I always hear people use the phrase “living vicariously” but I never really thought about what it meant until recently. Apparently, it comes from the word “vicar” which goes back to the Roman Catholic church. A vicar was a “priest who acts for or represents another, often higher-ranking member of the clergy.” Usually, the way people use the word vicarious is by saying that they are “living vicariously through somebody” or they experienced “vicarious thrills” through hearing an account of something.

I think this relates directly to this whole idea that part of the way people interact with the world is through a process of projection & identification. That is, interior psychological contents are projected outward onto forms of the world; and exterior contents are pulled inside by our identification and resonance with them. (Some people seem to use the words “sympathy” and “empathy” to indicate very approximately this same thing, although the definitions seem to shift as to which one applies to identification and which to projection. I’ll look around for more on that.)

I just found an interesting article about vicarious identification, and how this natural human tendency to involve yourself personally in stories is exploited by propaganda, and by stories which are told with the intention of modifying behaviour in the audience.

The author talks about how the essence of story-telling is this idea that you identify with the main character - the protagonist or hero. And you have the antagonist or villain who opposes the hero. One of the more effective ways of developing this empathetic identification with the hero character is by having that character act out the fantasies of the audience. I guess this promise of an emotional payoff is a big part of what hooks people into identification.

The author talks about how a skillful propagandist (somebody who wants to effect an attitude or behaviour change through a story) will play upon this identification the audience feels with the hero. Vicarious identification is a sort of low-level schizophrenic experience. The audience is able to temporarily assume a new personality, an alter-ego through identifying with the character. While the audience is in this state, they become suggestible or open to imprint conditioning. And the natural tendency of avoiding cognitive dissonance can be utilized.

He talks about how propagandists will try to attach to the villain attributes which the audience already possess. Since the audience - while immersed in the story - is trying to identify with the hero, they will temporarily abandon or at least loosen their connections to previously held behaviors and attitudes. They are trying to reduce cognitive dissonance while identifying with the hero. And while they are busy doing this, the propagandist can in turn mold the hero to possess new traits and attitudes which he is trying to motivate the audience to accept. It’s a shorthand way to get around the natural walls of the cultural immune system which people use to shield themselves from new ideas.

After that, the article seems to degenerate into political name-calling. But everything up until there makes a whole lot of sense to me.