This summer I have been delving into the works of Rene Girard,
the developer of the scapegoat theory.
In brief, Girard, whose work cover many differ fields including
literary criticism, theology, anthropology and philosophy developed the ground
breaking theory which claimed that human culture is founded on the scapegoat theory
of mimetic (copycat) violence in which all violence originates in the mimetic desire
to, in effect, obtain what other people have.
This violence would have destroyed humanity if unchecked and was only
kept in check by the scapegoat mechanism which found a common victim – the scapegoat
– who was accepted as being the cause of a crisis such as a famine or plague which
was consuming the community. An example
of the scapegoat can be seen in the witch-trials of the middle ages in which
the women
accused of being witches were assumed to be the cause of a crisis in the community. The sacrifice of the scapegoat seemed to
restore order in the community which confirmed the guilt of the scapegoat victim. The scapegoat mechanism led to the
development of all religions and this, in turn, led to the development of
culture.
This just scratches the surface of Girard’s ground breaking
work and in no way does justice to the complexity and comprehensive nature of his
thought which can be seen as a meta-theory of a human development. It is well worth exploring in depth as it can
be validated in much of what se see going on in the world in the prominence of
populism in many parts of the world today with many groups being targeted as
the source of the problems that individuals and institutions are dealing or not
dealing with. An example of this is the
focus of the Trump Administration on immigrants and the resonance of his slogan
to “build the wall and have Mexico pay for it.”
That, I hope will give the reader the background to an
application of Girard’s theory in considering Jesus as the end of the Scapegoat
mechanism. Next week I will explore Jesus
as the innocent victim who ultimately overturns the scapegoat mechanism for all
time. This week I invite you to see if you can
identify where the scapegoat mechanism is operating in the word and especially
in your life personally. Where have you
blamed an individual or a group for problems in your life?
Blessings on your journey
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