I have never met and do not know Pete Carroll, the longtime NFL coach of the Seattle Seahawks, but based on seeing him on the sidelines wearing either a grimace or a scowl on his face and giving off an overall aggrieved and unpleasant demeanor, I have developed a highly irrational and completely unfounded dislike for this man that extends to his team, the Seahawks.
Hard to like this one as a Seahawks and Pete Carroll fan (who actually doesn’t give a rip about football 95% of the time). I did not like Carroll at USC, but when he came to the Hawks I really came to appreciate his unrelentingly positive outlook and the enthusiasm he shares with his players. Funny, isn’t it, how one’s bad guy can become their good guy? I wonder what you’d say about those scapegoats we change our minds about?
Scapegoating, as you pointed out, is both an ancient and a systemic practice. Now as then, the permissiveness and acceptance of the community validates the practice. We as members of the human community, hold ourselves accountable for what each of us could have done. Easier to absolve ourselves of blame by heaping the responsibility on someone other person or group. We're all responsible for the 6 yr old deliberately shooting his teacher: from a social permissiveness of gun culture to the dissuasion of emotional self-regulation to an overall lack of empathy. The question I find myself asking in response to this lack of accountability in human culture is: why have we never decided that self-accountability is important enough to the function of society that we codify it in systemic practice? "Honesty is the best policy" is perhaps the closest we get in American culture, but as George Santos demonstrates, that is merely a suggestion that doesn't prevent him from taking a leadership role in our country's policy-making.
I wonder if scapegoating has always been a positive for survival. Blaming "the other" has perhaps been a binding and strengthening mechanism for the group over hundreds of pre-modern generations. It's an ugly thought, but maybe we are all the refined genetic products of generations of expert scapegoats.
Ursula Le Guin's well-known short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," creates a metaphor that sums up this conflict of codified social scapegoating vs conscience. I wonder if both instincts benefit the preservation of our species, a la Richard Dawkins, why are they in conflict? Or, to your point, David, could they be widely different adaptations that allow our species to survive, whether we'll need one or the other in the event of population collapse?
Hard to like this one as a Seahawks and Pete Carroll fan (who actually doesn’t give a rip about football 95% of the time). I did not like Carroll at USC, but when he came to the Hawks I really came to appreciate his unrelentingly positive outlook and the enthusiasm he shares with his players. Funny, isn’t it, how one’s bad guy can become their good guy? I wonder what you’d say about those scapegoats we change our minds about?
Very natural to change one's mind, especially about a made-up villain!
Don't tell me any more positive things about PC or else it'll ruin my illusion!
Scapegoating, as you pointed out, is both an ancient and a systemic practice. Now as then, the permissiveness and acceptance of the community validates the practice. We as members of the human community, hold ourselves accountable for what each of us could have done. Easier to absolve ourselves of blame by heaping the responsibility on someone other person or group. We're all responsible for the 6 yr old deliberately shooting his teacher: from a social permissiveness of gun culture to the dissuasion of emotional self-regulation to an overall lack of empathy. The question I find myself asking in response to this lack of accountability in human culture is: why have we never decided that self-accountability is important enough to the function of society that we codify it in systemic practice? "Honesty is the best policy" is perhaps the closest we get in American culture, but as George Santos demonstrates, that is merely a suggestion that doesn't prevent him from taking a leadership role in our country's policy-making.
I wonder if scapegoating has always been a positive for survival. Blaming "the other" has perhaps been a binding and strengthening mechanism for the group over hundreds of pre-modern generations. It's an ugly thought, but maybe we are all the refined genetic products of generations of expert scapegoats.
Ursula Le Guin's well-known short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," creates a metaphor that sums up this conflict of codified social scapegoating vs conscience. I wonder if both instincts benefit the preservation of our species, a la Richard Dawkins, why are they in conflict? Or, to your point, David, could they be widely different adaptations that allow our species to survive, whether we'll need one or the other in the event of population collapse?
I'll have to read that story. You reminded me of "the Lottery: story!
Just read this article in The Atlantic about Prince Harry that uses the Le Guin story as a trope.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/prince-harry-spare-memoir-meghan-monarchy/672701/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Wasn't Azazel the actual name of the demon in the Exorcist?
it was another demon:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazuzu_(The_Exorcist)