ZC:EXAMINE TheScapegoatMechanism-René Girard[link]

The Scapegoat Mechanism in Human Evolution: An Analysis of René Girard’s Hypothesis on the Process of Hominization Riordan, D. Vincent Reading time: 77–98 minutes Introduction Humans live in a complex social environment characterized by large group sizes and cooperation between relative strangers. Uniquely human traits that have been suggested as being of importance to this include our abilities to mentalize (have a theory of mind) (Premack and Woodruff 1978), a related tendency to create a shared attentional framework or a shared intentionality (Tomasello and Carpenter 2007), a relative inhibition of reactive aggression (Wrangham 2019a), and the emergence of behavioral norms with an associated propensity to punish transgressors (Tomasello 2016). Some of these traits have, variously, been linked to the emergence of relatively large human group sizes (Dunbar 1998), complex civilizations (Norenzayan et al. 2016), and uniquely human hierarchical structures (Dubreuil 2010). This article considers the claim that another important and uniquely human psychological trait is that of victimization or scapegoating. This was the view proposed by the French anthropological philosopher René Girard (1923–2015) who posited that a propensity to internecine violence was an inevitable consequence of some of the otherwise fitness-enhancing human social traits (Girard et al. 1978; Girard 1986). He proposed that a novel mechanism must have emerged which countered this destabilizing influence, and that conspecific conflict in early hominins was curtailed by the emergence of a propensity to respond to adversity by blaming arbitrarily selected individuals. He called this the “scapegoat mechanism,” claiming that such victimization, coupled with a tendency to retrospectively misunderstand this pacification process and the role played by the victim, became the foundation of myths, religion, ritual, culture, and social norms. This article aims to examine the evidence for Girard’s claim that scapegoating was an adaptation of critical importance to the process of hominization by comparing it with other approaches to human evolution, and explores some potential implications for evolutionary psychology and evolutionary psychiatry. René Girard and the Scapegoat Mechanism Background Girard advanced a wide-ranging theory of human nature and human origins (Girard 1961, 1972; Girard et al. 1978; Fleming 2004; Antonello and Gifford 2015). He has been described by his admirers as “the Darwin of the social sciences” (Serres 2009), although he had no formal background in science, but was a historian by training, who spent much of his academic career working in university language departments (Haven 2018). His hypothesis, described below, was born, not from empirical data as such, but rather from his interpretation of great works of literature, such as those of Shakespeare, Proust, and Dostoevsky (Girard 1961), as well as mythology (Girard 1972) and religious texts (Girard et al. 1978). He did take some inspiration from the field of anthropology (Frazer 1913; Evans-Pritchard 1962), although some of the conclusions he drew from anthropological data have been questioned (Traube 1979). His work was thus born of the humanities rather than the sciences, and this may account for why he is not very well known amongst evolutionary theorists. Yet, although what he postulated is speculative, it is nevertheless a hypothesis concerning human evolution (Girard et al. 1978, pp. 84–104), and despite his own lack of formal scientific training, he was a polymath who considered himself to have been working within a Darwinian framework (Girard 2017). His work is often described as “mimetic theory,” reflecting the central role he claimed for an innate human propensity to mimic or to imitate. The scapegoat mechanism, which is the subject of this article, comprises a major part of this theory, whereby he argued that humans evolved a tendency, when faced with a crisis, to spontaneously imitate each other in blaming, or scapegoating, arbitrarily selected individuals or groups (Girard 1986). The Posited Problem; Mimetic Rivalry and Violence Before describing the important role claimed for scapegoating, it is necessary to first consider the selection pressures that Girard envisaged early hominins to have encountered, and to which he claimed scapegoating emerged as an adaptation. In other words, it is necessary to consider the uniquely human problem to which scapegoating might have emerged as an adaptive solution. As indicated above, the central plank of Girard’s ideas is the claim that one of the most characteristic, if not defining, human traits is a tendency to mimic both the actions and the intentionality (mental states) of each other, a trait that he called “mimesis.” His primary focus was on what he called “mimetic desire,” and how the reciprocal imitation of desires can result in a positive feedback escalation, such that human desire could become abstract and detached from the functional utility of the object of desire. He considered how reciprocal mimesis can give desire, and other intentional states, a contagious quality, causing them to spread rapidly throughout a population. In collaboration with psychiatrists Jean Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort, he used this concept of reciprocal interdependent desires to posit what they called an “interdividual psychology” (Girard et al. 1978, pp. 283–431), which they used to propose explanations for various human behaviors and psychopathologies (Oughourlian 2016). The focus of this article, however, is not so much on the claimed mimetic or imitative nature of human behavior, but rather on Girard’s ideas regarding the resultant problems caused by human rivalry, feuding, and violence, and, in particular, on the solution, scapegoating, which he theorized as having emerged in response to this. Although recognizing that the spontaneous alignment of the desires, motivations, and intentions of an entire group would have facilitated cooperation and efficiency, Girard also saw a problem. If everyone desires the same thing, then rivalries are inevitable. He considered this problem in terms of the dominance-based social hierarchies that seem to curtail conspecific violence in other animals (Girard et al. 1978, p. 95). The stability of such hierarchies depends on subordinates maintaining a different intentional state to dominants, hence any tendency for the mental states of all members of a community to align would inevitably destabilize such hierarchies, thereby undermining their ability to suppress conflict. Therefore, he surmised, if a population evolves contagious mimetic behavioral traits, as humans would seem to have done, once conflict begins, it can quickly spread throughout a community. If good relations become reciprocal, then bad relations become reciprocal also. In other words, Girard suggested that the behavioral trait (mimesis) that was essential to humans becoming such an adaptable, cooperative, and successful species, is also the trait responsible for a more problematic human phenomenon, that of cyclical revenge. He theorized that the risk of “runaway” violence amongst early hominin groups would have threatened their survival, implying that it would have been a limiting factor to human evolution. He called such “all against all” scenarios “mimetic crises,” which he said were characterized by a lack of difference between group members. CONTINUE READING AT: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-021-00381-y (https site) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-021-00381-y [@nonymouse] [Guardster] [Proxify] [Anonymisierungsdienst]