Scapegoat

Cultural referent

The emissary term of Bouc corresponds at the origin with an annual expiatory rite ( Yom Kippour ) of the Hebrew X lengthily described in the sixteenth chapter of the Lévitique . The large priest was to take two goats then to draw them with the fate. One was directly sacrificed to God, while the other was sent in the desert towards Azazel . It is this second goat which is called scapegoat , of ecclesiastical Latin to wrap emissarius (the goat sent, released). The Jewish tradition sees in Azazel a cliff of the desert of the the Sinai the top of which the scapegoat would be thrown. While the Christian tradition sees in Azazel a wild demon, undoubtedly a fallen angel. The exact role of the scapegoat is clearly described in the biblical text:

“Aaron will pose the two hands to him on the head and will confess to its load all the faults of the Jews, all their transgressions and all their sins. After with of having thus charged the head with the goat, it will send it to the desert under the control of a man who will be held ready, and the goat will carry on him all their faults in an arid place. ” (Lévitique XVI: 21-22)

In the same order of idea, that of the Sacrifice of substitution , Lévitique IV: 22-26, a sacrifice of atonement suitable proposes for the sin of a chief, which flashes back on the whole of the community:

If it is a chief who sinned, while making involuntarily against one of the commands of the Eternal, his God, of the things which should not be done and while being made thus guilty, and that it has suddenly discovered the sin that it made, it will offer in sacrifice a male goat without defect. It will pose its hand on the head of the goat, which it will cut the throat of in the place where one cuts the throat of the holocausts in front of the Eternal. It is a sacrifice of atonement. The sacrificator will take with his finger of the blood of the expiatory victim, it will put some on the horns of the furnace bridge of the holocausts, and it will spread blood with the foot of the furnace bridge of the holocausts. It will burn all grease on the furnace bridge, as the grease of the sacrifice of thanksgivings. Thus the sacrificator will make for this chief the atonement of his sin, and he will be forgiven to him.

In the New Testament, Jesus is introduced like a Agneau immolé, an expiatory sacrifice which saved the world when he was adored on the cross at the time of his passion.

Entry in the French language

The French expression scapegoat is mentioned in the dictionary of Furetière (1690), with a definition identical to that given above. Thereafter, was used it to nominate a person on whom one makes fall down the faults of the others. This direction is already attested at the 18th century. Georges Clémenceau will take it again later in connection with the Affaire Dreyfus:

“Such is the history role of the Dreyfus proceedings. On this scapegoat of the Judaism, all the old crimes are representatively accumulated. ” (quoted by the Thesaurus of the French language )

Anthropology

At the contemporary ethnologists, the concept of scapegoat indicates the whole of the rites of atonement whose a community uses. The first used this concept is James George Frazer, which wrote a work whose French title is the Scapegoat, compared study of history of the religions .

Sociology

A work of Rene Girard entitled the Scapegoat (1982) watch with work this phenomenon which it names the mimetic triangle: formed of three poles which are the individuals has, B and the supposed good, the mimetic triangle describes this play symbolic system and the real relation between has and B,

in which b:

has a good,

seems to have a good,

or could have a good,

of which has thinks is:

that it itself is deprived by it,

that its own pleasure of the same good is threatened by the only fact that B has which it (or can have which it).

Let us note that the well is called by Rene Girard object and that it is not necessarily material.
This mimetic triangle seems moved by the need for having failing to be able to be . Not being able to be the different one directly, the individual (A) thinks that what characterizes the other (B) and which still justifies the difference between him (A) and its model (B), is a to have (the object or the good). The problem lies in the reciprocal imitation at the desire of the object. The more has will wish the object, plus B (if it returns in the mechanism of the mimetic desire) will make in the same way. And more has and B (compared to their desire) will resemble itself. Schematically, more the tension towards the object is strong, more the lack of differentiation between has and B is important. However, for Rene Girard, it is this lack of differentiation of the individuals which is carrying violence (through the tension towards the same object). Finally, this mimetic competition thus generated will be creative of conflict and violence.
Like notes it Rene Girard in another work “To fix his admiring attention on a model, it is to already to recognize him or grant a prestige to him which one does not have, which amounts noting its own insufficiency to be. ” As Rene Girard notes it, “the subject will always ignore this anteriority of the model, because would be at the same time to reveal its insufficiency, its inferiority, the fact that its desire is, not spontaneous but imitated. He will have good game then to denounce the presence of the Other, mediator of his desire, like concerning the only desire of this last” ( romantic Mensonge and romantic truth )
The phenomenon of the scapegoat is a collective phenomenon. It is the unconscious response (Rene Girard uses the term of ignorance ) of one community to endemic violence that its own members managed through the mimetic competitions due to the mimetic triangle .
The phenomenon of the scapegoat is the law of “all against one”. It has as a function to exclude internal violence at the company (endemic) towards the outside of this company. So that this phenomenon is effective, it is necessary:

that the operation of the scapegoat remains hidden,

that violence resulting from this act does not involve a climbing of violence, from where need for a “typing” of the victims (they are not randomly selected). It is the principle of less violence ,

that the individuals are persuaded of the culpability of the scapegoat,

and (to a lesser extent) that the victims are persuaded to be guilty.

The problem of this regulating mechanism of violence is its temporary character. Indeed, the endemic violence generated by the mimetic desire is done, early or late, to feel. There is recourse then to a new scapegoat.
In short, for Rene Girard, the scapegoat is the collective mechanism making it possible an human society to survive the violence generated by the individual mimetic desire of its members (even if the determination of the desires is, to a very great extent, collective). The scapegoat also designates the individual, necessarily guilty for his indicters but innocent from the point of view of the “truth” (for Rene Girard), by which the group, while being linked uniformly against him, will find a transitory peace.

Sociopsychanalyse and psychiatry

With the crossroads of the Sociology of the organizations and Psychiatry, Dr. Yves Prigent in his book ordinary Cruelty analyzes the behavior of small groups carried out by a envieux pervert. These phenomena are attested by Gustave the Good as of the end of the 19th century in Crowd psychology and by Sigmund Freud which, exposes to him the violence of a group controlled by a envieux pervert.
The attack goes on that which has a major interior life or the competences affirmed according to the principle that the nail which exceeds will know the hammer (Li Me Hâ Ong). The pervert acts without clear intentionality because it cannot express its lack by the Logos. It thus transforms an unthinkable concern (the desire which it feels and cannot be acknowledged without losing vis-a-vis its own eyes) into a thinkable concern at the time of a psychic work. It thus transmits a double message:

it wonders how one would make without the object of his hatred,

but at the same time, it propagates a message of persecution.

Delivered to unthinkable, the death instinct, it transmits a message organo-dynamics. The pervert endeavors to destroy the place of the language, the core (according to Jacques Lacan) with knowing the base even of the human personality of the person whom he persecutes. For lack of interior psychic space, it directs its action against the interior space of the other, i.e defaming the other if this one is an ethical being, trying to afflict (to make deserted) the other in a generally cynical way while being freed, with this intention, of the rules of most current sociability or civility which could be applied only to the others, its public. The pervert makes it clear in a repeated way that measurements that it takes to persecute his victim are desirable according to the dires others , but also, it tries to destroy what returns the other specific one, this why it is appreciated. Is wary because it is what you have better of is the rule of the exclusion of the scapegoat.
The envieux pervert hates the singularity because itself is deprived by it; so it makes him shade. It projects on others the difficulties which it could have itself because it is stripped tools to regulate them. The objective consists in destroying the social identity of the other or the social recognition of which would be likely to profit the subject from its hatred; this recognition which, according to the envieux pervert, would be due only to itself.
The group, while following it, emits a voice recognition of the pervert, grants a patent of seduction to him, in order to proceed to the ousting of “too virtuous” or “too qualified”. Perversity is contagious. This phenomenon governs the Ostracisme Thémistocle whose starting point is the desire, in the observation that the other has something in oneself the eminent one.
If the subject of hatred yields to the injunction of the pervert, for example if it is defended against each slandering (which precedes the perverse play inevitably), it will receive a traumatism second. The more the object of perverse hatred is defended, the more the group thinks that there's no smoke without fire, treats it paranoiac ; if this one is not defended, the group considers that the pervert rightly. The purpose of the perverse play is to strip the subject of hatred of its dignity.
The pervert attacks with the bonding strengths, specifically the bond between and the death instinct life instinct.

the refusal of the other is the base of the play of the envieux pervert: you do not exist separately with me ,

exclusion consolidates the pervert in his capacity of seduction you do not have any relationship with the others nor with yourself .

The influence, handling are then felt as well on the scapegoat as on the group which remains unconscious events.

Social psychology: Theory of the scapegoat (Dollard)

Theory based on the theory of the frustration-aggression. The aggressive behavior results from a frustration, i.e. of an impossibility of achieving its goals. The aggression is turned in a privileged way towards the source of frustration, but if this one is absent or not atteignable (hierarchy), the aggression is moved towards a scapegoat, the easiest target (minority groups). But this theory was much criticized and was reformulated later. Indeed during the experiment of Sherif in 1953 to highlight its theory of real Conflit , a competition between two groups, a such football game (what makes emerge a conflict between these two groups) causes all the same the aggressiveness of those which gained the match, which shows that aggressiveness does not result from frustration.

See too

animalist Idiom

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