Danièle Dehouve is an anthropologist specializing in religious rituals in Mesoamerica.
Christophe Lemardelé is a historian of religions, specialist in sacrifices in Mediterranean Antiquity.
What is a scapegoat?
What to do when a subject that resembles what we have studied in populations distant in time or in space suddenly becomes very topical in our own society?
Anthropology has things to say on the matter.
In the monument that is
Le Rameau d'Or
, in 12 volumes published between 1890 and 1915, the British anthropologist James Frazer compiles in one of these volumes rituals from all over the world, rituals consisting in transferring evil, harm or disease on a human or animal, then eliminated.
The paradigmatic case is that of the goat from Leviticus in the Old Testament.
Sent into the wilderness, with all the faults and impurities of the people upon him, on the day of
Kippur
celebrated in the ancient temple of Jerusalem, this goat was expelled from the city.
The expression "scapegoat" comes from there, but it bears its name badly.
Indeed, according to rabbinic tradition, the animal was mistreated as soon as it left the temple by the populace, then thrown into a ravine outside the city.
Such cases, Frazer noted the existence of them in all kinds of societies, notably the
pharmakos
of the ancient Greeks when calamities arose: men could be killed or expelled.
The logic of accusation and the distribution of blame remain mechanisms inherent in the functioning of our society.
Danièle Dehouve and Christophe Lemardelé
The best-known theory today on this subject is that of René Girard, developed in
La violence et le sacré
(1971). According to him, the phenomenon of the scapegoat occurs when a human society enters a state of "sacrificial crisis", marked by a cycle of internal violence generated by the rivalries of men. To get out of it, they convince themselves that only one of them is responsible. Whatever one thinks of the general scope of such a theory, the cases analyzed by Girard reinforce what we knew about the universality of scapegoats and extend their application.
We must reread today, in the light of what we are living, the
Afterword
written by Mary Douglas in 2001 for a new edition of her classic book:
Purity and Danger
(1966), translated into French by
De la souillure
. She sums up the reflection of a lifetime. This begins with the “political-legal theory of danger” developed in the 1940s by Africanist anthropologists: a woman dies in a village, the survivors wonder about the causes of her death. They look for it in a well-defined repertoire of possible causes: individual fault, magic implemented by rivals, the external enemy possibly aided by a traitor hidden within the group.
Now, says Douglas, at that time everyone thought that these “logics of accusation” only existed in so-called “primitive” populations. In our societies, “we thought that science had really changed our perspective”. He added: “
And then all of a sudden the technology itself fell under criticism as a source of danger. From that day on, everything changed (…). The gaps in the interpretation of reality leave enough room for the logic of accusation. Science has not produced individuals devoid of an instinct for domination
”. The logic of accusation and the distribution of blame remain mechanisms inherent in the functioning of our society. As Mathieu Slama wrote: “
Contexts change,but the anthropological mechanisms persist
".
Read alsoBut where does the "scapegoat" come from?
In the repertoire of possible causes of evil, our society has chosen the external enemy helped by the internal traitor. The external enemy is the virus, anthropomorphized and personified beforehand according to mechanisms which fall under something other than medical science: it is an enemy against which… "we are at war". He is devilishly intelligent, even perverse - he mutates! -, he knows how to strike us where we are vulnerable (these statements come from doctors and official sources such as the bulletins of the ARS). An external enemy is eradicated. We then need an absolute weapon, this is the vaccine. A unique, radical weapon, it eclipses all the care usually administered by doctors, and becomes our only salvation. And at the same time, the traitor, the internal enemy is designated:one who is not vaccinated.
The problem with “accusation logics” is that they stem from anthropological mechanisms that have nothing to do with science.
Since the widespread vaccination in Israel was followed by a wave of contaminations, we know that vaccination does not prevent being positive, or even sick.
So how can we believe that 6 million unvaccinated French people are responsible for the fifth wave?
Especially since the vaccines "proposed" can no longer respond very effectively to new emerging variants ...
We, anthropologists and historians of religions, are worried about seeing the emergence of these logics of accusation, harassment and exclusion again, as if the teaching of history were only a perpetual failure.
Danièle Dehouve and Christophe Lemardelé
Of course, these "logics of accusation" are by definition contradictory with the values of the Republic. If we designate scapegoats - the “antivax” -, we thereby renounce the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Since this summer, we have created second-class citizens: thousands of caregivers suspended from their jobs, the ban on going to the cinema, to restaurants, to entering a public library, including for children between five and five. eleven years de facto excluded by the new discriminatory "status" of their parents. How to explain that these measures did not arouse more criticism? Only one answer is possible: the common democratic values have been swept away by a deeper mechanism, that of the construction of the person responsible for the collective misfortune.
Even more serious, we created the conditions for harassment mechanisms. The designation of the person responsible for popular vindictiveness does not result, as in a small African village, in the expulsion of a man, but in the building of a group of leaders. Therefore, anyone belonging to this group can be considered guilty, even a child. While the fight against bullying has been recognized (in accordance with our democratic values) as a priority objective in schools which are particularly affected by this phenomenon, we are now pushing teachers and students, from college onwards, to inquire about everyone's vaccination status, against any principle of medical confidentiality and knowing that this can only trigger harassment reactions.But these then become morally acceptable, not to say desirable.
We, anthropologist and historian of religions, are worried to see the emergence again of these logics of accusation, harassment, exclusion, as if the teaching of history were only a perpetual failure, as if knowledge science and academics was just a colloquium entertainment.