Most people don’t do what they can.Trump can do whatever he wants because Putin got him elected and most people haven’t voted for him, or voted for him and agree.
I hadn’t noticed the strong link between guilt and responsibility. I just think that people are responsible. But now it makes sense as a strategy:
This is the point where one person is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group. This person is the scapegoat. Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again.
Trump is a scapegoat that takes all the guilt so people are not motivated to act.
Coincidentally this and Girard in general are Peter Thiel’s favorite theory so my guess is that it is done on purpose.
Which leaves the question how people can be motivated to act according to their abilities. All the skills are there. How do they know that it is their turn to act to maintain international law?
My bad, I meant “we do” as in “we should do”, not “we are doing”.
And we can motivate others to do the same by replacing finger-pointing (e.g. “it’s your fault for not voting/voting third party” vs “it’s your fault for not pressuring Democrats into choosing a decent candidate” or something like that, idk) with mutual support and actionable advice (“it doesn’t matter whose fault is it, right now we need all the support we can get. Here’s something you can do”)
I am willing to accept that for myself.
But when it comes to getting others to act, I would rather use ability/agency than responsibility/guilt.
We can figure our whose job/fault it was later.
Right now, we should do what we can to fix things. (EDIT: added “should” for clarity)
Are people doing enough?
Most people don’t do what they can.Trump can do whatever he wants because Putin got him elected and most people haven’t voted for him, or voted for him and agree.
I hadn’t noticed the strong link between guilt and responsibility. I just think that people are responsible. But now it makes sense as a strategy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#Scapegoat_mechanism
Trump is a scapegoat that takes all the guilt so people are not motivated to act.
Coincidentally this and Girard in general are Peter Thiel’s favorite theory so my guess is that it is done on purpose.
Which leaves the question how people can be motivated to act according to their abilities. All the skills are there. How do they know that it is their turn to act to maintain international law?
My bad, I meant “we do” as in “we should do”, not “we are doing”.
And we can motivate others to do the same by replacing finger-pointing (e.g. “it’s your fault for not voting/voting third party” vs “it’s your fault for not pressuring Democrats into choosing a decent candidate” or something like that, idk) with mutual support and actionable advice (“it doesn’t matter whose fault is it, right now we need all the support we can get. Here’s something you can do”)