The social system defines its outsiders as residual in order to recharge itself

Evidence

Witness the “Society” column of Le Monde, in which paradoxically, only immigrants, delinquents, women, etc. appear - everything that has not been socialized, “social” cases analogous to pathological cases. Pockets to be reabsorbed, segments that the “social” isolates as it grows. Designated as “residual” at the horizon of the social, they enter its jurisdiction in this way and are destined to find their place in an enlarged sociality. It is for this remainder that the social machine is recharged and finds new energy. But what happens when everything is sponged up, when everything is socialized? Then the machine stops, the dynamic is reversed, and it is the whole social system that becomes residue. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 471

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels how Jameson sees late capitalism absorbing and neutralizing difference — the social machine’s need for a residual ‘other’ to keep functioning. — connects to: Outsiders misconstrue tightly organized social groups as secret conspiracies.; Moral exclusion arises from a society’s own evaluative schemes — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 807
• SEED: Angle: modern journalism’s crime/immigration sections as the residual energy source that sustains the social order — what happens when everything gets socialized.

Broader Connections

• Moral exclusion arises from a society’s own evaluative schemes #expands (0.85) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 807
• Outsiders misconstrue tightly organized social groups as secret conspiracies. #expands (0.82)