Greek Tragedy
Greek Tragedy: A Imitative Scapegoat Sacrifice
Tragedy is derived from tragos meaning goat and oide meaning song, goat song, it is not clear if the etymology of tragedy is related to the concept of scapegoat, however tragedies themselves contain the scapegoat function in a imitative sense which then relates to community catharsis. In Greece this was called Pharmakos, selecting someone to be shunned or banished from the community for the relief of the community. In the case of tragedies the person chosen to be banished is an aristocrat or group of aristocrats, who end up losing their wealth etc at the end of the play.
Tragedies were performed in honor of Dionysus who featured in the play The Bacchae.
According to the philosopher Rene Girard subsequent to a tragic ending the chorus officiating over the play would sing of how happy it is to retire to one’s home to be by the fire in the comfort of one’s home, and Girard related this sentiment to people feeling a sense of bregrudgement at the wondrous deeds of the aristocrats in the play, but then people feeling a sense of justification of their own lifestyle of staying out of trouble, in witnessing the bad end to these aristocratic figures. And it is in this event that catharsis or purging is felt within the viewer, a sense of relief at having made the right choice in life.
From the perspective of primitive magic, an imitative act would have a force or tendency to be replicated in the real world, hence a primitive viewer of a Greek Tragic Play may infer that the purpose of The Greek Tragedy is to wish an evil eye upon the known aristocrats of a land. Rene Girard speculates that in The Book of Job in the Bible, Job was almost a victim of a community scapegoating ritual but then avoids such a fate by giving the glory to God and thus averting the odium of the people, averting their evil eye. Thus we see wealthy persons using modesty for an apotropaic function.
The Song of Roland is essentially a tragedy, as is Beowulf, and these mirror The Greek Plays where the hero is sacrificed during the course of the story. It is almost as if The Gods, or God, are choosing the best of people for themselves, with the aristocracy being the choicest; and the common people, including the wealthy who are modest, avoid the hunger of The Gods, and thus avoid being sacrificed in these stories. Aristotle wrote of the science of tragedy in Poetics.
The primitive mind then would view The Poet who constructs a tragedy as officiating over a transfer of power away from the warrior-aristocracy to The People, with The People consuming the power of heroes by hearing of their deeds, however The People then sublimating the power of heroes and myth into ordinary life. Viewed in this paradigm we can see that those who adopt the avatar of aristocrats in The Modern World may be setting themselves to be shunned by Society.
Warriors mutually destroy each other in The Song of Roland, as they do in Beowulf. This fictive representation of a purging of warriors from Society can represent a social wish for them to be banished from Society. Japan represents a Society that has banished overt warlike displays, having such things being sublimated into ritual and symbol, and as a result Japan having a low crime rate. This wish for peace may be reflected in the 1984 anime TV series Fist of The North Star where the bad guys are often references as warriors who Ken defends people from, Ken performing a function similar to Indra in The Rig Veda where the god Indra is petitioned to save people from warriors. God in The Book of Psalms performs this role as well.
The wars fought by The USA appear to be a mechanism of banishing warlike people from Society to fight in foreign lands, the wars USA fights may be actually against the warriors in The USA, sending them on useless adventures. If humanity is made in the image of God, it could be considered treason to God to claim to be better than others. For this reason it is better to accept we are all the same, and that one is no better or worse than others, because to claim to be better may risk invoking the wrath of The Gods.
Such plays would also perform a fertility function of affirming the status of the common people over the aristocrats, thus making the common people suitable breeding material. This is why authority is exercised in The Modern World in the name of The People. Miracle Workers in medieval times were keen to give the glory to God to avoid Satan being invoked upon them. The Poet then is a bridge transferring the power of warriors to The People, and officiating in the name of The Gods.
If God or The Gods are jealous, then it would follow they would wish to be the power in The Universe, this would mean warrior-aristocrats risk being blasphemers. For this reason it makes sense to be both humble and proud, proud in that one affirms one’s own dignity, and humble in that not assuming one’s dignity supersedes that of others. This means to avoid both wretchedness and arrogance. Glory be to God(The Gods).
https://auticulture.com/the-skapegoat-rene-girard-cbc-series-mp3-downloads/
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-scapegoat-the-ideas-of-ren%C3%A9-girard-part-1-1.3474195