Scapegoating is another sign of justification^self.

Peters discussed the ideas of Rene Girard in this regard.

Girard’s Violence and the Sacred was published in 1977, 17 years before Peters book and 35 years before this blog entry.  Girard may be an important figure when it comes to understanding the nature of sin, so the next few blogs are devoted to Peters’ treatment of him.

Peters framed Girard’s ideas in this fashion:  Some regnant values in every society are concerned with preserving the peace and maintaining “social” order.  At the same time, concupiscence expresses a secret desire to steal the livelihood of others.  After all, cursing, ideology and hypocrisy all aim to steal the livelihood of others by permitting fear and loathing, self-serving “righteous” action, and crass deception.

In order to reconcile these two points, societies adopt a rhetoric of “sacrifice” (which sets the stage for “scapegoating”).  Sacrifice-scapegoating establishes “social” order.  Sacrifice-scapegoating suspends the tide of violence that concupiscence unleashes.  It does so by stealing the life of another, where the victim’s life serves as a substitute for the guilty one’s.

Hypocrisy is another sign of justification^self.

When a person pretends to be justified^divine but acts according to her own justification^self, that person is ready to take her sin to the next level.

Ideology is another sign of justification^self.

Peters talked about the witness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in this regard.

In order to do evil, one must first convince oneself that one is doing good.

That “feeling that others recognize me as good” is concupiscence.

Besides Contemporary Art, public cursing is another sign of justification^self.

The typical – spontaneous – curse indicates either “That hurt!” or “This is totally frustrating!”.  The spontaneous curse is completely situational and has nothing to do with justification^self.

The public expletive plays on the spontaneity of the curse, but it’s intent is to express a state of fear and loathing.  The expletive indicates a false hurt and a false frustration because – in the cursing – the speaker obtains pleasure.

Fear and loathing never felt so good.

This brings us to the righteous (justified^self) rage (concupiscence()) that follows humiliation (an injury to one’s pride) and  opens the floodgates to violence (cathartic reduction of anxiety(faith^UnChristian)).

In many ways, the individual examples that Peters mentioned are exceptions to the rule.  Typically, the ones most likely to exhibit righteous rage are certain that no-one will strike them back.

This is precisely why Progressives can act publically outraged at the moronicity of Christians for any affront.  Their righteous rage aims to humiliate Christians, who are stupid, superstitious, out-of-touch, sexually repressed, women suppressing, fearful of homosexuals, and … did anyone see that Broadway Hit: The Book of Mormon?  What about Angels in America?

Progressive Art beats the drum of righteous indignation all the time.  Walk into any Museum of Contemporary Art and pay your $20 to see million dollar artifacts of “justification^self(concupiscence())” as “my intent is to offend, because if you take offense, I have humiliated you(my state of being a Progressive artist(craving to rage against you, damn common Christian and capitalist fools)”.

God is righteous.  In order to justify^divine any act as righteousness, one has to step out of oneself and weigh the act using criteria established by a Total Other: God.

Revelation establishes God’s criteria.  The revelation itself cannot be questioned, especially when it comes as a Book.  The Book is what it is.

On the other hand, the interpretation of the Book can be questioned.  For example, Moderns interpret the Bible as “myth” (“fable”, “conjured” and so on).  One cannot prove or disprove this interpretation, or any interpretation, for that matter.  One can, however, find consensus.

Each consensus-interpretation constitutes an element in a symbolic order that, in turn, supports particular social constructions.

The Modern consensus that “the Bible is myth” undermines the social constructions of Christianity and overmines the social constructions of various alternate cults, especially the Public Cult of Progressivism and the private cults of New Age and Satanic Magic.

Modern enthusiasts say “abandon the Bible as Revelation” and “accept Das Kapital as Revelation”.  But which is more mythic, “the Stories of Eve and Adam” or “the theory of surplus capital”?  See Thomas Sowell’s book, Marxism, on that one.

At this point, we have learned that concupiscence defines itself in the context of justification^self.

Plus, perhaps because we can step back and observe “what we have done” with our justification^self(concupiscence()), there is a sense that our self-serving words and impulsive actions are somehow “outside ourselves”.

I now return to Peters text: Chapter 6 of Sin: Self-Justification: Looking Good While Scapegoating Others.

Peters told several stories that recall the essence of these lessons.  In each case, the justification^self came from the outside, or at least seemed to, and empowered the person to do follow her concupiscent desires.

Peters’ stories tell us that justification^self can even adopt the symbols of justification^divine, in order to steal the goodness of God for ourselves.  Perhaps, instead of “goodness”, Peters should have written “righteousness”.

Peters mentioned a book by Jack Katz (Seductions of Crime, 1988) which argued that, after a humiliation, justification^self(concupiscence()) can escalate into righteous rage and violence.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, Keller craved to have the Divine Presence play according to His own script, which Keller had made his own.

The Divine Presence played along, until that one point where It broke with the script. He raised His staff as if it were to strike serpent(Eve’s justification^self ).

With that gesture, It pointed to Keller’s horror:  Keller was trapped in his own concupiscent skin.

The Divine Presence did not need to deliver the crushing blow.  Helen ended the session.  That was enough.

In the next session, Helen was not so fortunate.  She could not break with the script and delivered the crushing blow herself.

Keller’s concupiscent skin was somehow bound to his deal with the jinn.  What the Divine Presence accomplished, by playing along on His own terms, was the separation of Keller justification^self from his concupiscent self.  When Rachel realized what the deal was, the separation was accomplished.

Like the Divine Presence, she loved the sinner, and revealed the sin.

How does the idea that the serpent is “a reified projection of Eve’s unconscious thoughts” play out in An Archaeology of the Fall?

In this re-imagining of the Fall of Adam and Eve, Keller “put on the costume” of the serpent and played “the reified projection of Eve’s unconscious thought”.  The play went according to the Genesis script, until…

Once the Divine Presence appeared, on cue, Keller could not get out of his costume.  The Divine Presence spoke his timeless lines, then did something unscripted.  He raised his staff as if He were going to execute the “her seed shall strike your head” verse.

Helen, who was witnessing the scene, freaked out and jumped ship.  She thought that her brother was about to get his head bashed in.

Here, just as in the Genesis text, the Divine Presence acted as if He were taking everything at face value.  He motioned to strike the serpent(Eve’s projection) as if it were not also serpent(Keller).

In doing so, It disrupted Keller’s construct.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, the Divine Presence separated Eve from her own reified justification^self.

The Divine Presence said “I will not force you to take responsibility for your unconscious Thing”.

At the moment of the mythic confrontation, the Divine Presence indicated, “I will accept your pretense (that your justification^self is independent of you) and not force you to take complete responsibility for the generation of own justification^self.”

Then, the Divine Presence predicted that Eve’s seed would fight the seed of the serpent, that is, the children of Eve would fight their own justification^selfs.

Thus, Genesis speaks to the Ruins of Modernism.

Love the sinner, but not the sin.