The Sacrificial King

Part 3-and-a-half of the Girard series

Note to readers: This material didn’t quite fit into Parts 1, 2, or 3, but it has some relevant ideas and sets up Part 4, which is about the transcendence of the scapegoating pattern.

Sacrificial victims are proxies for disorder, pollution, and evil. In normal times they come from various marginal and powerless minorities. In revolutionary times, the class of sacrificial subjects flips to those who stand apart by standing above. The bloodshed of revolutionary France, Russia, China, Cambodia, and others, where the liquidation of the old elites surpassed any practical need of power, echoed ancient precedent and could well be repeated if we remain blind to its ritual motivation.

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