Social psychology – VirusHead

Fear, Contagion, and Scapegoating – Oh my

2009/12/26 VirusHead Comments 2 comments

The figure of the “evil other” is a pre-ethical fixation for the religiously-minded paranoid. Everything that one most dislikes or finds threatening can be projected upon others and (usually symbolically) murdered in the age-old tradition of the scapegoat. Such projection engenders – and feeds upon – symbolic (and real) violence. Predatory on the people who cannot bear to examine themselves, leaders of such movements play on fears of contagion, defilement and stain from without – from the evil others –…

Derrida

2009/12/21 VirusHead Comments 2 comments

I love humor, even when it’s aimed at my heroes. Jacques Derrida was hopelessly misunderstood by much of the American audience, but there is a grain of truth in much of this: The World’s Shortest Philosophy Books Dennett’s Philosophical Lexicon Philosophers’ Cause of Death Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Fair enough. But really… let’s think about intellectual courage… Yeah, Derrida has a lot going on. He is sometimes very difficult to read. And it’s easy to make fun…