As salvation systems become more authoritarian, tyrannical, and corrupt they weaponize themselves for the purpose of attacking the sense of value and identity of those they think might challenge their authority. Scapegoating is the Crazy Glue that holds Salvation Systems together. Salvation Systems do this while at the same time demanding to be placed above criticism.
Which explains why they're not held together very well and easily fall apart in a crisis. This can be seen in family systems where a narcissistic parent encourages their golden children and flying monkies to abuse, neglect and gaslight the family scapegoat, with total impunity and no remorse. An abuse and depraved indifference that continues until the family has successfully exiled the scapegoat once and for all. As Bob Dylan once said, "Some people are born into the wrong family."
Many a family scapegoat has come to this conclusion.
Not surprisingly, if ever confronted with the reality of their behavior, the response of such family offenders is always the same, ie; ignore, attack, ridicule, sarcasm, shame, blame, misrepresentation, denial, projection and gaslighting, the more hysterial the better (what's commonly referred to as control through craziness, ie; when the offending family member either acts crazy, or reacts with over the top and in your face arrogance, or, indulges in crazy-making, better known today as gaslighting).
Note: One is reminded of what Nietzsche once said. Whenever anyone overreacts it means they're lying to themselves about something. Consider the last four years in the USA, and not just the USA.
Such family offenders can be seen later in life making an irony-free mad dash to their local church in a frenzied, melodramatic attempt to do something about family separation at the border.
This should come as no surprise, since self-righteousness and self-awareness don't go together. Again, this is why it is suggested, and wisely, that family scapegoats go No Contact.
No Contact might seem unnecessary since an important part of family scapegoating is exiling the scapegoat. But No Contact is still necessary for the scapegoat owing to the phenomenon of bonding with one's abusers, which, given the extent of the imprint on their memory, continues long after they've left the family.
Though, in their psychotic arrogance, the family has self-righteously exiled their scapegoat, the scapegoat still holds out hope that somehow things will work out. The scapegoat's hope, unfruitful as it might be, is certainly more understandable and justifiable than the abandonment, abuse and neglect that made such hope necessary in the first place. We need to be valued.
We need to be loved. Deprived of that by our primary care-givers we'll do anything to get it. Including holding out for hope against hope. Ultimately, however, such hope is counterproductive and potentially damaging. Hence the need to go No Contact, even if only psychologically and emotionally, and in memory.
Though they will never get justice and never fully recover, they must embark on the road of recovery just the same, so as to recover their commitment to reality. A commitment, moreover, that had much, if not everything, to do with why they were scapegoated in the first place. But it's exactly this that will eventually save them, provided they can sustain that commitment for the rest of their lives. If all evil is the result of turning one's back on reality, then joy is found in facing it - head on.
As Danton said, Truth, in all it's rugged harshness.And this brings us to what we'll call The Scapegoat's Paradox.
The scapegoat has to fully enter recovery, though they'll never fully recover. However, through their willingness to face reality head on, they come to a realization that sets them free.
In facing its terrors the self earns its victory.
No one knows this more than a family scapegoat.
Why mention all of this? Because, in an important sense, family is the matrix, not just of character, but of society itself. And, as it relates to problem-solving and the attributes of wisdom, its relevance can be put it in question form: Is it wise to ignore one's participation in their family of origin's separation through violence and scapegoating only to do something (and, more importantly, to be seen doing it) for people they don't even know?
Especially when, lacking any self-awareness, or situational-awareness (historical or contemporary perspective) in the deepest sense of that term, they themselves have yet to acculturate to their own society, yet remain absolutely convinced that those they claim to be helping can adapt perfectly without any effort at all.
Just let those happy feet touch the magic dirt* and viola!
* Only the incurably gullible and pathologically naive believe in "magic dirt."
So self-engrossed, their sanctimoniousness knows no bounds.
Even in the face of such outrageous irresponsibility they still can't kick the habit of mood-altering through self-righteousness. And always at the expense of other people, of course (for more see Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Skin In The Game, or Tucker Carlson's Ship Of Fools). Why do they do this? Because their membership in, and reputation with, their socio-moral group is way - way - more important to them than kinship or the truth. That's why it seems paradoxical that this behavior so often starts in the family.
But the situation is cleared of any confusion when one realizes that when a family behaves like that they are, in fact, not at all concerned about the full and healthy functioning of the family.
Not at all. Their concern is with the immediate resolution of the tension, disorientation, and disturbance that comes from the problems any family faces. Their concern is with both the Stage One Conformity and Consensus Mentality discussed in our second entry. For such people, the family is simply the occasion for such "relief." Their concern is with automatic belief, not reflective thought. So, as with consensus morality, it doesn't really matter how social or moral the group actually is. What matters is the belief that it is. Hence such families Lord of The Flies mob mentality with its attendant violence and straight-faced indifference and denial. Such family's, always with a self-focused parent at the helm, produce siblings who will not hesitate to throw a son, brother, or husband under the bus in the coldest way imaginable, and then, with their bleeding hearts conspicuously dripping sentimentality all over the place, run off to save the world and hide their character defects behind their "virtue."
A better example of Pathological Altruism would be impossible to imagine. And it is a pathology. Because it has life damaging consequences. It kills relationships, and, thereby, helps kill the very society they believe themselves to be saving.
If such people actually thought about what they were doing instead of just doing it, it wouldn't take long for them to see how extraordinarily self-destructive it is for any family to engage in scapegoating a single family member. Especially in as much as a witness of violence is a victim of violence, and that the consequences move out to society. I mean, just look around.
And what kind of parent would either sit idly by while their Golden Child and Flying Monkies abuse their Designated Scapegoat, or actively encourage it (not that there's much difference)? The question answers itself. There's something crackbrained and depraved about a family that needs to scapegoat. Families that scapegoat have something wrong with them. The same goes for any social-institution, or culture.
But it doesn't stop there. The scapegoating and the scapegoat become The Family Secret. Not surprisingly, the damage is long-term and often irreversible. This explains why Family Systems focuses so much of their work on mult-generational abuse and neglect and why the United States has done everything to put the focus somewhere else, anywhere else, ie; to ignore the problem completely. This also explains why members of the scapegoating family who tell the scapegoat to "go get help and seek counseling", which, of course, the scapegoat does, never once after that bother to ask the scapegoat, "So, how's the help going?"
Of course, that question is never asked exactly because the scapegoat does get help and finds out about the family, not just themselves. And the scapegoating family doesn't want to know what the recovering scapegoat has learned. So consistent is this pattern that we can put it in the form of a riddle-like Q & A.
Q: What's the difference between Scapegoats and their Scapegoaters?
A: The Scapegoat gets better.
In any event, since the family is the most basic biosocial unit since the Paleolithic Age, family separation anywhere is undoubtedly a terrible thing and a noble cause to get behind.
But family separation starts in families. It starts in the home with abandonment, abuse and neglect. Not with political ideology or immigration policy. That this even needs to be pointed out, let alone explained, is exasperating. Or, it would be if not for the fact that, as Bertrand Russell once said, "Most people would rather die than think, and most people do." Of course, one could add that such people would also rather kill than admit that their wrong, and most people would if they thought they could get away with it. In fact, they're doing it now, as a glance at USA 2020 makes perfectly obvious. And the reason why most would rather die than think, or kill rather than admit they're wrong, is because human beings cannot bear very much reality.
Hence the need to scapegoat.
The cruelty of those who scapegoat and their inability to face reality are directly connected. That's why it's impossible not to notice that the people talking about family separation at the border are not talking about family separation at home, and their role in it. Think that's a coincidence?
It's certainly worth asking if the people who literaly created and particpated in the family separation of their own family of origin, and, through the continued denial and exiling of family scapegoats, are still participating in that family separation, are going to be the best problem-solvers regarding families anywhere else, let alone families from cultures whose conception of the family may very well be different from theirs (let's hope so).
Celebrating diversity is one thing, understanding it is another.
And you simply can not fully understand something you have not lived. This is the very definition of sentimentality and explains why its widespread use today is so socially destructive.
Sentimentality is wanting to hear the tune without paying the piper.
Note: By the way, there's definitely no coincidence that sentimentality has exploded worldwide at a time when no one is paying the piper, literally, ie; no one's paying for the music they're listening to.
Be that as it may, how can an understanding of something as complex as diversity be achieved by people with no self-awareness? That's a rhetorical question, of course.
Can the people wbo couldn't even tolerate the diversity in their own family of origin, not to mention their own culture, race, etc. truly appreciate the diversity of other cultures beyond empty gestures, shallow slogans and mindless talking points that serve as a substitue for the rigorous thinking, consistent reasoning and cautious judgement required to solve the many problems of any culture, let alone their own? And if they did learn it in their family why would they need to be taught about such things in our schools, universities, and workplace? They wouldn't. Obviously.
And how would they have learned about tolerance and diversity in our schools and universities without also having learned the above-mentioned intellectual skills of rigorous thinking, consistent reasoning, and cautious judgment? Again, they wouldn't. But, then again, they're not being taught, they're being indoctrinated. So, they're not learning, at all. So, what do they do? Resisting exposure, with the terror-ridden panic of a Dracula fleeing from the light of day, they organize their sanctimonious socio-moral group into a political force in an attempt to place themselves above criticism and, above all, make sure the overwhelming questions won't be asked - ever, or else.
If those questions are asked anyway, that is the only time such people are ever concerned about the word "consequences."*
* For a good example of the shameless hypocrisy of such people click here.
In other words, the consequences will be paid by someone else, again. Namely, those who had the courage to point out the obvious. This is the reason for all of the censorship going on now.
Carried away by vague abstractions, glittering generalities, and absurd absolutes that go unquestioned and unanalyzed, believers of salvation systems do not value individuals, or groups for that matter. They don't really value anything, expect protecting their own trough and feeding their addiction to mood-altering through self-righteousness, at someone else's expense, no matter what the cost. The point is, salvation systems, savior complexes, fanaticism, scapegoating, and a tenacious resistance to exposure, go together. Together they lead to social incoherence and the collapse of our insitutions. When enough people recognize this situation and see it for what it is a culture crisis inevitably breaks out. And that's the position we're in today. Just look around.
No belief-system is worth killing other people over. But some belief-systems are worth fighting against. And any belief that functions as a salvation system is worth fighting against, so that we may recover our freedom, move into a larger world, and become who we are. The justification for going into some detail about Salvation Systems and their Scapegoats is that right now the predatory and parasitic Hostile Elite that controls the West is actively and aggressively scapegoating The Host Population of each and every country in the West. In other words, domestic scapegoaters are being internationally scapegoated because of the demographic they belong to (and demography most certainly is destiny). So, ironically, the scapegoats of those who once scapegoated now have something to teach them.
Teach them what exactly? Well, this. The whole point of scapegoating is to attack the scapegoat's sense of value and identity. Two things, as menitoned before, no human being can live without. The job of the scapegoating elite and their proxies is to poison the mind and rip the heart out of the scapegoat. It does this by subjecting its designated scapegoat to an indoctrination of self-hatred followed by relentless victim-blaming.
Note: That this is and always was the whole point of Identity Politics should be perfectly obvious to everyone. Whatever domestic scapegoaters are going through now in their new and enforced role as international scapegoats, bad as it is, will fade into nothing compared to what's coming for their children and grandchildren. They could go to the left of Stalin and it won't save them. USSR 1920 - USSA 2020. Same fingerprints, same patterns, same instigators, same beneficiaries, and same target. The only difference is the location, a lot more money and, of course, improved technology.
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