from Leviticus 16:6-10
Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.
The boundary between animals and humans is drawn by what the anthropologist René Girard calls the "victimary process," the deliberate selection of an innocent outsider to undergo elimination for the sake of the community. The "scapegoat mechanism" in Girard's phrase, by which generalized antipathy toward a chosen victim is acted out, serves to quench an otherwise insatiable animal appetite for violence.
The second quote is from James Carroll. And it is relevant to our time.
Today is a Federal holiday now known as Veterans Day. Originally called Armistice Day, it commemorated the 1918 ending of the Great War, the War to end all Wars, the incredible slaughter especially along the trenchlines of France. Yesterday I listened - as I do each November 11 - to Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" which is in part based upon the poetry of Wilfred Owen, who died in that conflict. And perhaps, given the quote from Leviticus with which I began, it should be no surprise that the first words quoted from Owen, as Britten breaks from the Latin of the Requiem Mass, are
What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
I am not here to write about Owen or Britten - I have done so on this site before. As I read this morning Carroll's Boston Globe op ed, entitled Primitive impulses of war I began a process of reflection, one I might not have shared yesterday even had Carroll's piece appeared then, but which at the remove of one day from the anniversary seems appropriate to share today.
Carroll opens bluntly
THE INTERPLAY of religion and violence is considered by some a mark only of primitive culture. When the jihadist cries "God is Great" before detonating his explosive vest, or when, conversely, the Crusades are invoked to justify assault on radical Islam, secular critics can indulge a satisfying sense of superiority over believers, clinging to holy war.
After noting that the Bush use of religious references, of dividing the world into spheres of good and evil seem discredited by the failures of policy, Carroll tells us that
War-justifying appeals to the rhetoric of faith are suddenly out of fashion, but that does not mean that a subliminal link between religion and violence no longer exists.
The sacred and violence are often explicitly joined, archaic religion is the source of culture, and violence is a mark of the human condition.
After offering the quote about sacred victimization, Carroll notes that such violence seems to serve the purpose of a control on violence"
"Redemption" is the social calm that follows on the elimination of violent urges when they are "appeased" through ritualized killing. A social need is satisfied. Sacrificial violence (whether directed at an Aztec virgin, or the goat of Leviticus or Jesus) serves the cause of peace. This process becomes "religious" when the social need is attributed to a deity, to whom the victim is "offered."
He argues that the impulses as described are present whenever humans embark on war, and applies this specifically to World War I, whose ending is the source of the holiday commemorated both yesterday and today. Let me push fair use a bit and quote the three relevant paragraphs:
The greatest mystery of that conflict was how the high commands of both sides could have so long persisted in the evident futility of infantry assaults across No Man's Land against defensive lines that were, finally, never breached by either side. Technology (the machine gun) totally favored defense, but commanders never yielded their absolute preference for offense because the waste of life was, to them, no waste.
That millions of soldiers died for no discernible purpose can be explained only by the irrational belief in the salvific power of sacrifice as such. The Tommies, Micks, Jocks, Doughboys, Frogs, and Jerries who went endlessly "over the top" only to be mowed down were, in effect, a legion of scapegoats.
The nations that glorified them were in the grip of a displaced faith in the power of sanctioned death, operating in a realm apart from any conceivable war aim. The trenches became Europe's altar. A brutal god was being appeased. Otherwise, parents would never have sent their innocent sons off to that carnage. Their innocence was the point.
Carroll notes that in World War II the focus changed, that the victims were not only the Jews on whom the Germans focused, but on those civilians killed in massive bombing attacks in the last six months of the war, which of course culminated in the nuclear attacks of August 6 and 9 in Japan.
Carroll argues, rightly I think, that we contain within ourselves the primitive instincts of our distant ancestors, that our actions operate on both apparent and hidden levels, the first rational but the second not. He says tht this is why our efforts at war always seem to go too far, it is
why the violence of war inevitably continues past points of tactical and strategic meaning.
When I read this phrase, which appears at the end of penultimate paragraph, many images from many wars exploded from my memory. It is not just the leveling of Fallujah, nor the firebombing of Tokyo, nor the slaughter of My Lai, nor the killing of Germans trying to surrender on the top of the cliffs at Omaha Beach. And it is not just that which we officially recognize as war. It is a football coach running up a score. It is the crushing of a political opponent merely because you can. It is a teacher who humiliates a student in front of her classmates. It is the boss who acts similarly with an employee before his peers.
It is of course most obvious in military conflict, and it is right for Carroll to so focus, given the time of the year, and the inevitable commemoration.
The sacred and violence are connected. In perhaps our greatest speech we read in the final sentence
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
that these dead shall not have died in vain I could not help but be reminded of these words when I read Carroll's final paragraph:
Sacrifice for its own sake takes on mystical significance that, in a secular age, can no longer be described - or defended. But it can be discerned, for example, in the anguished hope that troops will not have died in vain if others follow them. Once these subliminal currents are openly acknowledged, they can finally be left behind. In America lately, God is banished as an open sponsor of the war, but if God does not will this slaughter of innocents, who does?
I voluntarily served in a violent branch of the military during a war, enlisting in the Marines in 1965. I pay all of my taxes, including those that fund our officially sanctioned violence, in the past and currently. My hands are far from clean. That perhaps diminishes the power of any words I can offer in criticism of official violence.
And I am prone to the cutting remark, and have been known as supervisor, coach and teacher to act with violence in the words I have used towards those under my authority. Thus when I attempt to expand the scope of Carroll's examination to a broader context the criticism I may offer must first fall on me.
In recent months I have repeatedly acknowledged that at times we have no choice, that we must resort to force and to violence, because the alternative is so much more horrible, that we must choose the lesser of two evils. I have insisted that we acknowledge that such a choice is still to choose evil.
But that now seems to me insufficient. I think we must also decouple our actions from any attempt to sanctify them, to excuse what we do. The world is too interconnected. There is no wilderness into which we can drive a scapegoat which we have encumbered with our sins, our guilt, our responsibility. Had we any doubt, we merely need to look at the destruction we have already wrought upon the natural world which we attempt to dominate.
We attempt to use a scapegoat mechanism, to shift blame from ourselves to something we can view as external. We may justify our actions by claiming that the "other" struck us first, or disproportionately. We may claim that we are justified in protecting our way of life, our freedoms, our religion. But do we not also have a responsibility to acknowledge our own complicity, lest the cycle of retribution, of violence begetting violence, remain never-ending?
I have no answers, only questions. And of course I must first direct those questions at myself. Yesterday I quoted Gandhi, beginning with his famous line that
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Of course I must apply that to myself personally, to my words and actions. I also should in my political activity insist that my nation attempt to live by the same standard: if we wish to see an end to terrorism, we must not as a nation act in a way that embodies or engenders terrorism. Those who flew planes into our buildings on that sunny Tuesday 6 years, 2 months and one day ago had no right and no justification to do so, nor do we have the right to threaten a father with the rape of his child because we think we are entitled to information which in fact he might not even have. Violence justified by our religious or patriotic beliefs will inevitably be responded to with violence begotten from the religious and patriotic beliefs of those against whom we have applied our violent methods.
The scapegoat mechanism. Carroll does not fully explore the dimensions of that idea, nor did Girard. It is more than displacing our thirst for violence upon some other in an officially sanctioned way. It is also what enables our continued violence, because it is sanctioned, because it is approved, because - unfortunately - too often it is glorified.
If we understand this, have we any choice but to attempt to change the paradigm, to challenge first ourselves and then others to a model which seeks to avoid the first violent word or action which inevitably leads to escalation? No scapegoat can serve this purpose.
Perhaps what I seek is impossible, you will say. Perhaps Carroll is right, and we are dealing with an inevitable part of the human condition. You will argue that the scapegoat mechanism at least limits the extent of the violence. But does it? When we kill hundreds of thousands in a bombing attack, whether using incendiaries or nuclear devices, how is that a limitation of the violence? And how can we know the limits of the human condition unless we are willing to explore them without preconditions?
No more scapegoats. No more blessing of violence. If we must choose evil, let us at least be honest enough to acknowledge it. Perhaps then, and perhaps only then, can our consistent dependence upon violence begin to change.
And if it does not? The human condition also includes our ability to become ever more destructive. And if it does not, then the human condition WILL change, either by eradication or by near-total destruction of the environment and civilization which have helped define and sustain human existence.
The choice is stark. The possibilities may seem bleak.
When we choose the lesser of two evils it is because the greater is too horrible to contemplate.
Is not that sufficient reason to try to find a way out of our cycles of sanctioned violence?
No more scapegoats. That is, no more placing the blame on anyone except ourselves.
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Let it begin with me.
Peace.