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Girard Digest 14: The Scapegoat
Mar. 22nd, 2019 08:22 amMost everyone is familiar with the term 'scapegoat' to refer to an individual or group which is blamed for whatever needs blaming. They are usually just an easy target and not necessarily guilty as charged, or not as guilty as the mob says they are, but blaming them is a simple solution to a complicated situation, and people like those.
The origin of the term is in that (in)famous compilation of ancient Hebrew law, the book of Leviticus. There was a tradition, lo these many centuries ago, where on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would take a he-goat and ritually transfer all the sins of the community onto it. It would then be driven off into the wilderness, taking all those sins with it, giving the community a moral blank slate to start the new year, and maybe do better this time. It is an odd permutation of an animal sacrifice (which was also practised at this time) but an evocative one.
The unifying power of a common enemy – a collective act of violence against a target which is the receptacle of a society's bad feelings – is the core of Girard's thinking. The chaos of each-against-each mimetic rivalries turning into the unity of all-against-one in the expulsion of the scapegoat is, for him, a fundamental pattern in all human societies, and utilised through history to keep human violence under control. He calls this the single victim mechanism.
Chapter 15: The Single Victim Mechansim
The origin of the term is in that (in)famous compilation of ancient Hebrew law, the book of Leviticus. There was a tradition, lo these many centuries ago, where on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would take a he-goat and ritually transfer all the sins of the community onto it. It would then be driven off into the wilderness, taking all those sins with it, giving the community a moral blank slate to start the new year, and maybe do better this time. It is an odd permutation of an animal sacrifice (which was also practised at this time) but an evocative one.
The unifying power of a common enemy – a collective act of violence against a target which is the receptacle of a society's bad feelings – is the core of Girard's thinking. The chaos of each-against-each mimetic rivalries turning into the unity of all-against-one in the expulsion of the scapegoat is, for him, a fundamental pattern in all human societies, and utilised through history to keep human violence under control. He calls this the single victim mechanism.
Chapter 15: The Single Victim Mechansim
