In my previous article, I examined in depth on what constitutes “the cathedral” and all of their main branches. The cathedral comprises of the State along with their corporate partners that administer their intellectual, political, and cultural interests. These include some institutions such as Harvard & Yale in academia, the New York Times & the corporate press in media, and the executive bureaucratic agencies & intelligence agencies in the State.1 These are the machines that move power in our society today. They have an undeniable influence in religion, entertainment, politics, information, education etc. You can’t access traditional education structures (public schools, universities and well connected private schools) without running into cathedral approved curriculum. With few exceptions, social media only exists on cathedral approved platforms (Facebook, Twitter etc.). Access to information (until recently) was only available through cathedral approved sources. Entertainment (until recently) was only available through cathedral approved networks. Largely, the participation of society has been available exclusively through the cathedral. In light of my exploration into the ideas of René Girard, how does the cathedral fit into sacrifice and scapegoating?
A CATHEDRAL IN CRISIS
If the cathedral is the intellectual and cultural power of our society, it must also be the power that scapegoats in a sacrificial crisis. Curtis Yarvin’s identification of the cathedral and the mainstreaming of its identity by Michael Malice in recent times is on par with Girard’s analysis of encountering sacrificial decay. The institutions of the cathedral has existed for well over a century, but wasn’t easily identifiable until recently. If we recall readers, Girard tells us we usually don’t identify the institution that sacrifices and scapegoats until it’s in rapid decay,
“If, as is often the case, we encounter the institution of sacrifice either in advanced state of decay or reduced to relative insignificance, it is because it has already undergone a good deal of wear and tear.”2
The institution of sacrifice in decay, or a sacrificial crisis, is culminated through the abolition of distinctions in society. In our context, this includes,
The difference between just and unjust violence
Differences in gender and gender norms
Differences in acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior
Differences of political authority including legislative, executive etc.
Differences of religious and civil authority
Differences of sacred and secular
Difference of truth and falsity
Identifying the cathedral alone isn’t enough to declare it in a sacrificial crisis. The abolition of these differences have been manifesting themselves the last several decades at the least. Lets go back to the original hypothesis of this substack,
“I propose the Trump presidency and the rise of social media unintentionally exposed what was behind the curtain of the cathedral revealing a once sacred institution that is in the midst of its greatest sacrificial crisis in history.”3
How did the former President expose the “curtain” of the cathedral? This isn’t a pro or anti Trump analysis, but an attempt to be as objective as possible in terms of the reality of the cathedral. The President was an outsider who was not expected to beat Hillary Clinton- the cathedral sponsored candidate in 2016. After the shocking victory of Trump, he was literally framed by the cathedral on several accounts.4 The operatives of the cathedral constantly worked against Trump behind the scenes. One prominent example of this is the President being lied to about the amount of troops in the Middle East creating a roadblock to his promise to end the wars in the region. In an interview with former ambassador Jim Jeffrey, he admitted to lying to Trump about the number of troops in Syria in an interview here,
“But even as he praises the president’s support of what he describes as a successful “realpolitik” approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria.
“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019.”5
The military industrial complex always wants to maintain their interests overseas even if it requires lying to the commander-in-chief. The operatives of the cathedral will cooperate with a president if it advances their power, but will stifle a president if he stands in the way. In the same interview, the ambassador stated that troop withdrawal in Syria was the most “controversial” foreign policy initiative in his career. Of course withdrawing troops is controversial, but not toppling foreign governments (ranging from Iran in the mid 20th century to recently in Libya), sponsoring genocide in Yemen (aiding Saudi Arabia), etc.
The other prominent example of the cathedral in crisis is when Trump was kicked off all cathedral social media platforms and other connected institutions. The pretext of the January 6th riots was used as the reason to kick the former president off the digital public square. This incident played out like a textbook Girardian scapegoating event. Whether factual or just mere opinion, Trump was blamed for initiating the January 6th riots. Trump was never present at these riots, but was chosen as the innocent victim to take on the sins of the rioters. Whether this act was symbolic or literal is besides the point because it put any dissenters on notice. A symbolic execution is sometimes more powerful than a literal execution— both accomplish the same purpose. This scapegoating event accomplished its purpose stopping any real challenge to the 2020 election results. How did this event meet the criteria for scapegoating?
CONFLICT: The breakdown of the institutions initiate the sacrificial crisis. People lose faith in them exposing their vulnerabilities. This is done through violence, plagues, wars, natural disasters etc. This leads to instability and the abolition of distinctions in a community.
SURROGATE VICTIM: After instability and reciprocal violence, a person is chosen to take on the sins of the community or the accused. He’s positioned as the person responsible for all the violence and disorder.
SCAPEGOATING: The victim is scapegoated or expelled from the community through unanimous desire creating an illusion of order and stability. The result is the birth of a new cultural order until the next sacrificial crisis is initiated.
The challenge to the 2020 election, whether justified or not, initiated a crisis (along with many other crises continuing simultaneously). This crisis was perpetuated by the protest-turned-riot at the Capitol on January 6th. Many were arrested and some tried at this point, but it was the former President who was selected as the primary culprit of this event. This desire to channel all their violence into a victim had to be unanimous in its character. In the spirit of mimetic desire, one big tech company after the next sought to participate in the scapegoating in coordination with the other branches of the cathedral performing a successful expulsion of the victim. This event exceeds the criteria needed for a sacrificial event. Now the sacrifice is remembered religiously as a day of veneration every time its anniversary arrives. The event has been categorized as sacred.
There are countless examples that can be dissected, but I will stop at these two memorable examples to demonstrate the greater point. In the case of the American cathedral, when did it become “the cathedral”? I wrote about its origins in the last article, but it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when it became the cathedral as we know it. Since the cathedral sacrifices and scapegoats now, there must’ve been a point in time when it began doing that. Just because the institutions were present, it doesn’t mean it participated in the cathedral. The Harvard University of the 18th century has no resemblance to the Harvard of the 20th or 21st century. Institutions can change in personnel with differing agendas. Facebook in the mid 2000’s for college students isn’t the same Facebook as today. This doesn’t speak for every institution in the cathedral, but it can shed light on this question. The deeper analysis has to do with the justice system itself.
Girard notes that modern societies don’t traditionally have the sacrificial structure like that of ancient societies. This doesn’t mean they can’t create these sacrificial structures in particular circumstances. The justice system and the sacrificial system have a different process, but accomplish the same purpose: preventing vengeance. The justice system has a monopoly on vengeance to prevent reciprocal violence. When one person commits violence on another, a 3rd party intervenes to adjudicate “justice” preventing reciprocal violence. In one of my previous articles, I go over why Cain was “marked” by God after he murders Abel. Girard writes,
“There is the risk that the act of vengeance will initiate a chain reaction whose consequences will quickly prove fatal to any society of modest size. The multiplication of reprisals instantaneously puts the very existence of a society in jeopardy, and that is why it is universally proscribed. . .
We owe our good fortune to one of our social institutions above all: our judicial system, which serves to deflect the menace of vengeance. The system does not suppress vengeance; rather, it effectively limits it to a single act of reprisal, enacted by a sovereign authority specializing in this particular function. The decisions of the judiciary are invariably presented as the final word of vengeance.”6
If the justice system fails to exercise its monopoly on vengeance, reciprocal violence breaks out causing institutions to lose respect and vitality. The distinctions holding cultural stability together becomes abolished as everything becomes questionable. The cathedral resorting to sacrifice and scapegoating is a result of the judicial system failing to enforce vengeance. The cathedral exercising this responsibility means there was a void to begin with. The judicial system has been inefficient and inept in preventing reciprocal violence. This leads to the cathedral taking its current form in administering the role of sacrifice and scapegoating becoming a hyper-religious State as the distinctions among institutions and people collapse.
CORPORATE SPONSORED VIOLENCE
This isn’t about pointing out the hypocrisy of one side compared to another side. The cathedral has absorbed powers on the left and right over the years. The right was in control when the modern national security state was created (after 9/11). The left now control these levers of power. The common denominator over the years is whoever the neoconservatives choose to align themselves. The violence condemned by the cathedral and the violence sponsored by the cathedral is completely arbitrary. This is consistent with the sacrificial crisis perpetuating a cycle of reciprocal violence,
“The difference between sacrificial and non-sacrificial violence is anything but exact; it is even arbitrary. At times the difference threatens to disappear entirely. There is no such thing as truly “pure” violence. Nevertheless, sacrificial violence can, in the proper circumstances, serve as an agent of purification. That is why those who perform the rites are obliged to purify themselves at the conclusion of the sacrifice.”7
Corporate sponsored violence (sacrificial violence) is the violence enforced by the cathedral eliminating threats to its power. In Girardian terms, this often takes place in the form of scapegoating whether digitally or physically. The point of this scapegoating is to restore the previous order. However, simply scapegoating does not automatically perpetuate peace. Girard explains that scapegoating “false innocents” perpetuates the cycle of inversion. The inversion of values creates a false structure where values of freedom become slavery, peace becomes war, science becomes dogma, gender becomes fluid, civil authority becomes religious authority, and lying becomes the truth. Girard made this observation in his analysis of Voltaire’s Oedpie,
“Our neighbor’s “values” are forever being inverted, to be used as a weapon against him. In the final analysis, however, each and every one of us is implicated in the effort to perpetuate the structures of the myth whose very imbalance is designed to stimulate our own aggression.
Differences seem to have vanished, only to reappear in inverted form, thereby perpetuating themselves. It is these differences that Heidegger refers to in relation to all of philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche; there the identical inversions occurs.”8
When the scapegoating is complete, the differences that once vanished reappear in an inverted form leading to another sacrificial crisis. With inverted values, the differences disappear even faster than before. This cycle repeats endlessly until the community fully collapses. It takes longer for a sacrificial crisis to reveal itself and the collapse to manifest itself in the modern world due to globally connected societies. A cycle in a small, ancient community would experience rapid decay more quickly than lets say a country of 330 million plus people.
THE DOMINANT IDEA
The cathedral will always select the “dominant” idea that enhances its power.9 As we recall readers, the government sciences of the progressives and the sciences connected to the funding of the cathedral will always research and recommend policies that enhance the influence of the cathedral. This gives these researchers access to the power and influence the cathedral has to offer. They get fancy awards, prestige, and more research grants to bloat their budgets. In Christian terms, they’re participating in the divinity of their god. How do we relate this to sacrifice and scapegoating?
The cathedral operates on intellectual reputation though it’s becoming more bankrupt by the day (if it hasn’t already). The collapse of intellectual reputation and discourse is a symptom of the sacrificial crisis the cathedral is currently experiencing. The course of academia over the last few decades has manifested into a pitiful state of intellectual devolution. As academia degenerates, the cultural framework of society is continually attacked with the abolition of cultural distinctions. The destruction of gender differences, the pitying of one sexuality over another, the attempt to normalize pedophilia, etc. are all seeds of destruction from academia. As the cathedral selects these ideas more, the more sacrificial decay it finds itself perpetuating the endless cycle of inverted scapegoating.
A COVID PREVIEW
I will write a part two to this article as it requires more expansion into the topic. The covid topic alone deserves its own article (maybe even a book). The covid pandemic exposed new levels of sacrificial decay the cathedral is experiencing. Please consider financially contributing and reading along as we continue this journey together. Check out our new subscription benefits when you sign up.
Girard, “The Sacrificial Crisis”, Violence and the Sacred, p.39
https://nypost.com/2021/09/26/will-hillary-apologize-for-the-biggest-hoax-in-us-political-history/
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/
Girard, “Sacrifice”, Violence and the Sacred, p.15
Girard, “The Sacrificial Crisis”, Violence and the Sacred, p.40
Girard, “Totem and Taboo and the Incest Prohibition, Violence and the Sacred, p.203-204
I dug up three old posts about this.
Jan 6, 2021 : https://www.facebook.com/paul.varkey/posts/pfbid07wKhxwE8c5fncmPCH3JboEnFqjsTiDyAU8kcu4RGgUeJcY5JHHrHSoyX2SV5g96vl
May 5, 2021 : https://www.facebook.com/paul.varkey/posts/pfbid02k7uM2wg6tCenb5BxV835vYt1Wt9vdkpUWVThuwaebWNhHqiHT98TuzsQ1EhDRuQQl
Jul 1, 2021 : https://www.facebook.com/paul.varkey/posts/pfbid0ZCho16cydJihjT3xv5fwrh6sgfQEhMvjbtJr4qepjCPLSskAByQqnqrATUMceF9tl