Scapegoat

One thing I want to draw attention to is how in all these cases it was up to the girl to take the blame or to modify behavior on behalf of the guy. When the red faced raging elder appeared before my daughter he didn't say anything to my (now) SIL, like "Hey, take your hand off her waist." His intent wasn't correction or he would have addressed the one in control of the hand. No, his intention was shame. His anger, as an authority figure in the church, bearing down on her from above, a place of power toward he as an older man was all about the transference of shame.

In the second case, same thing. Nobody ever said anything to him. He was the poker here! Wouldn't a sensible adult have gone to him and said something like "Hey, I know you guys like each other but while we're at camp could you keep a little distance, blah blah blah.... " (Actually in both cases I don't think reasonable people would have said anything at all, but just giving the benefit of the argument that even if there was something to get upset over.) But nobody ever said anything to him at all. Again, the goal wasn't correction, this was a transference of shame.

The need of a scapegoat is an interesting thing. I'm just an armchair philosopher, but it's my theory that the more legalism and emphasis on the judgment of God, the more shame is generated and the more the need for a scapegoat. And it will always be the voiceless, those who don't have a lot of money, those that have no power to reject the load being handed to them, the ones that are to be submissive to the ones handing them the shame like the young. And in a culture where women and girls  are blamed for the thoughts of young men through extreme modesty teachings, and are trained to be submissive and obedient, they will be natural shame bearers because if they resist they can be further shamed by calling them stubborn, disobedient, and willful. This will lead to further shunning and shame transference so they have to bear it until it simply gets to be too much. The scapegoat flees the camp, taking the shame they bear and are gone to the wilderness to deal with that on their own. But at least the camp is cleansed.

For a little while. Then the shame builds, another scapegoat must be found and the whole process begins again.

I wonder who the scapegoat is now that we have left?