Exemplary Victim

“The exemplary victim is the one whose path we could follow as a means of salvation while always falling infinitely short of the example.”

“The exemplary victim is constitutive of our language and narratives, which is why it needs to be “unwritten.” The whole range of exemplary victims produced across the political spectrum constitutes our “alphabet” (or, perhaps, “meme factory”).”

“A large part of the power of models figuring an “exemplary victim” is precisely the plausibility and richness of the events they are drawn from, with Jesus on the cross, or Socrates sitting with his students waiting to drink his hemlock among the most obvious examples.”