Moral Displacement Syndrome

Abstract: Let me introduce you to Moral Displacement Syndrome. Moral Displacement Syndrome (MDS) is not just a general form of denial. Scapegoat Theory is only a particular case of MDS (Stanford employed philosopher-clown Girard, see below, who built an entire philosophy around Scapegoat Theory, see below; not by coincidence, places such as Stanford are full of MDS and Trump Derangement Syndrome…). One can guess the existence of the former, MDS, from the latter, the Scapegoat, by mimicking what is done in mathematics: generalizing from an example (Scapegoat Theory is older than civilization, obviously…)

Moral Displacement Syndrome replaces and displaces proper explanations, which don’t miss any relevant dimension, with simplistic, at best irrelevant red herrings. In a world where understanding is the foundation of morality, MDS is a grave sin.

Much moral posturing is actually obvious MDS, starting with all superstitious faiths.

MDS does not always arise from the sadistic, cruel, vicious, selfish instincts. A potent force behind MDS is economy of thought. For example, explaining everything with “God” (or “Dog”), and its few commandments, enables to feel full, with an empty mind.  

Thus there is an even more general theory which looms in the distance: Cognitive Displacement Syndrome (and MDS is a particular case).

***

Building Psychological Theories As One Builds Mathematics:

Any mathematical theory starts with a set of axioms. They are then animated by so-called “standard, second order logic”.

Axioms themselves are abstractions of properties distinguished out there: circles are perfectly round, circumference over diameter is pi, lines are perfectly straight, angles of a closed figure add to 180 degrees, etc.

However, one often can build powerful mathematics by taking out some axioms.

For example, the preceding axioms about circles, pi, straight lines, angles are, it turns out all more or less related if one relaxes those axioms. In other words, relaxing axioms make a theory less logically rigid, and then more general, and its logic become more complex.

***

Scapegoat Theory:

Normal Scapegoat Theory accuses somebody, or a category of people, to have morally failed, or to be the cause of something adverse. Thus scapegoats deserve of punishment, or the world will be much improved by eliminating them. (Either because “god” says it, or because that moral failure is viewed as a cause of an ongoing problem). In the West those scapegoat people are often those which the Bible/Qur’an recommends to kill (homosexuals, apostates, non-believers, adulterers, fashion criminals, etc.).

In reality, things of the mind always go meta big time: 

Metapsychological analysis should always have the last word, beyond the most basic psychological analysis. (Actually if is an idea implicit, but fundamental to justice.) Psychological analysis without meta-analysis is a carriage without a driver.

***

Moral Displacement Syndrome Is A Generalization Of Scapegoat Theory:

Simply remove the aggression in scapegoat theory. And then remove the scapegoat. What’s left? A moral or logical system of mind which is false, yet imbued with a feeling, or at least an exhibition of a feeling, of moral superiority.

Even after removing the scapegoat itself, those affected with the scapegoating mood will be still imbued with aggression. Aggression has to do with a cocktail of neurohormones and the hyper activity of attack organs (for want of a better term) in the brain (for example the amygdala which promotes fear and doing something about it, namely counter-attacking).

Removing an object of anger, does not remove the anger state. This is demonstrated neurologically, and this also why angry people tend to kick stuff, slam doors, clench teeth, indulge in road rage, and snap back at completely innocent third parties.

A vegan may face us, and insure us that she is not more aggressive than a cow (not knowing, as vegans do not, that cows are actually very aggressive, and will fight). So let’s remove the aggression. What’s left? The moral obsession. The obsessive moral contraption which occupies their otherwise blank minds.

Hawking himself stumbled on an aspect of the Moral Displacement Syndrome

***

Moral Displacement Syndrome Is Ubiquitous:

The obvious example is TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. Many would-be progressives, instead of worrying about how to implement progress, accuse Trump of everything they can possibly imagine, including being paid by Putin instead of thinking about how to foster progress.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a particular case of Moral Displacement Syndrome.  

MDS consists in attributing problems to the wrong cause. For example, after the launch of the First Crusade, in the Eleventh Century the Jews were accused of lots of evil they had nothing to with (or then in the most devious fashion, as privileges given to them under the Carolingians made them natural scapegoats for the true culprits; accusing the Jews enabled the feudal magnates who destroyed the Carolingian empire to escape suspicious).  

The plutocratic order ruined Europe and the Americas in recent decades. Instead of accusing themselves, and the global plutocracy which enrich them, through the media they own, the plutocrats trotted out a number of culprits: the European Union, Donald Trump, etc…

Theresa May announced the death of everything: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world you are a citizen of nowhere.” In other words, supporting the planet made you nothing. You are at moral fault by not supporting Europe, because you support nothing, so you are a nihilist, claims PM May.

***

Moral Displacement Theory Is All Over Officially Promoted Morality:

Vegetarianism, veganism, (many kinds of) Buddhism, and, of course, Abrahamism are examples of Moral Displacement. In Christo-Islamism, lack of submission (to “god”) is viewed as the cause of all moral ills. So doing, lack of submission, truly, to the Lord, king, dictator, duke, count, emperor, etc. is made into a moral fault, whereas it’s only a fault of a criminal sort, in a system which is itself criminal.

Not cultivating the propensity to obey infamy was made into a religious, moral fault. The cult of, and obedience to the chief was made into the ultimate morality, by pretending it was a divine command.

***

Fake Philosophy: René Girard’s Mimetic Madness:

I have to mention in passing, for (contemporary philosophy) specialists,  René Noël Théophile Girard, a Mr. Scapegoat of Biblical proportions. He was a great pillar of the Franco-American plutocratic order. Girard’s fundamental ideas were that desire is mimetic (i.e. all of our desires are borrowed from other people), that all conflict originates in mimetic desire (mimetic rivalry), that the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture.

These ideas are, of course, stupid beyond belief. If Mr. Leopard if roaming the forest searching for the nice curves and lustrous fur of Ms. Leopard, it’s not by mimetism. And, if, instead he falls on Mr. Girard, or his ilk, and eats him alive, this conflict would not have been caused by mimetic desire.

I am not just criticizing as if I were a “chatbot”: all sorts of neurological studies and neuroimaging have proven that there is desire, and rewards, beyond mimetism.

Girard also thought that religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry, and that the Bible reveals these ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.

This splendid stupidity, of course, made Girard a great support of the plutocratic system (lauding the Bible/Qur’an), and he spent years as a tremendous mandarin in Stanford, and was elected to the French academy. Girard was also awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic, butcher of Jews, Muslims and smart people, by the Spanish hereditary Pluto, H.M. King Juan Carlos, descendant of Louis XIV of France, butcher of Protestants.

***

Conclusion: There is lots of fakery out there. Even worse: a meta-morality is ubiquitous: a generalized tolerance for fakery. Tolerance for fakery is a meta-mood: let’s tolerate what should be obvious superchery. Tolerating obvious fakery, here, there, and soon everywhere, feeds cognitive nihilism. Surprise, surprise, this is how plutocracy rules over the minds of the insects, out there.

Patrice Ayme’

Tags: Morality Displacement Theory, René Girard, Scapegoat Theory, Trump Dérangement Syndrome