Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 10:30:15 +1000
From: Rob Schaap <rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au>
Subject: Re: M-PSY: Diana Spencer


G'day Psychos,

What I wanna know is why Henri Paul's identity was of no concern to anyone
until the moment he fell into the scapegoat category.  We still wouldn't
know his name but for his blood alcohol content.

When a bad thing happens, a scapegoat must be found.  We know that.  And
generally class hegemony will dictate who those scapegoats will be.  The
photographers and the driver were workers. Everyone else involved was not.
If I get into a car with someone who can't scratch himself, I'm seen as
complicit in my own destruction.

But if I'm a boss, I may choose to ignore the perfectly sober driver
already available to me.  If I have a driver working for me, I tell him the
speed I'd prefer.  And, of course, I reserve unto myself the right to
interrupt a worker's evening off and order him to drive my girlfriend and
me wherever I want to go.  All the agency lies with the bosses and all the
scapegoats are workers.

The same with proprietors in their relationship with the photographers.

Psychology is a big category here.  It makes us hate our own and our selves
for developments in which we never had agency.  And mourn for, and
effectively apologise to, those who authored the business.

Makes you sick(er).


Cheers,
Rob.


>Chris Burford wrote:
>
>> I wondered if people had any reactions to,  or analysis of the phenomena
>> around the death of Diana.
>>
>> Chris Burford
>>
>> London.
>>
>>
>
> Lady Di is a modern myth - in the reality, if she was bulimia ill,
>which is a symptom of a border-line disorder, she had to be quite
>a difficult and often aggressive person, similar to hysteric phenomena.
>A part o f this myth is the opinion, her bulimia has been caused by
>her marriage - which is of course impossible.
>Another part of her myth is her goodness: but the pictures of they face
>show a person who alwys looks away, who never looks straight ahead.
>She did not really smiled, it was a some sort of controlled aggressivity
>in her face.
>A propos: the driver of the smashed car had 1,75 Promille Blood-Alkohol-
>Concentration, which means that he drunk shortly before he went by this car
>approxymately the equivalent of one and a half of 0.25L bottle of Vodka,
>it means that he was completely drunk. A normal person is not able to walk
>any more and everybody must have to see it, that he was so drunk.
>
>In earlier days granmas told such stories, today do it the press and TV,
>causing a mass hysteria.
>Who cares so much  for people killed today in Jerusalem by Hamas?
>
>Julian S. Bielicki
>--
>My ArtWork - moje obrazki
>http://www.jsbielicki.com/gallery/
>
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list marxism-psych-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



************************************************************************

Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia.

Phone:  02-6201 2194  (BH)
Fax:    02-6201 5119

************************************************************************

'It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have
lightened the day's toil of any human being.'    (John Stuart Mill)

"The separation of public works from the state, and their migration
into the domain of the works undertaken by capital itself, indicates
the degree to which the real community has constituted itself in
the form of capital."                                    (Karl Marx)

************************************************************************




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