The scapegoat that broke the cycle
Because the term, scapegoat, is so common, we may have gotten to the point where many use it without even realizing where it came from. If the term can be misused by Michael Scott, the famously fumbling faux pas of a character from the still popular series, The Office, then it must have cultural relevance. This term not only has biblical roots but is also a powerful image for Christians in our closer walk with Christ, especially in picking up our Cross and following. Before we get there, I really desire that you know a little about Rene Girard first.
Rene Girard is having, deservedly so, a bit of a moment. From a Catholic perspective, this may largely be due to the significance recognized by Bishop Robert Barron, who has posted videos about Girard’s ideas, and Word on Fire has recently published An Introduction to Rene Girard by Fr. Elias Carr. Though Girard, the Stanford professor, sociologist, literary critic and philosophical anthropologist, died nearly ten years ago, his work has captivated the scholarly, popular, Christian and secular worlds ever since. Besides the explosion of Girardian studies by academics of many religious traditions, there is also the award-winning book Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis that applies Girard’s ideas to the business world. There is even a prominent meditation on his theory of mimetic desire in season 2 of the popular series The White Lotus. These examples show that his ideas have resonated with a wide range of people from very different backgrounds on a deeply personal, human level.
It may be expected for intellectuals like Girard to want his ideas to become part of the cultural conversation. Girard himself would go further and ask, “but where did that desire come from?” This question, which asks for the models upon whom our desires are based, is essentially the basis of many of our day-to-day interactions. Mimetic desire, which was Girard’s foundational idea that leads to the scapegoat, says that human desires imitate those of a model. We want what our models want.
While many balk at this proposition, we like to believe we are independent in something so personal, it is unavoidable once one’s eyes have been opened. Even before we are conscious of desires we are desiring based on what our models have shown us are valuable. It is why young boys want to dress like dad and young girls want to wear makeup like mom. To illustrate this for my students, I point them to the example of two siblings and one toy. The toy can be sitting on the floor with neither caring about it, but as soon as one sibling grabs it, the toy becomes the most important thing in the world to the other sibling. It has gained value by the other’s desire.
Extrapolate this to any other aspect of life: advertising, “keeping up with the Joneses,” the stock market. These all exist because mimetic desire exists. But Girard does not stop there. This desire within a close community will bounce back and forth between members, creating a building tension within them, which Girard called the mimetic crisis. As each desire is met and a new desire produced, the continuous gap creates greater frustration. Think back to the “two siblings and one toy” example on an increasing scale. Girard said the outlet humanity has constructed to address this rising tension and avoid apocalyptic chaos is to open the release valve. This is found in what he recognizes as the scapegoat mechanism. The community finds one person or party upon which to bear the burden of this growing tension. The community then expels that scapegoat from said community and, along with it, the building frustration. The community has been temporarily relieved and unity is restored, for now.
This mechanism not only becomes accepted by the community, but it becomes sacralized and ritualized. We see this in the biblical narrative in Leviticus 16:20-28 (some translations use the actual term “scapegoat” and some “Azazel”), but the roots come even earlier, in Genesis 21. While Isaac is recognized as Abraham’s firstborn son of the covenant, the firstborn chronological son is Ishmael. However, Ishmael is the product of Abraham’s sin of unfaithfulness, not just to Sarah but to God. Ishmael represents a separation from God’s promises. Ishmael could not be offered in the holy place like Isaac would be offered later in Genesis 22. Ishmael and his mother are sent away into the desert, carrying with them Abraham’s sin. Ishmael is the scapegoat who, though innocent himself, carries with him “all [the] iniquities to an isolated region” (cf Leviticus 16:22) away from the community.
What Girard also saw is that this theory is presented in all the world’s great literature and mythology from Oedipus to Cervantes to Dosteovsky and even the Hunger Games (that’s my own addition). However, what drew Girard back to his Catholic faith was that in the Bible this theory is presented in a different way. Instead of showing the scapegoat as the problem, the Bible emphasizes the innocence of the scapegoat and criticizes the mechanism itself. Not surprisingly, the example par excellence of the Scapegoat putting the system on trial is Jesus Christ.
The scapegoat in the Old Testament had the sins of the people placed upon its shoulders by the chief priest on the day of atonement. Then, it was driven into the desert to carry the sins with it. Jesus, after having the sins of the people placed upon his shoulders in the Cross, was similarly driven out of town in order to die. He did not just function as a scapegoat because he took the blame, the Gospels are clear that his example was the Scapegoat-to-end-all-scapegoats because they make it obvious how innocent he was.
This recognition of the scapegoat’s innocence, though it culminates in Christ, began much earlier as we saw. Ishmael is not even the first example. Girard saw in Abel the practice of the scapegoat mechanism in the smallest of communities, just him and his brother Cain. Here, too, the Bible makes clear of Abel’s innocence in Genesis 4:10 and Hebrews 11:4. There is also the scapegoat mechanism, as well as the clear innocence of the victim, at work in the story of the Old Testament Joseph, first by his brothers (Genesis 37:18-36) and then Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:5-20). Joseph is recognized innocent and it is because of his forgiveness that the cycle of violence is broken.
Just like Christian theology recognizes in Christ using death to conquer death, so too does he use our fallen human mechanism to build community to conquer the mechanism itself and redeem our desires. However, it took God’s revelation of the innocence of the victim to upend the mechanism itself. Christ became the scapegoat in order to become the model. Our desires should be determined by him. We want what Jesus wanted, which was to become a sacrifice of love.
During Holy Week, we see the cycle played out in its purified form. Not only do we have the juxtaposition of Bar-abbas, which directly translates to “son of the father,” and Jesus, the true Son of the Father, but we also have direct scapegoat language used by Caiaphas, who said “consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish” (John 11:50). This is what every practitioner of the scapegoat mechanism has said or implied since, according to Girard, the beginning of human civilization.
We are all tempted to use the scapegoat mechanism. But because we are all “in Christ” (Ephesians 1:12) and members of “his body, the Church” (Ephesians 1:23), we must put ourselves in that same courageous place for the sake of others. This cruciformity of Christ’s Body, the Church, is the only thing that will break the cycle of blame in communities and bring the world closer to Christ.
Not only is there evidence of God’s vindication of Jesus by his Resurrection, but because of his willingness to take on the scapegoat’s burden his Resurrection shows that the mechanism is powerless to God’s will. God’s will, in raising Jesus from the dead, superseded the very human reality of the scapegoat. Just as we first participate in Christ’s Mystical Body in his crucifixion, we too will participate in this same vindication in the general resurrection. This will complete the breaking of the scapegoat cycle as humanity will no longer need, or even desire, scapegoats for the survival of the community. Their community, their comm-union, will now be found in Christ.
Christianity is not a program to build our stoic muscles, but a recognition of our need to break free from the cycle of sin and the means to do so by for conformity to Christ, especially His Cross. This conformity must include our desires. Uniting ourselves to Christ means uniting ourselves to the Cross. It means becoming the scapegoat in order to show the injustice of scapegoating. This might mean losing- a lot. This might even mean losing something truly important to us, but with Philippians 3:8, even in this loss, it so we may gain Christ.
