Scapegoat

I was thinking about T-- too on the way home.. especially after our readings this last week. Doesn't he function as the scapegoat in this class? The rest of us certainly have banded together to form a kind of expulsionary alliance against him.. expulsion in the sense that our primary mode as group toward him is one of alienation. T-- is "the one" in every crowd. In his identification as scapegoat (the exlusionary subject) we are united and cohesive. In a sense the group owes him more than we know.

This, however, presupposes the veracity of the mimetic model. Do we really "believe" that T-- is the scapegoat in our miming of one another? My issue here is that imitation is never authentic, in the sense that only the originary subject/s can claim. Imitation, by definition, is never authentic: it only thinks it is. What we try to convince ourselves, rather, is that "I believe more than you". It's a group one-upmanship which eventually leads to the slaughter of the sacrificial victim. This is why I disagree with the internal mechanism of the mimetic model (of "real belief": even though I think the outcome is pretty much the same). Understood in this way, there is always room to ask the question "but do I really believe this about T-- or do I only think I should?"

I've thought about this a bit (long drives home are quite conducive to thinking/soul searching), and I've come to the conclusion that I don't really want to be a part of any alliance (even unconsciously) against him, even though his personality makes him an easy target at times. I really have nothing against him. I can certainly disagree with him, even feel his positions may be completely erroneous, but in the end I share his humanity and recognize we've both been shaped by forces we had no control over. Here is freedom and peace I think..