Summary of text [comment] page 39
[To me, this dynamic provides an adequate description of the idea of “golden calf” that complements Rene Girard’s concept of “scapegoat”.
Mimetic Rivalry lies at the heart of the drama of the scapegoat. Acquisitive mimesis describes the pursuit of sovereign power by infrasovereign religions. Each has organizational goals that they want promulgated as law. None can achieve power alone. Coalitions form.
Once sovereign power falls within the grasp of any coalition of infrasovereign religions, conflictual mimesis begins, where the “Parties of Pro-Objects” contest all others by branding them “anti-objects”. Every other institution, transcendent or mundane, becomes a potential enemy. The fundamental transformation of Society begins.
When unintended consequences of the transformations appear, they are declared to be “exceptions” by the “golden calves” (whose behaviors are made “golden” by their object relation) and blamed on the “scapegoats” (who are easy enough to find, no matter what they believe, and who are, by definition, thinkanti-object).]