The scapegoat has always had the mysterious power of unleashing man's ferocious pleasure in torturing, corrupting, and befouling.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the dark human tendency to project guilt and blame onto others, deriving pleasure from their suffering.
Francois Mauriacβs quote addresses the unsettling psychological phenomenon of scapegoating, where individuals or groups deflect their own guilt and issues onto others. This action not only highlights a moral failing but also reveals a disturbing aspect of human nature, as many find a sense of satisfaction in the mistreatment of those they perceive as guilty or responsible for societal ills. The scapegoat embodies the complexities of human relationships and the capacity for cruelty inherent within us all.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one could use the quote to highlight the dangers of scapegoating marginalized communities.
The man who partakes in the breaking of the bread dares to build his house on the very core of love. He becomes, as it were, Godlike, but regardless of the strength he derives from it, his free will remains. We are always free to disown this immense grace, to abuse it. The Greatest Love may be betrayed. Fed on the Living Bread, we nevertheless conceal a part of ourselves which longs for swine's food.
That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late.
Human love is often but the encounter of two weaknesses.
No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.
To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell.
I was born in 1948, so I'm a '60s kid, and in the '60s everyone talked all the time, endlessly, about socialism versus capitalism, about political choices, ideology, Marxism, revolution, 'the system' and so on.
There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security.
The most sublime truth of all has never been stated or written or sung. Not because it is far away and can not be reached, but because it is so intimately close, closer than anything that can be spoken. It is alive as the stillness in the core of your being, too close to be described, too close to be objectified, too close to be known in the usual way of knowledge. The truth of who you are is yours already. It is already present.
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.
War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.
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