The scapegoat mechanism arrests mimetic violence and lays the foundation for renewed social order by redirecting collective aggression onto a single victim.

Evidence

Mimetic Desire & the Scapegoat: Notes on the Thought of René Girard (Critical Legal Thinking)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Folktales can escalate into moral panics in troubled times. — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 77