Scapegoat

It has been known since the time of Keynes that Austerity is not the way out of economic collapse; that, indeed, it only makes matters worse. So why, even now that Greece has clearly said ‘We won’t take this shit any more’, are Merkel, the European Central Bank, the IMF etc., still trying to push Greece into even greater misery?

It’s called ‘Projective Identification’ and is well-known to psychologists — especially of the analytic school — and laughably easy to identify in the behaviour of unpleasant people of limited imagination, intelligence, and insight. Rather than admit their own stupidity or naïvety, people look round for someone else to blame. They become spiteful, cruel, vindictive, and of course do great damage to their own souls. In the present case they justify their behaviour by saying that easing matters, writing off some of the debt, co-operating with Syriza’s suggestions for new ways out, would set a bad precedent for other European countries in difficulties. ‘No, we must punish Greece hard,’ they say, pretending, as believers in the efficaciousness of punishment usually do, that it hurts them even more than it hurts Greece. (Something it may end by doing.)

So the Greeks have become the latest in the long line of scapegoats. ‘It’s all the fault of the Assyrians’… The Philistines, the Albanians, the Armenians, the people who wear white socks with sandals… or of course the Jews?