Aristotle, Catharsis, and Victim Blaming

I started auditing an undergraduate course in Aesthetics (I heard the lecturer was really good and I have not been disappointed). So far I've been learning all kinds of things about Greek Tragedy that I never knew. For example I didn't know that the Greek Tragedies were a kind of religious ceremony, and to not attend one would be considered a very scandalous act. apparently, Socrates never attended the tragedies, and this aroused a lot of suspicion from people.

Why did Socrates not attend the tragedies? He believed they were blasphemous because they showed the Gods doing terrible things to good people for no particular reason. For Socrates, no good, rational God would randomly dish out evils to innocent people, so he refused to attend. Plato agreed with Socrates and his Aesthetic theory reflects that, but Aristotle chose to rationalize tragedies rather than reject them.

Aristotle decided to rationalize the tragedies by saying that even though on the surface it seems like the gods were randomly punishing innocent people, these people in fact had fatal flaws that lead to their demise. So the tragedies only appear irrational but really there was a reason.

What I found interesting about this was that it gave me an idea of how victim-blaming might be motivated in other contexts. Oftentimes in discussions of rape, third parties will seek out 'fatal flaws' that might justify or explain what happened. Perhaps the victim was dressed provocatively or was flirting or drinking and third parties will point to this as evidence that justifies, legitimates, or explains the violence that took place. I used to not understand why this behavior is wrong, and that in cases of sexual assault it is always the perpetrator's fault, regardless of the context, because he or she is the one who makes a choice to act in this way.

I think that perhaps the reason why we victim-blame is the same reason as Aristotle. We refuse to accept that the existence of evil and irrationality in our society, so instead we try to rationalize the evil and irrational things that happen in any way possible. We want to believe that we are safe, that bad things only happen to bad people, and that we can be protected from the random wrath of gods, but that security comes at the cost of not acknowledging a problem that exists, and therefore not doing anything about it.