Scapegoating

Scapegoating is a process by which blame for an in-group's misfortunes is transferred to a “goat”: a person, animal, inanimate object, or an out-group, which is then eliminated. Through it the in-group “escapes” from its woes and is rejuvenated. The term itself is derived from the central rite in the Jewish feast of Yom Kippur, described in the Bible (Leviticus 16). In this, a priest confesses the sins of Israel over the head of a goat, which is then led outside the city gates to wander in exile, carrying with it those sins.

Comparable ceremonies have been reported elsewhere. Ancient Babylonians celebrated an annual kippuru, involving the transfer of guilt [Page 1133]onto, and subsequent murder of, a so-called Year King, followed by an orgy in celebration of the community's redemption. During the feast of Thargelia in Greek antiquity, the ritual murder of a human victim known as a katharma was believed symbolically to “kill death.” In the Roman Saturnalia, a human effigy of the vegetative god, Mamurius Veturius, was killed, ensuring a bountiful harvest.

To defuse the violence of the scapegoating impulse, Christian mythology replaced the goat with a so-called perfect victim, the unblemished lamb, Jesus. Now, the sacrifice of God Himself was said to cancel the world's sins, presumably rendering further efforts at symbolic riddance unnecessary (Hebrews 10). Nevertheless, scapegoating persists in Christian nations. René Girard has concluded from this that scapegoating is an unavoidable, elemental engine of social and psychological order.

The scapegoat complex refers to how scapegoater and goat feed off each other's “shadows.” These are the psychic energies that neither can permit to come to consciousness: lust, vengeance, envy, greed, slovenliness, and so on. The scapegoater represents the righteous partner in the complex. It eliminates what is forbidden and experiences catharsis after being cleansed of its own toxicity. Scapegoats take in the refuse of the scapegoater. They “eat crow.” They become “people of the crow,” as the untouchables of India are known: the black-skinned speakers of “caw-caw” (cakka), who labor in sewers and in garbage pits, consume beef, and have sex during menstruation.

The persecution of untouchables helps sustain the Hindu caste (purity) order. Other goats serve comparable functions. This is why they are occasionally lauded as heroes, as was the Maize Goddess of ancient Mexico or the adolescent boy chosen to dress in plumes and play the sacrificial victim, Tezcatlipoca. (The “sacred nectar” from their still-beating hearts was believed to nourish the gods in their cosmic struggle against chaos.) Or, like Christ, the goat may be worshipped as a god himself, whose death is said to redeem the entire human race. It is precisely the negative celebrity accorded them that sometimes attracts volunteers to serve as scapegoats. In this role, they are the pharmakon (Greek for “scapegoat”), the poison whose elimination from the body politic magically heals it.

The pernicious qualities of scapegoats are typically experienced as inherently given. However, in reality, scapegoats are social artifacts. They are manufactured through a four-step process that uses the standard tools of defamation: pulpit, pamphlet, and pep talk.

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