Scapegoat
The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. The rite is described in Leviticus 16.
The word is more widely used as a metaphor, referring to someone who is blamed for misfortunes, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes. Another term for scapegoat is fall guy.
Religious Origins
Hebrew Bible
The "scapegoat" ritual (whose English name results from a mistranslation of the Biblical Hebrew) was, in its original context, a central practice in the Levitical celebration of Yom Kippur (the "Day of Atonement"). During this ritual, the priest sought to spiritually cleanse the temple (a symbolic analogue for the Israelite kingdom) through a series of prayers, benedictions, and animal sacrifices. The process of symbolic purification was dually concentric, beginning with the sanctification of the priest and the Holy of Holies (in the Temple), and expanding outward to encompass the entirety of body politic and the physical landscape surrounding the community.[1] Once these purifications were complete, the sins of the community were then symbolically transfered to the scapegoat itself, which was then released into the desert:
- Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat. ...
- When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert (Leviticus 16:7-10, 18-22) (NIV).
Mistranslation
Azazel is the word translated as "scapegoat" in the King James Version of the Bible (Leviticus chapter 16). In 1611 King James' translators borrowed the word 'scapegoat' from William Tyndale's translation from around 1530. Tyndale had translated 'azazel' (the name of the cliff the goat was pushed over, or more likely the demon it was sent out to in the desert) as 'ez ozel' - literally, "the goat that departs"; hence "the goat that escapes," or, for short, "(e)scape goat." Since this goat, with the sins of the people placed on it, is then sent over a cliff or driven into the wilderness to perish, the word "scapegoat" has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes or sufferings of others.
Most modern scholars believe the "goat for Azazel" is sent away to the desert demon of that name, and that this is not the name of a cliff or mountain, nor of the man who takes it into the wilderness.
Christianity
In Christian theology, the story of the scapegoat in Leviticus is interpreted as a symbolic prefiguration of the self-sacrifice of Jesus, who takes the sins of humanity on his own head, having been driven into the 'wilderness' outside the city by order of the high priests.[2]
Controversial Christian anthropologist René Girard has provided a reconstruction of the scapegoat theory. In Girard's view, it is humankind, not God, who has the problem with violence. Humans are driven by desire for that which another has or wants (mimetic desire). This causes a triangulation of desire and results in conflict between the desiring parties. This mimetic contagion increases to a point where society is at risk; it is at this point that the scapegoat mechanism is triggered. This is the point where one person is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group. This person is the scapegoat. Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again. Girard contends that this is what happened in the case of Jesus. The difference in this case, Girard believes, is that he was resurrected from the dead and shown to be innocent; humanity is thus made aware of its violent tendencies and the cycle is broken. Satan, who is seen to be manifested in the contagion, is cast out. Thus Girard's work is significant as a re-construction of the Christus Victor atonement theory.[3]
While the Girardian approach to the scapegoat problem (and to religious sacrifices in general) has provided a provocative new paradigm for students of religious ritual, it is not without its critics. Jonathan Klawans, in a particularly incisive article, argues that this approach misrepresents the purpose of Israelite sacrifice due to an anti-ritualist bias—an emphasis that implicitly styles Christianity as the more "just" complement of Judaism:
- Girard's focus on sacrifice as "generative scapegoating" operates under the assumption that all sacrifice involves the killing of innocent victims. But the reader must beware that whenever scholars put the "innocent victims" of sacrificial ritual in the foreground, a cadre of "guilty priests" must be lurking in the background. The Girardian approach to sacrifice operates under assumptions that are both antisacrificial and antipriestly. This is hardly a good starting point for anyone trying to understand what sacrificial rituals might have meant to those who believed in their efficacy. More troubling is the fact that Girard's concern with Jesus as the paradigmatic innocent victim compels him to view Christianity as the necessary completion of Judaism. Furthermore, in his analysis of Jesus' death, Girard squarely places much of the blame on Jewish authorities and on the (Jewish) crowd, without entertaining the possibility that post-crucifixion conflicts between Jesus' followers and other Jews may have influenced the construction of the passion narratives.[4]
Scapegoating in ancient Greece
The ancient Greeks practiced a scapegoating rite in which a cripple or beggar or criminal (the pharmakos) was cast out of the community, either in response to a natural disaster (such as a plague, famine or an invasion) or in response to a calendrical crisis (such as the end of the year). The scholia refer to the pharmakos being killed, but many scholars reject this, and argue that the earliest evidence (the fragments of the iambic satirist Hipponax) only show the pharmakos being stoned, beaten and driven from the community.
Metaphor
When used as a metaphor, a scapegoat is someone selected to bear blame for a calamity. Scapegoating is the act of holding a person, group of people, or thing responsible for a multitude of problems. This is also known as a frameup. Scapegoats can also be referred to as patsies or whipping boys.
Political/sociological scapegoating
Scapegoating is an important tool of propaganda; the most famous example in recent history is the Jews being singled out in Nazi propaganda as the source of Germany's economic woes and political collapse.
Scapegoating is often more devastating when applied to a minority group as they are inherently less able to defend themselves. A tactic often employed is to characterize an entire group of individuals according to the unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals belonging to that group, also known as guilt by association.
"Scapegoated" groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: adherents of different religions, people of different races or nations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behaviour from the majority. However, scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such as governments, corporations, or various political groups.
In industrialised societies, scapegoating of traditional minority groups is increasingly frowned upon.
Mobbing is a form of sociological scapegoating which occurs in the workplace. From At The Mercy Of The Mob A summary of research on workplace mobbing by Kenneth Westhues, Prof. of Sociology University of Waterloo, published in OHS Canada, Canada's Occupational Health & Safety Magazine, Vol. 18, No. 8, December 2002, pp. 30-36.
"Scapegoating is an effective if temporary means of achieving group solidarity, when it cannot be achieved in a more constructive way. It is a turning inward, a diversion of energy away from serving nebulous external purposes toward the deliciously clear, specific goal of ruining a disliked co-worker's life. ... Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate."
Scapegoating in psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theory holds that unwanted thoughts and feelings can be unconsciously projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for one's own problems. This concept can be extended to projection by groups. In this case the chosen individual, or group, becomes the scapegoat for the group's problems. In other words, blaming another person or thing, for your own problems.
Karpman's Drama Triangle does a fine job of illustrating the Rescuer, Persecutor and Victim roles attendant in the scapegoating dynamic in any relationship of three or more people. SighKoBlahGrr's Rodger Garrett asserts that early life habituation to scapegoating can result in a paranoid interpersonal orientation with a likelihood of passive-aggressive personality traits in adolescence leading to unfortunate parataxical integrations (see Harry Stack Sullivan) between parents and teenagers.
If the scapegoating pattern continues into early adulthood, development towards healthy personal identity is likely to be compromised, with strong likelihood of histrionic, compensatory narcissistic, and/or obsessive-compulsive, as well as passive-aggressive traits. Fully-criterial personality disorders are likely, leading to severe, ego-protecting "affect management behaviors" including alcoholism, drug addiction and other substance and behavioral process disorders.
Notes
- ↑ "Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die. He is to take some of the bull's blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover. // He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the Tent of Meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one is to be in the Tent of Meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel. // "Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on all the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites" (Leviticus 16:11-19).
- ↑ See Maas's article on Christology (1912): "The sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 21:1-14), the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:1-28), the ashes of purification (Numbers 19:1-10), and the brazen serpent (Numbers 21:4-9) hold a prominent place among the types prefiguring the suffering Messiahs."
- ↑ Girard (1979) and (1986).
- ↑ Klawans, 138.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Barnard, L. W. "Some Folklore Elements in an Early Christian Epistle." Folklore 70:3 (September 1959). 433-439.
- Bremmer, Jan. "Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983). 299-320.
- Carmichael, Calum. "The Origin of the Scapegoat Ritual." Vetus Testamentum 50: Fasc. 2 (April 2000). 167-182.
- Girard, René. "Mimesis and Violence: Perspectives in Cultural Criticism." Berkshire Review 14 (1979): 9-19.
- Girard, René. The Scapegoat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. ISBN 0485113066.
- Hess, Richard S. "Review: A Reassessment of the Priestly Cultic and Legal Texts" — a review of Jacob Milgrom's translation and commentary on Leviticus. Journal of Law and Religion 17:1/2 (2002), 375-391.
- Klawans, Jonathan. "Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel." The Harvard Theological Review 94:2 (April 2001). 133-155.
- Maas, A. J. "Christology" in the [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14597a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia. 1912.
- McLean, Bradley. "On the Revision of Scapegoat Terminology." Numen 37:2 (December 1990). 168-173.
- Schwartz, Daniel R. "Two Pauline Allusions to the Redemptive Mechanism of the Crucifixion." Journal of Biblical Literature 102:2 (June 1983). 259-268.
- Segal, M. H. "The Religion of Israel before Sinai (Continued)." The Jewish Quarterly Review New Series, 53:3 (January 1963). 226-256.
- Zatelli, Ida. "The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts." Vetus Testamentum 48: Fasc. 2 (April 1998). 254-263.
External links
- 'The Scapegoat' (1854), painting by William Holman Hunt
- Scapegoating in Group Analytic Theory (PDF files)
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