversely