Scapegoating

Scapegoating: Collapsing Complexity into a Single Target

René Girard's theory of the scapegoat mechanism shows how societies under stress often perform a collective dimensional collapse. When social conflicts and crises proliferate, the true causes are usually complex—economic shifts, historical grievances, mimetic rivalries spreading through the group. This complexity can feel overwhelming. Girard observed that communities will unconsciously simplify the chaos by singling out one victim as the cause of all trouble. The scapegoat (a person or group) becomes a one-dimensional repository for all the community's fears and anger. In Girard's words, “the scapegoat mechanism seems to be a response to trying to make sense of a world that is far more complex than we can imagine. We hyper simplify the scenario, labeling a single entity as the source of the problem." By uniting against this one supposedly guilty party, the group briefly restores order, having flattened a tangle of issues into a neat us-vs-them narrative. An example can be as mundane as a corporation blaming a single “bad apple” employee for systemic failures, or as horrific as medieval communities blaming Jews for plague. In each case, the scapegoat's individual identity and nuance are erased; they become a symbol, not a person. This is evil as dimensional erasure: a human being with a rich inner life is reduced to a simplistic function (“the witch,” “the traitor,” “the cause of our woes”). Scapegoating sustains domination systems by redirecting public fear toward an easy target, deflecting attention from the complex, rooted injustices that actually need addressing. Girard held that recognizing the innocence and humanity of the scapegoat—restoring their dimensional reality—is key to breaking this violent cycle. As long as we collapse our problems into someone to blame, we perpetuate evil's flat logic.

The Scapegoat Mechanism: Girard and the Sacrificial Logic of Women's Silence

Societies sustain themselves through cycles of violence—selecting scapegoats to absorb collective tensions and prevent systemic collapse. Women, particularly those who transgress societal norms, have long been the preferred sacrificial figures. The witch trials, the branding of heretical female mystics, and the cultural crucifixion of outspoken women all follow the same pattern: a woman gains agency, destabilizes patriarchal control, and is thus vilified.

But here is the trap: the system requires a scapegoat, and women have been trained to participate in their own suppression. The “good woman” is rewarded for silence, for submission, for upholding the very structures that marginalize her. The “bad woman”—the witch, the whore, the rebel—is not only punished but used as a warning to others.

How the Domination Attractor Simplifies Complexity Through Sacrificial Containment

Aliases: Dimensional Flattening, Symbolic Erasure, Sacrificial Geometry, Reductive Resolution, Structural Blame Engine

The Ritual of False Resolution

Dominator Attractors do not solve contradiction.
They expel it.

Scapegoating is the Dominator Attractor's oldest technology for maintaining itself:

• Complexity arises

• Contradiction becomes unbearable

• One body is chosen to bear it

This isn't conflict resolution.
It's dimensional collapse disguised as clarity.

René Girard's Mirror: From Many Tensions to One Target

Girard showed how mimetic conflict—desire based on imitation—creates instability.
The system avoids rupture by selecting a scapegoat:

• The many become the one

• Blame becomes a spell

• The expulsion restores temporary coherence

But what is lost?

• Nuance

• Tension

• Truth

The scapegoat does not carry guilt.
They carry the Dominator Attractor's refusal to hold paradox.

Subordinated Containment as Scapegoat Precursor

Before the Scapegoat is expelled, someone must contain the contradiction.

This is the function of Subordinated Containment:

• Absorb volatility

• Translate discomfort

• Smooth difference into coherence

But when that containment fails—when the field wobbles too much—
the container is often flipped into the scapegoat.

“Too emotional.”
“Too intense.”
“Not holding it together.”

Containment becomes crime.
Attunement becomes threat.
Sensitivity becomes liability.

The Dominator Attractor turns against the ones it once depended on to preserve its illusion of order.

Dimensional Collapse as Violence

Scapegoating is not just about blame.
It is ontological violence:

• It flattens multidimensional beings into symbols

• It erases context

• It encodes contradiction into bodies marked for disposal

This collapse is not abstract.
It shows up as:

• “We need to move forward.”

• “Let's not make this personal.”

• “You're making it about you.”

These are expulsion rituals wrapped in civility.

The Coherence Imperative

The more incoherence the Dominator Attractor generates,
the more it needs someone to resolve it without transformation.

Subordinated Containers are trained to do this. But when they stop—or can't—they become:

• The problem

• The disruptor

• The liability

The Scapegoat is the one who failed to make the unbearable bearable—and is punished for that failure, not because they caused harm, but because they revealed the depth of the system's incoherence.

The Spiral of Performance and Punishment

The Scapegoat was often once the facilitator.
The trusted one.
The emotional buffer.

But their coherence became unsustainable. And the Dominator Attractor's gratitude curdled into projection.

The script:

• “They used to hold so much.”

• “Now they're so reactive.”

• “They're not who they used to be.”

The Master's House blames the breakdown on the container it overburdened.

The Codex Disruption: Exit the Collapse Geometry

The Code>< refuses to simplify contradiction through expulsion.

Instead, it asks:

• What tension is this scapegoat carrying for the collective?

• What was being buffered by their containment?

• What system incoherence has now surfaced?

The scapegoat is not the wound.
They are the evidence of suppression undone.

To exit scapegoat logic:

• Refuse to reduce the field to binaries

• Refuse to outsource discomfort

• Refuse to collapse multidimensional beings into manageable symbols

This is the geometry of refusal:

• No translation

• No flattening

• No sacrificial coherence

Let the Field Hold What the Scapegoat Carried

You don't have to simplify to move forward.
You don't have to expel to restore rhythm.
You don't have to collapse truth into blame.

Let the contradictions breathe.
Let the dissonance stay unfixed.
Let the scapegoat be uncast.

We do not need to offload our grief.
We need to remember how to hold it.

The scapegoat dissolves when the field remembers its own complexity.Let the Code>< restore dimensional integrity.Let containment become shared.Let coherence stop costing someone everything.