The Raven Foundation

In her book How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior, Laura Kipnis describes why we all like a good scandal.  The influence of Rene’ Girard and mimetic theory are apparent when she writes:

As scandal reveals, the social world is in an eternal search for scapegoats.  This makes it a brutal place, to be sure, but the scapegoat process is intrinsic to every social group.  Societies have always purified themselves through shows of moral indignation, dumping their burdens off onto designated candidates – all the abnormality and moral disability that threatens to poison the community.  Those cast in this unlucky role don’t have to be innocent victims either; a scapegoat’s crimes can be entirely real.  If it’s the scandalizer’s fate to enact the self-sabotaging tendencies that vex the human personality, then what better sacrificial figure? (196).

What makes Kipnis’s statement, and thus mimetic theory, so compelling is its universal nature.  Human cultures are in “an eternal search for scapegoats” so that we can purify ourselves through “moral indignation, dumping [our] burdens off onto designated candidates.”  Currently, the designated candidate in the sports world is LeBron James.

A few years ago, LeBron was one of the most liked NBA players.  Sports Illustrated bestowed upon him the moniker “The Chosen One” when he was a junior in high school.  The media and NBA fans loved him while he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, quickly dubbing him “King James.”

But there’s an unfortunate reality to being king – kings make really good scapegoats.  We can all unite in mimetic admiration of the king.  But the same mimetic impulse allows us to quickly unite in condemnation against the king.  LeBron is now the now the scapegoat of the NBA.  One website claims, “But I’m sure that we can all say that LeBron James is hated by 90 percent of NBA fans.  (The other 10 percent being Heat fans.)”

And, as Kipnis claims, a scapegoat doesn’t have to be innocent.  Lebron is a scandal because he didn’t leave Cleveland on good terms.  He signed with the Miami Heat, where he would play with two other superstars: Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.  Most people expected (maybe “feared” is a better word) that the three would be unstoppable.  James, Wade, and Bosh expected that, too.  The Miami Heat organization held a party for the three, where Heat fans packed the American Airlines Arena in Miami and the three promised 7-8 championships before they were done.

Well, the first championship will have to wait.  The Miami Heat lost in 6 games to the Dallas Mavericks.  (Interestingly, Cavalier and Maverick fans found unity in their shared hatred for LeBron and the Heat as they facetiously called the Dallas Mavericks the “Mavaliers” during the championship series.  How’s that for unity against a common enemy?)  Then LeBron said this after game 6 when he was asked if he was upset “that so many people are happy to see [him] fail”:

Absolutely not.  Because at the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail … have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.  They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.

Well, that didn’t gain LeBron any friends.  It offended many people, and LeBron was forced to backtrack.  But here’s why the statement was so painful for many: Because there is a hint of truth in it.  As Kipnis points out, the reason we love a scandal is because it allows us to dump our burdens off onto another person.  In other words, our shared hatred of another allows us to project all our personal problems upon them.  In that sense, LeBron was absolutely right.

But LeBron was wrong in another sense.  Our culture is addicted to scandals.  Unfortunately, our scandals aren’t isolated to politicians, athletes, or celebrities.  Some of our worst scandals are against family members, co-workers, neighbors, and friends.  The sad thing is that scandals and scapegoating is our real world.  It’ll take us “a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be” and we will move on from LeBron.  But, unless we break the cycle by finding more creative and compassionate ways to form unity, we are destined to find for more scandals and scapegoats.