Society is Founded on a Lie | Girard’s Scapegoat Explained

Summary

Highlights

• The Trojan War is used as an example of mimetic desire leading to conflict. ⚔️
• Reciprocal violence is endemic to societies and can escalate rapidly. 🔥
• Girard's stages: mimetic contagion, scapegoating, deification, and institutionalization form societal foundations. 🏛️
• Scapegoats are often perceived as powerful, linking violence and divinity. 🦸‍♂️
• Christianity disrupted the cycle of pagan violence with its focus on moral rather than powerful dichotomies. ⛪

Key Takeaways

• Societal peace is often based on a foundational lie, where violence and scapegoating preserve order. 🤔
• The scapegoat mechanism involves blaming a single victim to unite the community and restore peace. 🐐
• Pagan societies traditionally used myths rooted in violence to establish social norms and institutions. 📜
• The cyclic nature of societal violence suggests a continuing pattern unless interrupted by a new paradigm. 🔄
• Christianity introduced a shift from cyclical to linear historical narratives, challenging the pagan order. ✝️

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Lecture Introduction and Themes in 'The Iliad' The chapter focuses on the introduction to a lecture series, highlighting key themes in 'The Iliad'. The speaker reflects on how 'The Iliad', a Greek poem about the Trojan War, addresses timeless themes such as envy and vengeance. These themes are related to the broader topic of the lecture, likely involving an examination of how these emotions can lead to larger conflicts and all-out wars.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Philosophical Perspectives on Peace and Social Cohesion In this chapter, the discussion revolves around the philosophical exploration of peace and social cohesion. Through the transcript, questions are raised about the origins of peace and the development of social cohesion following periods of conflict marked by violence and heightened emotions. The chapter delves into Enlightenment philosophers' notion of a rational social contract as a tool to achieve order amidst chaos, as well as Gerard's perspective on scapegoating as a mechanism involved in this dynamic.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Scapegoating in Modern Times The chapter "Scapegoating in Modern Times" explores the enduring presence of scapegoating in today's society. Despite the perception of a post-enlightenment world guided by logic and reason, the tendency to blame and ostracize individuals remains prevalent. The lecture aims to delve into the underlying factors that truly contribute to worldly peace.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Lecture Overview: Girard's Philosophy of History The chapter provides an overview of Girard's philosophy of history, focusing on psychological and interdividual mechanisms, such as mimesis, metaphysical desire, and mimetic rivalry. These concepts, introduced in previous lectures, are explored in their interplay and manifestation under various historical conditions.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Pagan Society and the Role of Religion Gerard proposes a comprehensive theory that links human social and biological evolution, starting from the origins of human culture to an apocalyptic future.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Reciprocal Violence in Human Societies The chapter begins with a focus on the idea of 'Reciprocal Violence' in human societies, tracing back to historical contexts and examining societies before the advent of Christianity. It emphasizes the understanding of Pagan societies, which includes Greeks, Romans, Hinduism, and shamanistic traditions. The primary feature of these societies is their religious practice. The lecture aims to delve deeply into the religious tapestry of these early societies and explore how their beliefs structured social interactions, particularly concerning the notion of reciprocal violence.
• 03:00 - 03:30: The Case Study of the Trojan War The lecture explores the formation and origin of pagan religion, aiming to understand the underlying problems that religion seeks to address. It includes an analysis of how pagan gods are conceptualized and the fundamental role they play in pagan societies. In this context, Gerard's perspective is discussed, particularly his Darwinian view on the evolution of human societies.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Examples from Literature and History: Greek Plays and World Wars The chapter discusses the role of religions in society, suggesting they serve an adaptive purpose, similar to a lizard's tail that breaks off in emergencies. The text introduces Gerard's theory that human groups are prone to escalating conflicts, leading to reciprocal violence which can threaten self-destruction. The chapter argues that among hominoid groups, survival was possible only for those that discovered effective cultural processes to manage such violence.
• 04:00 - 04:30: The Mechanisms of Increased Rivalry and Reciprocal Violence The chapter "The Mechanisms of Increased Rivalry and Reciprocal Violence" delves into how religion functions as a solution to the problem of reciprocal violence. It begins by comparing religion to nature's "unnecessary survival mechanisms," analogous to the tale of lizards. The chapter suggests that to understand the role of religion in addressing reciprocal violence, one can examine the Trojan War, which Gerard views as the genesis of Western culture. The war starts with a reference to the Spartans, setting the stage for exploring the historical context and solutions provided by religion.
• 04:30 - 05:00: The Role of Scapegoating in Quelling Social Chaos The chapter explores the concept of scapegoating as a mechanism to address social chaos, using the example of Paris and Helen to illustrate the dynamics of memetic desire and its potential to spark conflict, such as the Trojan War. Paris, a prince of Troy, seduces Helen, the wife of the Spartan King, illustrating a desire driven not by genuine preference but by the allure of possessing what another has.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Case Study: Oedipus and the Scapegoat Mechanism This chapter explores the inherent conflict within human societies as proposed by Gerard, suggesting that humans naturally desire similar objects, even when alternatives exist. This inclination potentially leads to conflict and violence. The discussion is illustrated by referring to events in Homer's Iliad, focusing on the Greeks' siege of Troy instigated by the actions of the Trojan Prince. The chapter delves into how a localized conflict or act of violence can escalate into a broader, uncontrollable contagion.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Memetic Contagion and Social Breakdown The chapter titled 'Memetic Contagion and Social Breakdown' discusses the themes found in the story of The Iliad, focusing particularly on Achilles' internal conflict. As the Greeks gather a formidable force to reclaim their honor, including heroes like Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax, and Achilles, the central narrative revolves around Achilles' hesitance to fight in the Trojan War. The story begins with the Greeks already at the Trojan Shore, struggling to make progress, and Achilles being reluctant to fight alongside them due to his own personal grievances.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Rivalry and Social Unrest in Contemporary Contexts The chapter discusses the nature of social unrest and rivalry, drawing parallels to the events of the Iliad. It describes how violence, much like a contagious disease, affects everyone in proximity. The text references the cyclical escalation of violence, beginning with the Greeks besieging Troy, followed by the Trojans burning Greek ships, and the Greeks responding by killing Trojan heroes.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Scapegoating as a Social Solution This chapter discusses the concept of scapegoating as a mechanism to resolve social tensions, using the story of Hector and Achilles from Greek mythology as an illustration. It recounts how Hector, prince of Troy, kills Patroclus, who is Achilles' closest friend. In a vengeful response, Achilles joins the war and kills Hector. This sequence of events highlights the cycle of violence and revenge, suggesting reciprocal violence is contagious and impacts everyone involved, regardless of their original intentions.
• 07:00 - 07:30: The Unanimity and Power Dynamics in Scapegoating The chapter delves into the theme of unanimity and power dynamics within the context of scapegoating. It discusses how the act of violence, initiated by Paris's abduction of Helen, extends beyond the conflict between Trojans and Greeks. Sophocles' narrative on the aftermath of Achilles' death highlights intragroup conflicts, particularly the rivalry between Odysseus and Ajax over Achilles' armor, illustrating internal power struggles among the Greeks.
• 07:30 - 08:00: Deification of Scapegoats in Society In this chapter, the narrative centers on the theme of scapegoating in society through the lens of Greek mythology. The story recounts how Odysseus, known for his cunning nature, wins the magnificent armor of Achilles, crafted by the divine armorsmith Hephaestus. This victory triggers Ajax, the other competitor, to fall into a hallucination stirred by the goddess Athena. In a fit of rage and confusion, Ajax tragically takes his own life and casts a curse upon his Greek comrades, with whom he had endured nearly a decade of warfare. The chapter explores how, in times of mutual violence within societies, individuals or groups are often unjustly ostracized, reflecting the 'deification' of scapegoats amidst conflict and tension.
• 08:00 - 08:30: Modern Comparisons and the Transformation of Victims into Gods The chapter explores the idea that violence is not only contagious but also indiscriminate, as it can easily be directed towards anyone, including teammates. It describes how violence seeks out conflict as if compelled by a need to strike out. Furthermore, it gives anecdotal evidence of encountering individuals or groups who are intentionally seeking trouble, illustrating how some people are predisposed to engage in violence.
• 08:30 - 09:00: Divergence from Pagan Narratives in Christianity This chapter explores how certain narratives within Christianity diverge from pagan rituals and stories. It discusses the idea that individuals often seek external targets for their anger, similar to how characters like Ajax and Odysseus in Pagan stories acted. The chapter suggests that these individuals might provoke conflicts not just with strangers but even with friends, highlighting a broader theme of anger management within these narratives.
• 09:00 - 09:30: The Founding Murder Myth and Cultural Institutions The chapter explores the concept of the 'Founding Murder Myth' and its prevalence across various cultural institutions. The idea is that violence is an inherent energy that needs to be directed somewhere, often leading to a cycle of reciprocal violence. An example given is the French Revolution, where the cycle of violence started with the aristocrats facing the guillotine, followed by Robespierre's political opponents, then his allies, and eventually Robespierre himself. This progression illustrates how violence can become an arbitrary contagion spreading through society.
• 09:30 - 10:00: Case Study: Hinduism and the Hymn of Purusha This chapter explores the nature of violence, drawing parallels between historical events and mythological narratives. It discusses how violence can become self-perpetuating and indiscriminate, as illustrated by the phrase 'the revolution eats its own children' from the French Revolution, indicating that violence often harms those who instigate it. The chapter also revisits the story of the Trojan War to further illustrate the far-reaching and unintended consequences of violence.
• 10:00 - 10:30: Founding Murders in Roman Society The chapter title is 'Founding Murders in Roman Society.' The narrative continues from the victorious Greek generals, Agamemnon and Odysseus, returning home to discover violence has taken over their homesteads during their absence. Meanwhile, the Trojan refugees, striving to establish a new Troy in Italy after the original was destroyed by Greeks, perpetuate this cycle of violence. Their journey and conquests fuel further conflicts across Italy, transforming a single act of localized violence into a sprawling influence that engulfs an entire continent.
• 10:30 - 11:00: Other Historical Examples of Founding Murder Myths The chapter discusses historical examples of founding myths centered around murder, referencing the story of the Trojan War as an instance of reciprocal violence observed in literature. The author argues that such concepts are not confined to fictional narratives. A historical event is cited: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914, an act of violence that is believed to have contributed to the outbreak of World War I. This example illustrates the real-world implications of reciprocal violence in historical contexts.
• 11:00 - 11:30: The Cyclical Nature of Pagan Society The chapter explores the concept of cyclical patterns within pagan societies by drawing parallels between historical events leading to global conflicts. The narrative begins with a discussion on the July Crisis, an event that led to World War I, illustrating a domino effect where Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia catalyzed a broader international conflict involving numerous allies. The chapter then transitions to World War II, suggesting similar reasoning and causality. It also makes a comparison with the mythological perspective of Achilles, emphasizing human decisions and emotional motivations as significant factors in the cyclic nature of history and conflicts.
• 11:30 - 12:00: Contemporary Moral Paradigms The chapter explores the reluctance of the United States to engage in World War II initially, likening its stance to being an external observer of a European conflict. However, the chapter explains that the actions of Japan, culminating in the attack on Pearl Harbor, inevitably drew America into the war, mirroring the mythological necessity to react as seen in the story of Patroclus. The summary delves into the broader theme of reciprocal violence, portraying it as an infectious process, gradually escalating tensions and involvement.
• 12:00 - 12:30: Conclusion: Christianity’s Role in Historical Progress Gerard posits that vengeance is an endless, self-perpetuating cycle that threatens to engulf entire communities. Each act of vengeance risks igniting a chain reaction that could be destructive to smaller societies.

Society is Founded on a Lie | Girard’s Scapegoat Explained Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 lecture four the scapegoat mechanism one of my favorite stories growing up was The Iliad the famous Greek poem about the Trojan War it explores Timeless themes that Gerard covers so closely such as the way that envy and Vengeance can strip us of considered reason now even small and localized acts of violence can escalate into all-out war
• 00:30 - 01:00 reading the alien I've always wondered when violence erupts and emotions are stirred how do we establish peace and then in those moments of peace where does social cohesion come from enlightenment philosophers would lead us to believe that in the middle of such a war of all against all that we can establish some rational social contract but Gerard's answer scapegoating
• 01:00 - 01:30 this is not as foreign an idea as it may initially sound though we no longer sacrifice goats the logic of scapegoating is alive in the modern world and though we like to tell ourselves that we've reached a post-enlightenment world driven by Logic and reason we're still looking for people to blame and ostracize and in this lecture we're going to examine what really lies at the foundations of worldly peace
• 01:30 - 02:00 and Order in the next four lectures we will cover the entirety of Gerard's philosophy of history and we will see how the psychological and interdividual mechanisms mimesis metaphysical desire memetic rivalry that we have uncovered in the last two lectures how they will interplay and manifest in different historical conditions towards history if you can believe it is
• 02:00 - 02:30 even more ambitious and encompassing than his psychology Gerard believes that he has uncovered the key logic of Human Social and even biological evolution that begins from the first human culture and that will eventually lead us towards apocalypse the literal end of the world Gerard's history can be broken down into four large movements the past Pagan Society the rupture Christian Revelation the present modernity in the near future
• 02:30 - 03:00 apocalypse and so in this lecture we will begin where history begins and where Gerard also begins Pagan Society our past Pagan what I'm referring to are societies that are not Christian but more specifically pre-christian when I say Pagan think the Greeks and their gods are the Romans and their Pantheon shamanistic societies Hinduism the defining feature of all of these Pagan societies and all the ones of course that I haven't mentioned is their religion and we will spend the entirety
• 03:00 - 03:30 of the lecture today covering the form and origin of Pagan religion we are going to learn how pagan gods are made and even stronger what lies at the very Foundation of all Pagan societies but before we can even begin to inquire what form religion takes we need to understand the problem which religion is the solution to Gerard takes a darwinian stance on the evolution of human societies arguing
• 03:30 - 04:00 that if religions exist across the Spectrum everywhere it must serve like the lizard's tale that breaks off in an emergency some adaptive purpose Gerard's claim is going to be that human groups are prone to escalating conflict which tends towards self-destruction what he called reciprocal violence reciprocal violence threatened all hominoid groups to the point where the only ones that survived were the ones that stumbled upon a cultural process as
• 04:00 - 04:30 a solution Pagan religion religion is to humanity then with the tale is to lizards unnecessary survival mechanism so let us begin there and start with the problem which religion is the solution for reciprocal violence to understand what Gerard has in mind with reciprocal violence let us look at the Trojan War which is a Fitting Place I think to begin Gerard's history for it is the Genesis of Western culture the Trojan War begins when the Spartan
• 04:30 - 05:00 King's wife Helen is seduced by his guest Paris the prince of Troy and Paris takes Helen Back to Troy immediately I must highlight that the conflict which ignites the Trojan War is none other than the medic desire after all Paris as a prince could have almost anyone that he wanted yet what he wanted most was an object destinated by a model out of all the women that Paris could have he wanted what the Spartan King had indeed the memetic nature of Desire is why
• 05:00 - 05:30 Gerard thinks conflict is so likely among human societies it makes us naturally desire a similar set of objects even when we have plentiful other options available to us but let's continue to observe how this one local Act of conflict or more abstractly violence spirals into an uncontrollable Contagion first we have the events of the Iliad As Told by Homer Furious by the actions of the Trojan Prince the Greeks Siege Troy
• 05:30 - 06:00 for vengeance and to win back their wounded honor to do so the Greeks assembled an Armageddon of Heroes the most notable being Agamemnon Odysseus Ajax and of course Achilles the whole story of Iliad is about Achilles decision a will he won't he fight in the Trojan War because you see The Iliad begins with the Greeks on Trojan Shores having made little progress and achilles is pissed off and doesn't really want to join his fellow Greeks and he leans
• 06:00 - 06:30 towards abandoning them and going home but reciprocal violence has a way like a disease like a plague of enveloping everyone Too Close contagiously spreading to all who are too proximate just observe how more and more people get caught up in the violence of the events of the Iliad first the Greeks Siege the walls of Troy in response the Trojans burn the Greek ships then the Greeks kill Trojan Heroes and importantly
• 06:30 - 07:00 Hector the other prince of Troy the brother of Paris who stole Helen he kills patroclus Achilles best friend Achilles then fueled with burning rage eventually enters the war and kills Hector of course the story we all know too well is that eventually himself meets his demise shot by an arrow to the heel reciprocal violence then is like a disease that gets to all who are too close even if they never wanted to
• 07:00 - 07:30 participate but this violence spawned by paris's Act of stealing Helen is not only between the Trojans and the Greeks there's an interesting story told by Sophocles about the aftermath of Achilles death where there's infighting and internal memetic rivalries going on within the rank of the Greeks and not just between the Greeks and the Trojans The Story Goes Like This Odysseus and Ajax are arguing over who gets to keep the armor of Achilles the
• 07:30 - 08:00 armor of Achilles is made by Hephaestus the armorsmith God and as a result is very desirable Odysseus being the cunning man he is wins the armor and out of a fit of rage and hallucination induced by Athena Ajax the other competitor ends up ending his own life and cursing the rest of the Greeks with whom he had fought side by side for for almost an entire decade the idea here is that when societies are enveloped in reciprocal violence tensions are so
• 08:00 - 08:30 inflamed that they can be easily redirected to anyone even one's own teammates not only is violence contagious but violence is also blind it's simply looking for trouble for something and someone to sink its teeth into yeah I don't know if you've ever gone out and come across a group or a single individual who are just looking for trouble that night and at times I've even met people who who go out with the
• 08:30 - 09:00 sole intention of starting a fight and usually what they'll do is they'll find external people to fight because just like the stories that you were mentioning of Ajax and Odysseus fundamentally they're they're pissed off in looking for a place to channel their anger so whoever is nearby whoever is around them will become a Target and sometimes they'll even start fights with a friend yeah I think that's a a perhaps relevant contemporary example where it sounds like you're saying that there are some people who just have a constant
• 09:00 - 09:30 basis of energy of violence and they need to channel it somewhere no matter who it is and sometimes they can even fight their friends and I think that's exactly the logic of reciprocal violence the logic of reciprocal violence is like what you said but for societies I mean think French Revolution where it's first the aristocrats who get taken for guillotine and then it's Rob's Pierre's political opponents and then his Rob's Pierre's allies and eventually it's Rob's Pierce himself and it just kind of descends into this arbitrary contagion
• 09:30 - 10:00 that chooses its victims and the next targets of violence somewhat arbitrarily what do they say about the revolution that the French Revolution eats its own children well it eats its own children because violence is blind violence is just trying to find an outlet it just grabs on to whatever is near now let's go back to the Trojan War because we're still not done yet on the violent consequences of a single localized Act of disrespect and violence the violence
• 10:00 - 10:30 keeps on spreading the Victorious Greek generals Agamemnon and Odysseus go home to find a violence plaguing their own homes in their absence but more impactfully the Trojan refugees who seek to establish a new Troy after the Old Troy had been destroyed by the Greeks carry their violence into Italy where they continue to fight and conquer one single localized act of violence spreading exponentially to envelop an entire continent in Flames this is the
• 10:30 - 11:00 story of the Trojan War and also the logic of a reciprocal violence now while the examples I have just provided come from literature so that it's a bit easier and relevant for us to understand this is not so Gerard claims just the material of fiction we can see reciprocal violence operating in history on I believe June 28 1914 Arc Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated ferdinand's assassination led to what is
• 11:00 - 11:30 called now as the July crisis and precipitated austria-hungary's declaration of war against Serbia which in turn triggered a series of events that eventually led to austria-hungary's allies and Serbia's allies declaring war on each other which of course started World War One now a similar logic I think happened in World War II recall Achilles didn't want to fight in the Trojan War to begin with he wanted to go home until the Trojans killed his best friend well I think in the same
• 11:30 - 12:00 manner America in the beginning of World War II didn't want to fight either it didn't want to get involved in another world war in Europe that was not on its own soil but due to the sheer size and resources Japan couldn't leave America alone any more than the Trojans could have left patroclus alone slaughtering countless Trojan soldiers Pearl Harbor was America's patroclus and its bombing forced America's hand into the war reciprocal violence then is like a contagion it slowly starts to spread and
• 12:00 - 12:30 envelops everybody nearby this is what Gerard has to say Vengeance then is an interminable infinitely repetitive process every time it turns up in some part of a community it threatens to involve the whole social body there's the risk that the active Vengeance will initiate a chain reaction whose consequences will quickly prove fatal to any society of modest size you know that quote reminds me of uh of a
• 12:30 - 13:00 Greek life Feud and what happened with us is I found that these feuds always started in such small ways with these little things that happened and I remember one time it was like freshman year or something and there was a party and a recruit came to the party of fraternity a and then fraternity B came to come pick up that recruit and what happened was it was this little small gesture but the fraternity stole that recruit the kid went to the other
• 13:00 - 13:30 fraternity and what came from that was this multi-year rivalry between the two houses that lasted the entirety of our College years and what's crazy to me about that incident is that it all began with one small gesture precisely and I think that's exactly the logic Gerard is worried about there can be these small seemingly innocuous gestures stealing a recruit taking someone's wife although that's not as innocuous but nonetheless these can envelop entire communities or even continents into war but I suppose
• 13:30 - 14:00 uh you had a little different Greek Feud than the Trojans Gerard's claim here is that almost with the certainty of Newtonian laws groups will be engaged in this form of contagion and the only cultures that survived are ones that uncovered a certain cultural technology to bring peace which we will turn to now we now have an understanding of what the problem is the problem plaguing all hominoid societies was reciprocal violence this combustible cycle of
• 14:00 - 14:30 Vengeance that sees one localized act of violence envelop an entire society and chaos the solution to this reciprocal violence is what Gerard called the scapegoat mechanism a cultural mechanism that would kick into place when early human societies were on the brink of Destruction now we're going to dive into this throughout the course of the next hour but as a brief overview the scapegoat mechanism has four sequences
• 14:30 - 15:00 four movements first memetic contagion societies would descend into chaos second scapegoating communities start to blame a single victim with causing all of the chaos and in a violent Act of catharsis expel this victim third deification paradoxically this expelled victim is deified into a God in fourth institutionalization myth and institutions start forming around this victim-turned God that becomes the
• 15:00 - 15:30 cultural backbone of an entire Pagan Society in the same way that we uncovered the logic of reciprocal violence through our reading of the Trojan War and its aftermath the best way for us to make sense of the scapegoat mechanism is to turn to Sophocles thieven Trilogy this is the story of Oedipus for it will reveal the secrets of the scapegoat mechanism under interrogation we start with the first step memetic contagion where groups start descending into chaos and violence and for that we
• 15:30 - 16:00 need to look no further than the First Act of the story of Oedipus We Begin Sophocles story of Oedipus with a plague ravishing Thebes where Oedipus is King Oedipus is the king of Thebes he's a new king and he sends his brother-in-law Creon to the Oracle of Delphi asking how we can resolve this play now Creon comes back after Consulting the Oracle of Delphi and he says that the entire plague is
• 16:00 - 16:30 caused by the killer of Elias Elias is the Old King but for Oedipus was there the killer of Elias lurks within the wall of Thieves and that's who they need to expel to end the plague the first thing to note here in this first scene of Oedipus is the close proximity between social contagion right the murder of Elias and biological contagion the plague ravishing Thebes plague is a metaphor of contagion memetic contagion because what the
• 16:30 - 17:00 plague symbolizes is this all-encompassing powerful wave that removes people's Free Will gradually expanding no one's safe from its totalizing grip but beyond just a symbol there's a close real connection between biological contagion and memetic contagion just remember that plague in Antiquity had two meanings it meant both social as well as mental malaise now that may seem quite silly to us right the French
• 17:00 - 17:30 Revolution clearly is social contagion and the black plague was clearly biological contagion but without science it is hard to distinguish for the Pagan mind even today I would argue that the line between social and biological contagion is quite blurry right is the mass depression we are experiencing in society is that social well it seems like it and many would say it is yet we are trying to solve it as if it were a biological contagion with our Mass prescription of ssris this is how social
• 17:30 - 18:00 and biological contagion even today are related but even if biological and social contagion can be neatly delineated in concept they can't be in reality because biological contagion often is a cause for social contagion think back to the black death of 1348 which brewed the foundations for the peasant Revolt of 1381 but we don't have to go as far back as the Black Death as our past two years with covid-19 has shown biological
• 18:00 - 18:30 contagion can readily cause social unrest from the macro to the micro whether it's that the pandemic has inflamed geopolitical tensions no you caused the virus you caused the virus you're not letting that people in you're canceling the airlines it has inflamed domestic tensions at least within America where social unrest has been channeled in different social movements but it also causes strife and trouble within families and communities because of this symbolic real and causal
• 18:30 - 19:00 connection it is not just in Sophocles but many many cultures all who associate plague natural Calamity and contagion social Calamity think about the plague cast by Moses in response to slavery think about the flood of Noah in response to impiety think about the Chinese statecraft of antiquity which sees a bad Harvest or earthquake as signs of political incompetence there's actually a Chinese saying
• 19:00 - 19:30 natural catastrophes and human atrocities in the Pagan mind these two concepts are intimately linked symbolically and causally let's go back to the Oedipus story because there's a lot more to unravel we eventually learn that Oedipus himself is the killer of Elias remember the killer of lias is the cause of the plague so Oedipus is the cause of the plague furthermore Elias unbeknownst to Oedipus was oedipus's
• 19:30 - 20:00 father and his current wife oedipus's current wife whom he had inherited from lies turned out to be his mother Oedipus committed both patricide and incest and how this came to be goes something like this I'll give you a very reduced summary Elias and his wife abandoned Oedipus at a very very young age thinking that they killed him that he was no more however and if he survived and he grew up in a foreign land not knowing his fieben
• 20:00 - 20:30 Heritage one day Oedipus and Elias meet at a Crossroads and not knowing who the other person was both of them got into bickering over right-of-way and out of anger Oedipus kills lias now around the same time there was an earlier plague that was plaguing Thebes and was caused by a sphinx by defeating the Sphinx Oedipus saved Thebes from this first plague and as a result since thieves no longer had a
• 20:30 - 21:00 king because he was killed at the crossroads Oedipus was crowned King and given Elias's old wife that's the story of how he unbeknownst to Oedipus of course committed both patricide and incest just like the plague the imagery of patricide and incest is also a crucial symbol representing memetic contagion it symbolizes the important quality of differences breaking down during the medical contagion listen to this Oedipus is introduced as brother and father of
• 21:00 - 21:30 his children as husband and son of his wife oh how more unnatural can you get both represent a breaking down of the natural social differences recall by social differences Gerard means that social expectations and as a consequence the different desires of different social roles right in Antiquity men and women had very different spheres of the world while even today while those differences between men and women have broken down there's still meaningful differences for example between parent
• 21:30 - 22:00 and child Gerard sees these prohibitions these differences these uh differences in essence between different classes of people as preventing memetic contagion because it limits the sphere of competition and he also sees inversely the breaking down of these differences as both a cause and consequence of memetic contagion the breaking down of social differences is a cause of contagion because it leads to more and more rivalry more people
• 22:00 - 22:30 competing over the same things which makes the contagion and the chaos even worse patricide here is the cause of the whole tragedy if Oedipus had properly observed his place on the crossroads as a son then this would have never happened it's because he transgressed the social role of a son to respect the father it's because that difference had broken down that this whole contagion was caused in the first place the breaking down of difference however is also the outcome or a consequence of contagion because in
• 22:30 - 23:00 times of social unrest opportunities pop up and the social fabric is thrown completely into disarray incest then the fact that Oedipus had sex with his mother is the outcome of contagion think about it like this if the royal family wasn't missing its patriarch or if the Sphinx hadn't thrown thieves into disarray Oedipus who is an outsider would have never had the opportunity to marry the queen who of course turned out to be his own mother incesten the
• 23:00 - 23:30 breaking down of the relationship between son and mother was a consequence of this contagion be because Thebes was thrown into disarray momentic contagion to summarize is the first state of the scapegoat mechanism where Society is descending into chaos it is marked by two qualities the fact that it starts to slowly and slowly entangle larger and larger parts of society and remove people's Free Will as symbolized by the plague and the fact that differences start to break down and nomadic desire
• 23:30 - 24:00 runs rampant as symbolized by patricide and incest indeed we should draw a strong connection to what we discuss here and what we discussed in Gerard's psychology when meta contagion is the societal condition where the number and intensity of memetic rivalries accelerate because of the breaking down of differences it is the state in which large systematic issues creates the conditions for many localized tensions I want to pop in here because you're
• 24:00 - 24:30 talking about patricide and incest but I want to bring that into practical reality things that we're experiencing and you see this in startups where there's this saying that growth solves all problems but this is the opposite of that where what happens in a company when things are going well there's a lot of Goodwill but once there isn't as much growth there becomes a lot of rivalry a lot of competition in the company and that's when people start fighting for scraps that's what memetic contagion is
• 24:30 - 25:00 precisely a fledging startup or any struggling organization is exactly what you have in mind here Gerard's point is that for troubled social groups and organizations there are systemic problems that create a breaking down of differences which then lead to micro tensions which leads to rivalry and of course even more systemic problems again think back to covet here and the local micro familial tensions workplace disputes and relation struggles that the
• 25:00 - 25:30 macro problem of disease has caused this is what it means to be in a state of memetic contagion clearly we haven't gotten to the solution yet we've simply restated the problem the solution to reciprocal violence is going to be this the group will choose one victim or a small set of victims that is marked in some special way to inherit all of the blame and frustrations of the group this scapegoat will be expelled and reconcile the group in a cathartic Act of symbolic
• 25:30 - 26:00 release let's go back to Oedipus and see how this plays out as the play progresses it becomes increasingly obvious to everyone that Oedipus is in fact the killer of Elias that he is both past recital and ancestral his mother wife confirms it the slaves confirm it he himself confirms it his mother wife kills herself and he blinds himself gouging his own eyes out after which he sends himself into Exile guided only by his
• 26:00 - 26:30 daughter Antigone this fulfills the prophecy and brings back peace to the city of Thieves this is Gerard's interpretation of oedipus's conviction and it is really peculiar let me read this to you the attribution of guilt that henceforth passes for True differs in no way from these attributions that will henceforth be regarded as false except that in the case of the true guilt no voice is
• 26:30 - 27:00 raised to protest any aspect of the charge what Gerard is saying here is that oedipus's conviction was arbitrary and groundless but this seems to go against the myth Oedipus was not chosen arbitrarily everyone including himself confirmed his crimes it seems that there is a lot of objective evidence to distinguish truth from falsehood so what does Gerard mean here Gerard's Point here is that while it seems objectively true and in fact it is
• 27:00 - 27:30 objectively true that Oedipus killed Elias following statement is the arbitrary one which oedipus's conviction is deceitfully grounded on the killer of lias is responsible for the whole plague of Thieves think about it what a ridiculous statement that one murder can be responsible for an entire plague yes Oedipus had a bad character trait but well could have been some other trait that people believe caused the plague it could have been Creon
• 27:30 - 28:00 oedipus's brother-in-law who was trying to usurp the throne maybe that's what caused the plague or there might have been three other guys over there who I don't know had sex with their sisters maybe that's a better cause to play this is Gerard's point about scapegoating it's always grounded on lie the lie in the case of Oedipus wasn't that he actually killed Elias but that the killer of Elias is responsible for the plague as you can see the LIE which grounds the founding murder is often a lie in only degree and not kind often
• 28:00 - 28:30 the victim is somewhat guilty but this lie will be exaggerated blaming the one small set of scapegoats or one single scapegoat for the entirety of the problem that is how scapegoating is deceitful yeah you see this in the way that Mark Zuckerberg is blamed for a lot of the problems in the Contemporary world we like to blame Facebook for a lot of the problems that are actually
• 28:30 - 29:00 problems with the internet itself and don't get me wrong Facebook does have a lot of problems there's a lot of issues with the company but the issues aren't as great as the extent to which we blame that company for and so we'll have things that happen in society riots Donald Trump's election all kinds of social unrest and we will pinpoint that blame on one scapegoat Mark Zuckerberg that's precisely right in the same way that Oedipus isn't fully innocent I bet Mark Zuckerberg has done some
• 29:00 - 29:30 questionable Deeds I haven't looked into the Facebook case as much but the problem with scapegoating is that it's a lie in the extent of the blame just as all of Thieves tragedies was blamed on one person Oedipus your point is if I understand you correctly that all of societals at least internet related problems is blamed on Facebook when in many instances it's actually not physics fault the next logical question then is well if the scapegoat process which Gerard seems to think all societies need to do is grounded on a lie then how do people
• 29:30 - 30:00 believe it this is Gerard's answer let me quote Gerard the slightest hint the most groundless accusation can circulate with photogenous speed and is transformed into irrefutable proof the corporate sense of conviction snowballs each member taking Confidence from his neighbor by a rapid process of mimesis the firm conviction of the group is based on no other evidence than the unshakable unanimity of its own illogic
• 30:00 - 30:30 end quote Gerard's answer here is that the LIE is sustained by unanimity think back to two lectures ago our lecture on mimesis as a key normative Authority we are creatures who can believe in lies insofar as others around us do as well it is our memetic capacity that overpowers our ability to reason so much so that Oedipus himself believes that he is guilty that his patricide incest could bring about the entire
• 30:30 - 31:00 collapse of society the source of Deceit lies in mimesis mimetic unanimity yeah I think there's a paradox of consensus here that shows up in ancient Jewish law of all places so what happened was if a suspect was found guilty 100 guilty by every judge on the jury that suspect was deemed innocent because the ancient Jewish people thought well if every single person is thinking the same way
• 31:00 - 31:30 something must have gone wrong in the decision-making process and there's another investor venture capitalist who tells me that all of their worst Investments were made when every single partner on the investment team agreed and said yes let's do that and then finally Peter Thiel talks about how in the Bible every single time where there's unanimous consent every time it is actually a sign that something has gone wrong that the group is not thinking well and you see this in the
• 31:30 - 32:00 Tower of Babel story everybody thinks alike everybody is speaking the same language and what does God do when they're trying to build a tower that reaches to Heaven what God does is he confounds their speech he scatters all the people and through that he's warning us about the dangers of unanimous thinking I think behind all those examples most notably The Venture Capital One as well as this Jewish law one I have to think a bit more about this Tower of Babel example the core intuition here is something like this
• 32:00 - 32:30 that if 90 of people believe and 10 don't it's in some ways more indicative of truth of maybe 100 of people believing and I think that's quite interesting because it's so unintuitive and I think there's something deeply Gerard in here maybe the logic goes something like this if everyone believes the social force and pressure to believe is so strong that we should wonder and inquire into whether there's anything real backing that belief does that make sense that there's so much Social Force
• 32:30 - 33:00 social legitimacy backing a statement in the case where everyone agrees we should really be skeptical whether that statement is actually pointing to anything objective I think it was Ben Franklin who said if everybody is thinking alike then nobody is thinking at all right precisely and I think that conveys the same sentiment we've been trying to discuss here now a consequence of Gerard's views is that in times of large social unrest we never really have the right solution at least not fully in
• 33:00 - 33:30 view that more often than not in the meta contagion in times of great chaos French Revolution covid there's a real systemic issue like natural disaster or plague but people tend to vent their anger at something other than that systemic issue I mean look at covid and see how the anger from the pandemic has been channeled to say the social justice movements right the cause and the proposed resolution are completely on a different systemic level but why does Gerard think that we need
• 33:30 - 34:00 to have an untrue deceitful mob-like Act of expulsion why in the middle of memetic contagion can't we just talk our way through it why can't we just form some kind of social contract well I think the reason is that if you've ever been any frenzied state where you are wrong and you wanted revenge or you were extremely angry you know that what you don't care about is your actual immediate interest if you're a rival who pissed you off gave you a hundred bucks
• 34:00 - 34:30 would that resolve the anger no we don't want anything material we want something symbolic we want something cathartic reason has little authority over us in such a state so it's precisely at the height of War of all against all memetic contagion that we can't just sit down like Hobbs and make a social contract what we are concerned about aren't our material interests and reason is impotent it is our pride our being our
• 34:30 - 35:00 ego our self-conception that has been wounded in memetic Contagion and so we need an equally symbolic solution we need catharsis think back to the idea that violence is blind that it can be easily diverted Ajax anger towards the Trojans easily latched on to his anger towards Odysseus the same thing can be said for societies that there's a constant degree of violence and this violence needs to be directed somewhere and Unleashed and
• 35:00 - 35:30 therefore to satisfy the greatest possible symbolic release the greatest form of catharsis we need to channel it at one tiny tiny victim that it has to inherit the entirety of the blame we get a heightened degree of catharsis because we Face the most radical evil almost a moral black hole the smallest space of surface area inheriting the widest possible mass of moral blame
• 35:30 - 36:00 to summarize then what is key about this second move in the scapegoat mechanism of actual scape building itself from the founding murder is first the level of catharsis that is required and two the magnitude of the lie that is required in three the unanimity that is required to sustain it the frustration is so high that we need the highest possible catharsis and that can only come if a single victim is given all the blame
• 36:00 - 36:30 and this degree of a lie requires total unanimity now while the process of choosing victims is grounded on unanimity and therefore is somewhat arbitrary there's still a set of Criterion that tends naturally to highlight victims if not fully choose them the first such Criterion is having a special Mark many well-known victims in victimized groups have some kind of infirmity right thinking about Moses and his speech disorder or people with an extra or deformed limb the reason a
• 36:30 - 37:00 special Mark is often a sign of the victim is that it naturally captures our gaze and so our gaze naturally converges the victim when we're looking for someone to blame what is oedipus's special Mark well it's the fact that he's a king that everyone's gaze naturally converges to the one ruler of Thieves the second Criterion or the quality of a likely victim is that they need to be far from the social order the victim needs to be detached and in some sense distant from
• 37:00 - 37:30 the social order the first reason that they need to be so distant is that we can't implicate ourselves when we're blaming people when we're scapegoating and if it's that exact person over there who looks like me talks like me wants what I like and shares a very similar moral character to me then if I blame all of evil on him I in some sense implicate myself a second and perhaps more important reason that a distant victim has to be chosen for this process to work correctly is that anyone with
• 37:30 - 38:00 substantial ties in the social order will not lead to peace they're scapegoating they're unjust blaming can only lead to a new cycle of Vengeance as their friends and family come to avenge them now being far from the social order doesn't always necessarily mean the lower dispossessed classes there's a horseshoe going on here where it can often mean the high class as well because often the elite are strange from society due to their position again
• 38:00 - 38:30 Oedipus is a foreign king that's why he is far from the social order and a suitable victim this also happens in society and historical examples as well Murray Antoinette's foreign Austrian status was repeatedly brought up in the public accusations the third and last Mark of the victim or quality of the victim men is that paradoxically they need to be near the social order they need to be involved and embedded within the community the
• 38:30 - 39:00 problem with blaming someone not embedded in the community is that it's completely unbelievable even though memetic contagion which leads to the founding murder is grounded on a lie that lie needs to have some grounding and it seems somewhat plausible and if I point to someone three thousand miles over there who's never interacted with us as the sole cause of all the blame well that's not going to be believable even with unanimity supporting it and so the victim also needs to be near the social order well how is Oedipus near
• 39:00 - 39:30 the social order he is the king he is in the very veins of thieben power these three qualities the three marks of the victim being near from the social order being far to the social order and having a special Mark is why Gerard thinks the Jewish people your people have unfortunately been the canonical scapegoats in human history the Jewish people are near the social order because they have long been in Exile and as a result need to immigrate to other cultures but they're far because like
• 39:30 - 40:00 other immigratory cultures like the anglos or the French who've moved to America and after three generations they don't even bring up their Anglo or French heritage the Jews still keep a separate sphere of existence there's a separate religion there's separate religious practices they're separate holidays and it is this separation that also marks the Jews yeah growing up Jewish one of the one of the things that we heard a lot about was how much Jews had been persecuted throughout history
• 40:00 - 40:30 and there's an assumption amongst older Jews that it's going to happen again in the future even though the Holocaust happened more than 70 years ago and even now whenever I call my grandmother she's in her 90s she always ends the phone call by saying make sure you marry a Jewish woman says that every time and I think that it's a way of sticking together and protecting ourselves from something
• 40:30 - 41:00 boiling up in the future so if I understand you correctly in that example you're saying that there's a public or maybe semi-private Consciousness within the Jewish Community from all these Millennia really of persecution that have embedded deeply into the psyche that fears further prosecution is that is that roughly right and I think Gerard would describe that as this unfortunate historical uh sequence of events of continued Jewish persecution as being a result of the Jewish people bearing the three marks of the victim of being far
• 41:00 - 41:30 from the social order being nearer to the social order and being marked in some special way now with the logic of the second step of the scapegoat mechanism the actual scapegoating and founding murder in view let's move on to the third part of the scapegoat mechanism which is divinization the question we have to understand in this step of the scapegoat mechanism is this how does this entire process we've talked about about contagion and killing victims bring us anywhere closer to what I promised you in the beginning of the
• 41:30 - 42:00 lectures Gods Gerard's answer is that communities will divanize and worship none other than the evil and now expelled and likely dead victim turning the previous evil victim into a God to be worshiped let's unpack this by following Sophocles and the thieven trilogy in the beginning of the second part of the trilogy which is called Oedipus at Colonus we find an aged and still blind of course Oedipus Guided by
• 42:00 - 42:30 his daughter Antigone wandering in Greece and specifically in Athens lo and behold the plague had already diminished in Thebes it's been resolved by oedipus's expulsion now the Athenians after learning who Oedipus is initially wants to chase him out of their lands for understandable reasons you don't want to patricidal incestral man who's caused the plague to be here but Oedipus has a trick up his sleeve there's another prophecy that has been taking the spotlight that has been
• 42:30 - 43:00 gaining momentum in Greece that wherever his remains shall be buried shall enjoy lasting peace and so we notice something drastic but quite subtle changing here he is someone or at least he's starting to be someone who people now want in their lands instead of only wanting to push away people want oedipus's remains and they want them in his lands the ruler of Athens comes and asks Oedipus to stay Creon the now king of
• 43:00 - 43:30 Thebes also wants oedipus's remains and wants him back in Thebes oedipus's son who's in a state of chaos he's warring with his brother also comes to Oedipus for his Blessing so what has happened here what accounts for this big switch in the beginning when we discuss the First Act of Oedipus he was this guy who no one wanted to touch with a 10-foot pole and suddenly now everyone wants a piece of Oedipus Gerard has this to say I quote
• 43:30 - 44:00 because human thought has never succeeded in grasping the mechanisms of violent unanimity it naturally turns toward the victim and seeks to determine whether he is not somehow responsible for the miraculous consequences of his own death or exile because the violence directed against the victim was intended to restore order and Tranquility it seems only logical to attribute the happy result to the victim himself end quote Gerard's point is that the scapegoat
• 44:00 - 44:30 mechanism is such a unanimous process because peoples feel so justified in their expulsion that they don't feel their own agency and so they hear meaning the crowds the people who do the victim killing they don't see themselves as the ones bring peace all they have in view is the victim and reasons that it must be the victim that has brought us that peace and so just as arbitrarily as this group assigns all of the hate onto
• 44:30 - 45:00 the scapegoat in the act of expulsion Gerard's claim is that they will now latch on to the victim and attribute to him all of the praise for ending the chaos this is simply but the reverse of the founding murder but it is equally grounded on a lie and a lie of course that must be bolstered by unanimity but how can Oedipus go through such a radical transformation do people view him as good or evil in this case Gerard's answer is that Oedipus is seen
• 45:00 - 45:30 both as good and as evil the very fact that oedipus's expulsion brought about real peace meant for the persecutors that he was truly guilty and evil I mean think about it like this you were told by some prestigious Oracle that there's a guy who killed Elias if you get him out the plague would end you get Oedipus out who killed lice and the plague ends for you that's simply a proof that Oedipus is indeed guilty however that does not mean Oedipus can't also use his
• 45:30 - 46:00 powers for good it doesn't mean that Oedipus doesn't have the power to end plagues as well as to cause them let me put this a different way good and evil are the wrong polls altogether to think about Oedipus and all sacred objects in Pagan religion cannot be judged on this dichotomy the right polarity is between powerful and Powerless not good and evil what is consistent between the two oedipuses the two Oedipus is meaning both the one who
• 46:00 - 46:30 caused the plague and the one who end the plague what's consistent is not his morality it's the power for Oedipus to give life and take life what's consistent between two oedipuses is his power in the Pagan system it's not like one has to be good or evil no people are either powerful or powerless and if they are powerful they can be both Good and Evil distinction is not one of morality but a force
• 46:30 - 47:00 I don't know maybe it's just me but there's nobody that comes to mind today who's both radically good and radically evil yeah that's a great question and the answer is going to be Christianity but the first thing I'll say is that there are traces of this ambivalence even in post-christian history take for example the Jewish doctors who were blamed for the plague of the black death and the witches who were burned alive due to Witchcraft those were the
• 47:00 - 47:30 same people you'd actually go to for help in desperate times of need and so even in a post-christian world there's an idea that within power lies both the ability to help and hurt people but if what you're really looking for is a modern equivalent maybe the best example is I think the Public's attitude towards Tech billionaires perhaps I think a lot of people see them as both capable of doing a lot of good but also a lot of harm and sometimes they're painted as radically
• 47:30 - 48:00 evil and other times they're painted as genuinely changing the world and often by the same people and there's no Contra distinction here what underlies these billionaires today is is their power so I think even in today's world there exists a hint of this but I think you're ultimately right that in today's examples that I've just given it's a much more muted effect we still tend to predominantly think of one person as good or evil right and so the answer to your question the direct answer is you know Christianity
• 48:00 - 48:30 Christianity I think will engage fundamentally in a revaluation of values and it will turn the polarity from one being contrasted and judging people on powerless to powerful and it'll turn it into good and evil and so with this polarity as the dominant view with which we judge moral characters in today's society someone has to be either predominantly good or predominantly evil and that's why perhaps we're struggling to come up with real examples of people like Oedipus in today's society you know
• 48:30 - 49:00 what you're saying I once had lunch with uh Hollywood screenwriter and she said something really interesting she said that one of her biggest complaints about Hollywood was that many of the characters were either good or they were bad but they lacked this complexity this this Nuance of being both of them I think it was Alexander Soulja nitson who said the line between good and evil Cuts between every human heart but Hollywood has lost a lot of that complexity think of Marvel movies there's the good guys and the bad guys but we've lost a lot of
• 49:00 - 49:30 these more subtle and contradictory web of characters here yes and I think that Gerard would explain what you just described as being a consequence of this Christian reevaluation of values moving from the powerless to powerful which in that world view someone can be powerful and good and evil because that's not the primary poll and transforming it into good and evil and you get the consequence of Hollywood that you say today you get these one-dimensional characters however go let's go back to Pagan
• 49:30 - 50:00 Society in Pagan Society where power is the dominant axis it was consistent for a powerful being to be both good and evil right that's the conclusion we went to in fact Gerard's claim is that power is nothing but the fundamental building block of pagan sacredity the sacred at least the Pagan sacred for Gerard is nothing but Power either the power to do ultimate Evil or the power to do ultimate good it doesn't really matter Powers the real object of analysis here
• 50:00 - 50:30 listen to how Oedipus introduces himself I quote I come as someone sacred someone filled with piety and power bearing a great gift for all your people end quote what defines pagan gods are not their morality but their forcefulness in fact they are often morally ambivalent Gerard gives us a whole host of examples I quote again Dionysus is at one in the
• 50:30 - 51:00 same time the most terrible and the most gentle of gods there's a Zeus who hurls Thunderbolts and a Zeus as sweet as honey in fact there is no ancient Divinity who does not have a double face if the Roman Janus turns to his worshipers accountants alternately warlike and peaceful that is because he too reflects the same alternation end quote of course this power that pagan gods have is not
• 51:00 - 51:30 real Oedipus did not really have the power to cause the plague nor did he really have the power to end the plague both our exaggerated projections onto him by the crowd in the final analysis then all pagan gods and religions are grounded on violence deceit and fundamentally the unanimity of the crowd which believes in the victim's guilt as well as the God's power we've covered three movements of the scapegoat mechanism already first a
• 51:30 - 52:00 society descending into chaos second the society attributing blame onto a singular victim in a founding murder third divinizing the now murdered victim Gerard believes that these are actually real events that this is the real logic behind real historical events that have actually happened through history these events are so impactful so cataclysmic that they spawned a series of myths around them that became the Bedrock texts of religions and given the close
• 52:00 - 52:30 proximity between church and state and Pagan Society it shaped the core practices and institutions of such societies as well Sophocles theban Trilogy is one in a long line of myths that tried to capture the story of Oedipus Gerard's claim is that this story or at the very least stories like these point to some real events that happened he might not have been named Oedipus the city might not have been Thebes and certainly he did not have the power to cause plagues and end plagues Pagan
• 52:30 - 53:00 myths are always told from the perspective of the persecutor the perspective of the crowd and this is always deceitful however the Oedipus myth might have been pointed to some real event where patricide and incest was the cause of the problem and Exile was its solution it was probably an event that was so tumultuous for all those who experienced it that are grounded the moral Universe of people in that society and even in Sophocles time if it couldn't establish an entire moral Universe on its own the Oedipus myth
• 53:00 - 53:30 could certainly lend Prestige to a few institutions of the day now even if these myths are pure fiction do not underestimate Fiction's ability to ground and align our real moral intuitions through memetic unanimity Even in our age the example that I always like to go to is when China began to allow Western media in the late 20th century and there was a really really funny story see a villager in rural China was arrested and clearly had been
• 53:30 - 54:00 watching a lot of American Crime shows Law and Order stuff like that because he said when he was arrested that I know my fifth amendment rights of course the legal system is very different in China and he didn't have the exact same American rights but you see how fiction injected specific legal ideas but also more larger moral intuitions like individualism into his psyche even when we know something is fiction it still has a massive gravitational pull and
• 54:00 - 54:30 effect to ground our moral intuitions but Gerard's point is that most religious myths weren't mere fiction his view of religion is one of psychologization that we project sacredity onto a real event and I think I find that somewhat plausible I mean think back to the religions we do have historical records of even the staunchest atheists must admit that they were pointing at real events and real people there was a Jesus of Nazareth
• 54:30 - 55:00 whether he was the one true God that's up to debate but there's no debate whether he really existed in like manner there was a historical Siddhartha and there was a historical Muhammad and we've just discovered that the Trojan War did in fact happen as well we discovered this in the 20th century when we Unearthed the sight of Troy Gerard then simply asks us to extend the same intuitions to the myths of your which we don't have real historical records of the Baldur's the Zeus the peruses and
• 55:00 - 55:30 the Oedipus of the world now what is just as real as the events that these myths are pointing to are the institutions that these myths spawn and legitimize this is the fourth and final step of the scapegoat mechanism institutionalization the point of these institutions are to use the lessons we learned in a myth to to stop future societal collapse and there are largely two types of institutions
• 55:30 - 56:00 the first type are prohibitions prohibitions are institutions that introduce difference amongst people if the problem with contagion is that differences social differences ceases to exist well prohibitions and institutions that are prohibitory will seek to reinforce those differences to make sure those differences stick they try to push people apart so that their memetic Natures do not make them converge upon a similar set of objects and so what are some real examples of prohibitions grounded on religion well there's entire
• 56:00 - 56:30 time periods in different cultures where Society kind of just closes down and Society tries to limit as much interaction with different people as possible Right lent is one example the Sabbath is another example and perhaps less familiar to our audience the rights of the swazi and koala peoples so throughout their period of observance all sexual activity including the most legitimate is completely forbidden you know even sleeping late in the morning is regarded as a crime and physical
• 56:30 - 57:00 contact between individuals is to be avoided at all costs even scratching oneself is heavily frowned down upon of course all singing all loud noise all types of play by children are prohibited but furthermore let me give you another set of examples in Pagan societies there's often prohibitions against objects and people that call to mind the breaking down of differences which lead to reciprocal violence for example twins amongst many different Pagan societies have this very negative connotation to
• 57:00 - 57:30 the extent that often when twins are born in some societies of course the mother is asked to kill one of the twins the reason that Gerard thinks twins are often so prohibited against is because twins call to mind the breaking down of differences the doubles that start to emerge in the height of a memetic Contagion but that's just one set of Institutions that can be derived from religion Gerard sees another seemingly completely different set of Institutions that and he calls them rituals rituals act as a
• 57:30 - 58:00 release valve if prohibitions lose power if contagion threatens Society again the logic of rituals is this if Society is somewhat relatively peaceful right now let's use prohibitions let's make sure people don't get riled up too much let's make sure that memetic desire metaphysical desire don't pass too readily among people but if Society gets riled up to a point where prohibitions start breaking down then we need to use a completely different strategy what we're going to do is we're going to
• 58:00 - 58:30 simulate the initial founding murder in an act of catharsis and try to bring about the peace in a different way instead of trying to contain it we're going to simulate a release simulate a catharsis the examples of ritual in history are many as well there's a whole set of festivities that are the exact opposite of time periods such as lent and Sabbath and that's the festival right think about the back Canal of Rome celebrating the cult of Dionysus where
• 58:30 - 59:00 all forms of indulgence usually unaccepted in society is or think about perhaps the air to back and which is today the Contemporary Carnival what we can see in modern examples of Carnival is that it's an imitation of the frenzy the state of contagion right there's the excessive consumption there's the grotesque bodysuits emphasizing exaggerated body parts there's food fights there's the mocking of authorities there's abusive language and degrading acts there's a complete
• 59:00 - 59:30 reversal of norms in previous iterations of the carnival the slaves actually have an opportunity to yell and berate the Masters it's a complete 180 from the usual social prohibitions that prohibitions try to enact and it's a breaking down of difference in an attempt to simulate the state of memetic contagion and the eventual cathartic release drug provides a whole host of historical examples that I encourage you to explore whether it's the proliferation of animal sacrifice whether it's the Aztec human sacrifice
• 59:30 - 60:00 whether it's tapinawa ritualistic cannibalism or the ritual incest for African kings but we don't need to look far to understand what a ritual institution is tocqueville's analysis of democratic elections conformed to this idea of a cathartic ritual to have a controlled expulsion for people to vent their frustration now for tocqueville a key reason I'm oversimplifying here of course but a key reason that the Democratic process is so
• 60:00 - 60:30 stable isn't because you know democracy chooses the wisest leaders all the time or because democracy allows people to feel recognition but that there's a controlled expulsion of the leadership every eight if not four years the idea is that we get to in a national ritual project all our anger and frustration on the leading Administration to have our friend and allies bolster our certainty of the evil of the leaving Administration through unanimity and it's this psychological release valve that is so important for tocqueville
• 60:30 - 61:00 of course depending on the myth different prohibitions and different rituals will be emphasized but suddenly with this idea and view that the scapegoat mechanism eventually leads to both rituals and prohibitions suddenly a whole host of moral events in a previously incomprehensible Pagan Universe now becomes readily intelligible let's go back to the story of Oedipus then to understand how it influenced the Greek institutions of the day
• 61:00 - 61:30 the story of Oedipus by the time of Sophocles is probably too weak to establish an entire culture on its own but its Prestige could nonetheless reinforce certain prohibitions and rituals of its own the prohibitions are quite obvious and quite uninteresting kids don't kill your dad and don't have sex with your mom that's what God thieves into this whole mess and if you're going to try doing that you're going to get yourself into a whole mess as well the ritual that the Oedipus myth reinforces is the pharmacos this is a
• 61:30 - 62:00 real ritual that Greek city-states constantly practice in times of plague Greek city-states would choose someone a pharmacose On The Fringe of society usually a beggar or criminal that would inherit and be blamed for the plague or the chaos and taken outside of the city walls to be humiliated to be tortured and expelled for good perhaps not unlike us shooting away an old Administration then the people in
• 62:00 - 62:30 Greece felt cathartic release from this ritual and it clearly worked in that regard because it was a very popular and often practiced right pharmacos is where the English word Pharmacy takes root but in Greek it meant both cure and poison not unlike Oedipus the pharmacos had an ambivalent Aura around him ultimately evil because he had caused the plague but ultimately could because he has the power to save people from it so indeed he was treated as an object of scorn a
• 62:30 - 63:00 butt of insults but there's always a quasi-religious aura of veneration around him he also became paradoxically perhaps to the modern intuition a sort of cult-like object and so do you see the proximity between pharmacos and Oedipus how they're all blamed for plagues how they're responsible for curing the plagues and how they all have a dual era of being good and evil that unites in their power to summarize then the scapegoat
• 63:00 - 63:30 mechanism proceeds from a real cataclysmic event where Society experiences contagion cathartic release and divinizes New Gods this real event is dramatized and captured in myth and then translated back into real institutions in the form of prohibitions and rituals this Arc going from real event to myth to real institutions is not only how pagan gods and religions have been made but also how all human
• 63:30 - 64:00 societies and cultures are founded Gerard's unsettling conclusion is that not just human religions but all human societies along with their institutions must be grounded on the myth of a founding murder truly establish a peaceful Society in a time of turmoil this murder must be maximally cathartic and as a result has to be maximally violent and deceitful blaming a singular victim for the entirety of evil his surprising conclusion then is that worldly order
• 64:00 - 64:30 this worldly peace Human Society must be founded on violence and deceit cohesion is founded on finding a common enemy now as a contemporary example or somewhat contemporary example to see the cohesive force of having a joint enemy we only ought look at World War II because what could be a more unnatural pairing than capless America and communist Russia yet that was exactly what happened when both of them United
• 64:30 - 65:00 against the Nazi threat there's this image of this cooperation that I always find very humorous it's a photo of American supply lines sent to the Soviet front and on it quite lovingly on the supplies that were sent over was written hammer and sickle them of course the hammer and sickle stands for everything American capitalism is against but even mortal enemies soon become friends when they are united by a greater end to make sense of Gerard's claim on the violent
• 65:00 - 65:30 foundations of society we must think back to Gerard's psychology his elevation of spirit over reason seeing us as symbolic social creatures instead of rational agents for every social philosophy we must ask who the subject is for Mark's philosophy the subject is class for fascism it's the nation state for Augustine it's the Christian soul for liberalism it's the rational agent Gerard's subject is the spirited animal not one who thinks in terms of utility
• 65:30 - 66:00 and numbers but Vengeance and pride honor and being who experiences envy and resentment for such a social creature the primary social mechanisms that govern him it's not consensus it's not the Mandate of Heaven it's not the common good it's not rational political discourse the most important tools at society's disposal is prohibition it's social difference it's unanimity it's ritual it's catharsis it's Prestige these have nothing to do with truth or more strongly their proper
• 66:00 - 66:30 functioning relies upon being grounded on a deceitful unanimity that can't be exposed to the light of Truth this is how total Gerard's claim is let me quote you so you don't think I'm making this stuff up all religious rituals spring from the founding victim and all the great institutions of mankind both secular and religious spring from ritual they coincide with archetypal myths that tell in apparently naive fashion how all
• 66:30 - 67:00 man's religious familial economic and social institutions grew out of the body of an original victim end quote to give Gerard's all-encompassing claim here just some semblance of plausibility we must look Beyond Oedipus to sacrificial myths that have grounded the entirety of a culture's Institution for that we must turn to the hymn of purusha a section in The Vedas the founding text of Indian mythology and
• 67:00 - 67:30 culture this hymn tells about the founding murder of a Divine being whose name is purusha and how this founding murder is responsible for the birth of Hindu Society I'll let the hymn do the talking it begins as such the man has a thousand heads a thousand eyes a thousand feet he pervaded the Earth on all sides and extended Beyond it as far as ten fingers end quote these are the opening lines of the hymn to purusha and the first thing we are made
• 67:30 - 68:00 aware of is not his morality but his power the defining feature of the Pagan sacred the hymn continues to describe how perusa was sacrificed listen close from that sacrifice in which everything was offered the melted fat was collected and he made it into these beasts who live in the air in the forest and in The Villages from that sacrifice the verses and chants were born The Meters were born from it and from it the liturgical
• 68:00 - 68:30 formulas were born horses were born from it and those other animals that have two rows of teeth cows were born from it and from it goat and sheep were born end quote what we're hearing here is none other than the second and third step of scapegoat a murder a sacrifice and the following divinization of the peace and life that is brought about by the founding murder do you see how what I just read you is a somewhat perhaps exaggerated form of the
• 68:30 - 69:00 Oedipus myth where one man curing a city that's the logic of Oedipus and it may seem extreme enough to us but no hear all the laws all the animals the entire living world nay life itself is attributed to the sacrifice but of course for Gerard's theories to be true it can't just be one peace-giving event institutions must flow from it and institutions do flow from it let me continue reading to you the hymn
• 69:00 - 69:30 his mouth became the Brahman his arms were made into the warrior his thighs the artisan and from his feet the servants were born end quote the most important prohibitions the institution of the caste system is Justified on the founding murder of purusha and this is how the hymn ends the gods sacrificed the Sacrifice by the sacrifice such were the first institutions these Powers had access to
• 69:30 - 70:00 the firmament where the Saints are the original Gods end quote not only are prohibitions Justified on the hymn of purusha but so are the most important ritual institutions the institution of sacrifice which were the domains of the Brahman and the moral religious political pillar of Hindu Society even this is legitimized on this founding murder that's captured by this hymn
• 70:00 - 70:30 the hymn of purusha then is one of these all-encompassing myths that does ground nourish and legitimize almost the entirety of the culture the living animals the plants the laws the music the caste system the sacrifices all of these are attributed to the founding murder of purusha but it's not just Hindu culture in many Pagan cultures that we look we should expect to find buried deep within them a founding murder institutionalized by
• 70:30 - 71:00 myth that justifies and nourishes the most important institutions of a society let's look at Rome the Roman Republic first think Romulus and Remus how the death of Remus marks in some way the founding of the Roman Republic Remus was killed because he transgressed the lines that Romulus had drawn around the city well the lines that Remus transgressed then became the primarium the sacred boundary of the city that took on a deep political and religious significance
• 71:00 - 71:30 this founding murder Justified a deeply important Roman institution now let's look at the Roman Empire Julius Caesar is another canonical example of a victim-turned god founding a pagan Society Roman society is in a state of chaos and Civil War this is the contagion Julius Caesar is then scapegoated blamed and collectively murdered on the senate floor this is the founding murder the scapegoating peace does not come immediately to Rome but it does come at the hands of another
• 71:30 - 72:00 Caesar Caesar Augustus julius's nephew and With augustus's Victory Julius Caesar is literally deified by the Roman senate and spawned so many myths that were canonized in Roman practices and also captured in Virgil Ovid Shakespeare and the like this of course is then the divinization as well as the institutionalization listen what Shakespeare has to say about Caesar I quote your statue spouting blood in many pipes
• 72:00 - 72:30 in which so many smiling Romans bathed signifies that from you great Rome shall suck Reviving blood Caesar is The Fountainhead he's the prestigious symbol the fundamental Bedrock that grounds the legitimacy of the Roman Imperium to which all rulers will have to pay homage to often explicitly by bearing his name Caesar and there are so many other cultures and religions and stories which Gerard to
• 72:30 - 73:00 sex deeply that we don't have time to explore I'll simply point you to their Direction whether it's the death of balder in Nordic mythology or the birth of Zeus in Greek mythology whether it's the Ojibwa myth of five Gods expelling a six God from the group for taking off his eye patch and killing a human with his gaze among Native Americans or whether it's the tacopia myth of a trickster God who was expelled for stealing food popular among Pacific Islanders everywhere we look in Pagan
• 73:00 - 73:30 Society we see their core institutions as grounded and legitimized by myths that can all be traced back to some founding murder now of course The Prestige of certain myths will Wane over time whether it's corruption internally or challenge externally and when the rituals and prohibitions completely lose their grasp on a society when they're incapable of fixing a society then the process is repeated all over again
• 73:30 - 74:00 the medic contagion founding murder divinization institutionalization and so Pagan Society all the way from harmonization are Evolution from ape exists in this cyclical view where you have a founding murder it becomes institutionalized the institutions after a long time lose their Prestige and then a new founding murder with its own set of myths and institutions are needed again and we should understand each turn of the scapegoat mechanism each foundation and institutionalization as a singular
• 74:00 - 74:30 moral paradigm shift these are events that are so cataclysmic so World historic with the depth so low and the resolution so miraculous that they can't help but through the associations in their stories alone set up the fundamental framework for a new moral Paradigm they set up associations of Good and Evil that are grounded on nothing but unanimity itself and adding
• 74:30 - 75:00 on to what you're saying I think this could be a good example of what it means to live inside of a paradigm because right now we're living in the Christian moral Paradigm and in this Christian Paradigm ideas like human rights which are themselves Downstream from the idea of Imago day which says that every human every human is made in the image of God and from that idea you get the Contemporary values like equality love compassion and those three values stand in stark contrast to the Greek values
• 75:00 - 75:30 which they held so highly of honor and courage and so you can clearly see that there's been a 180 in terms of the differences between the Pagan Paradigm that we used to be in and the Christian Paradigm that we're in now I think that is quite a good example of a moral Paradigm that we are given in each Paradigm these fundamental Core Concepts grounded on unanimity about what good and evil is and in this case it's the Christian Concepts and from them flow a
• 75:30 - 76:00 lot of conclusions like human rights like you just mentioned but we don't even need to go that far to have an understanding of what living in a moral Paradigm means I mean just look back to our last large World historic cataclysmic event where the Axis powers were expelled and anything associated with the axes Powers especially Nazism is just completely defined as the root cause of evil in the last lecture you mentioned how the futurists because of their association with the Nazis is
• 76:00 - 76:30 completely off the table but I think this expands far beyond Aesthetics and much more than just aesthetic preferences were determined by this last moral paradigm shift for example all types of reactionary thinking is completely out of bounds today it's outside the Overton window today in the academy there's only progressives with a minority of conservatives and to this day I haven't met a reactionary Professor yet or take another example any semblance of racial discrimination even if it is much more innocuous than
• 76:30 - 77:00 say a class discrimination is completely unacceptable because racial discrimination calls to mind associations with the Nazis and their horrendous crimes and even as something as objective science there are entire practices like Eugenics that once had incredible Prestige around the world I mean in the beginning of the 20th century UCL had a chair of eugenics Theodore Roosevelt and Nobel laureates were supporters of eugenics but that is now completely out of bounds because of
• 77:00 - 77:30 their association with the Nazis and even on the internet there's something that I colloquially call the Hitler effect where if you watch how arguments online unfold they'll just end once somebody Compares something to Hitler once you do that the debate is over precisely all of these examples that we've provided is what it means to live in a moral Paradigm that we're just given these fundamental substratum objects of Good and Evil and anything associated with the good is good anything associated with evil is
• 77:30 - 78:00 completely off of bounds and so just as growing up in a culture listening to Sophocles Oedipus will make patricide and incest completely out of bounds and will legitimize other practices like the pharmacos so do our moral paradigms ground our key assumptions they become the lens through which we interpret all phenomena if you think about it this is quite an unsettling thought are our practices just as cruel as the killing of twins
• 78:00 - 78:30 and shamanistic societies are our rituals just as pointless as human sacrifice of the Aztecs are our desires just as arbitrary as the Romans fetish for Conquest are judgments just as unreasonable as the pharmacost of Greece are the fundamental building blocks of our society still grounded like societies of your only on The Prestige and unanimity of some deceitful and violent founding murder
• 78:30 - 79:00 fortunately the answer is no or at least not exactly we are not part of this cyclical Pagan story anymore with founding murders failing institutions followed by more founding murders and institutions at infinitum a single force in history taken us away from this cyclical trajectory and projected us into a linear time this Force saves us from myth and the
• 79:00 - 79:30 sacred but with a religion of its own it rescues us from violence and lies but in doing so threatens the very foundations of worldly peace that force is Christianity the topic of our next lecture [Music]