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Hannah M. MecaskeyPH 2000- Modern Philosophy

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.Term Paper

22 November 2010

Hobbes Social Contract Compared vs. Girards Scapegoat TheoryMimetic Violence Operative in bothLeviathan and the Scapegoat Mechanism

Introduction

Theorists belief systems are often betrayed by the anthropologies underlying their

various systems. For Thomas Hobbes the naturalistic state of man in his social contract theory is

violent and animalistic, only controllable when the general public is able to redirect their

individualistic fear and anger at one particular personHobbes version of an absolute monarch.

Ren Girards own type of political theory, his scapegoating mechanism, embedded in a theory

of mimetic rivalry and violence about human nature. For Girard, mans natural state is also

violent, not only on an individualistic level but on a societal level as well. However, human

animosity is too cyclic to be constrained by redirection to one member of society and remain in

the society, so one person becomes the scapegoat, the communal vessel of guilt, for the whole of

the society. While there are many similarities between Hobbes and Girards theories, they differ

dramatically in conclusion, Hobbes accepting the notion ofkatchon, that human institution can

quell mimetic rivalry, while Girard accepts only a divine solution.

Thomas Hobbes Social ContractTheory

The primary text of Hobbes from which I will construct Hobbes social contract theory is

Leviathan. In describing the common-wealth or state asLeviathan, the ancient beast which

appears in the book of Job as a symbol of primordial chaos, Hobbes designates his ideal state as


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an Artificial Man1

which is in fact greater than natural man. It is mans duty, Hobbes begins in

his introduction, to create such artificial life as this state, in imitation of the creative ability of

God. Yet perhaps Hobbes conceives as all of life as automated, since he describes life as merely

the motion of limbs, mechanistically moving about. In like manner, the body of the state is

animated by an absolute monarch, whom Hobbes terms the Artificial Soul of the mechanistic

body of the state. Designating mankind as creator of this nationalistic beast Leviathan as well as

man composing the Leviathan, Hobbes says that the Leviathans artificial life comes through the

making of covenants which designate what are the rights and just power or authority of a

sovereign; and what it is that preserves and dissolves it.

2

It is upon these covenants which bring

about the existence of the Leviathan state through social contract theory that I will focus.

Beginning with a discussion of human nature in Chapter 17, Of the Causes, Generation

and Definition of a Common-Wealth inLeviathan, Hobbes determines that human beings have

a need for the common-wealth/state to preserve individual security. Describing the creation of a

common-wealth as mankinds final cause in order to preserve individual lives from that

miserable condition of War which results from the natural Passions of men since Hobbes

finds no visible Power to contain their natural violence by threat of punishment.3

Since mans

chief desire is for self-preservation, Hobbes argues that this desire gives rise to a desire for

pleasure,4

leading humans to try and store pleasure for the future, requiring a certain amount of

power which Hobbes defines as the means to satisfy our desires.5 These descriptions evidence

that Hobbes finds mankind unable to maintain a natural peace, unlike certain living creatures, as

1Thomas Hobbes.Leviathan. MacPherson, C.B., ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), 81.

2 Ibid., 82.3

Ibid., 223.4

D.D. Raphael.Hobbes: Morals and Politics. Political Thinkers, 6. Geraint Perry, ed. (London: George Allen &Unwin Ltd., 1977), 30.

5 Ibid., 31.


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Bees and Ants, live sociably with one another.6

Why is mankinds natural disposition not

towards peaceful co-existence with fellow mankind?

To this question, Hobbes offers six reasons in response: First, Hobbes believes that

humans are always in competition with one another for honor and dignity,7 stirring up envy

and strife which lead to war.8

Second, Hobbes says that this envy and jealousy is so heightened

in mankind that he cannot enjoy anything which does not selfishly pertain to himself.9

Thirdly,

Hobbes describes human beings and prideful about their own intellects, causing political strife by

constant attempts to reform the state.10

Fourth, Hobbes finds humankind to be deceptive because

of our linguistic abilities, further frustrating our fellow humans.

11

Fifth, Hobbes describes human

beings as boastful about their own knowledge, especially concerning state governance, which

breeds discontent on a political level.12

And finally, Hobbes does not believe human beings

naturally agree to things, unlike irrational creatures, thus peace comes through an artificial

covenant.13

In these six ways, Hobbes distinguished between human nature and that of irrational

animals, seeming to conclude that human rationality makes men more violent than capable of a

simplistic peace.

Given this negative anthropology, Hobbes concludes that the only way for humans to live

in peace with one another is to intentionally covenant with one another, every man with every

man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man.14

This individualistic covenant

between persons agrees that each will subjugate himself to the rule of an absolute monarch,

6 Thomas Hobbes.Leviathan. MacPherson, C.B., ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), 225.7 Ibid.8 Ibid., 226.9

Ibid.10 Ibid.11

Ibid.12

Ibid.13 Ibid.14 Ibid., 227.


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receiving punishment for wrongful actions. Hobbes thinks that such a covenant will unite the

whole multitude of individuals into one person he calls the Moral God, the Leviathan state.15

Thus all the persons united as individuals convey the power of their submission to one

individual, the absolute monarch, who is granted sovereign powerso much power and strength

that he is actually able to terrorize the individuals composing the state unchecked.16

Hobbes says

that the absolute monarch embodies the essence of the common-wealth in as much as it is one

person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants with another have made themselves

every one the author of the city-state to the end that he may use the collective means and

powers of the individuals as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defense.

17

Thus Hobbes solves his perceived problem of human natures propensity to violence for

the sake of individual benefit by harnessing that energy through social covenants with one

another to grant the power for protection and self-preservation to an absolute monarch, whose

absolute authority terrorizes the people who comprise the state. Having stated in his introduction

that he was reacting to the Aristotelian concept of nature, Hobbes has destroyed the social

nature of human beings, and has taken that conclusion to its natural extreme in the belief that all

human beings are so concerned with individualist self-preservation and survival that community

is an artificial product of a social contract to preserve individual needs. It is interesting that

Hobbes requires a specifically visible presence for the maintenance of human peaceand that

the sovereign he erects is one endowed with absolute, unquestioned authority. In some ways, this

figure parallels God, who is the epitome of absolute power and unquestionable authority, though

Hobbes monarch rules through fear and terror.

15Ibid.

16 Ibid.17 Ibid., 228.


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Wolfgang Palaver focuses on Hobbes social contract theorys monarch as similar to a

katchon, a term referring to the restraining or holding back force18

for the natural selfishly-

driven violence Hobbes reads as inherent to human. Palaver recognizes characteristics of

mimetic rivalry, a concept introduced by Ren Girard, within Hobbes system of human

violence, and the redirection of that violence towards one person (as in Girards theory of

mimetic rivalry). Hobbes does indeed describe humankinds equality of ability (to kill one

another) with the equality of hope in attaining the same ends as the process which puts human

beings in conflict with one another.19

Since Hobbes does believe that two people can both enjoy

the same end, he says that they become enemies, endeavoring to destroy or subdue one

another.20

Having seen traces of Girards mimetic rivalry in HobbesLeviathan, I will describe

Girards own theory of mimetic rivalry, culminating in the Scapegoat Mechanism, as a way to

better elucidate an understanding of potential implications of Hobbes social contract theory.

The Mimetic and Scapegoat Mechanisms of Ren Girard

To introduce Ren Girards framework of mimetic theory, especially the scapegoat

mechanism, I will briefly explain the mechanism with the aid of Michael Kirwan, a Neo-

Girardian, before drawing out my analysis. Kirwan is very careful to describe Girards theory as

closely as possible, and seems to do an extremely accurate job, even according to the originator

of this scapegoat mechanism himself, Girard. Thus arguing from Kirwans book Discovering

Girard, I feel as if I am dealing with a translation of Girards theory, the actual substance of his

thought in slightly varied presentation. Girard himself describes mimesis, the basis of his

18 Wolfgang Palaver.Hobbes and the Katchon: The Secularization of Sacrificial Christianity. Contagion: Journal

of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. (Vol 2., Spring 1995), 61.19 Thomas Hobbes.Leviathan. MacPherson, C.B., ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), 184.20 Ibid.


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theory, as a behavioral tendency towards imitation,21

in the case of mimetic theory, basically the

imitation of desire in that one desires what one sees another person desiring because that other

person desires it.

It is important to understand what is meant by mimetic rivalry if one is going to correctly

grasp Girards concept of the scapegoat mechanism, which rests upon the acceptance of mimetic

violence within human society. Briefly put, mimetic rivalry is the violence that arises in

interpersonal, even inter-societal relations when one person or society desires what another has,

and views it as necessary for his/their happiness. Mimetic rivalry is the impetus, the

psychological or spiritual violence of envy and covetousness which impels mimetic violence,

which is violence done in attempt to selfishly acquire whatever was desired of the other. Keeping

this in mind, it will be much easier to understand how Girard characterizes the rising up on

mimetic violence within the scapegoat mechanism. Appealing to children to exemplify mimetic

conflicts, Girard describes Augustines illustration of two children who have the same wet nurse:

the nurse has more than enough milk for both children, but they simultaneously desire the same

thing.22 Girard says that this exemplifies a desire beyond acquisitive, that has become a

competitive desire: even if there is more than enough milk for both children, each wants to

have it all in order to prevent the other from having any.23

Girard also claims that this kind of

desire is operative among adults, a selfish desire for a thing which another person also wants or

needs, while desiring to present the other from having the thing as well.

Clearly in Kirwans presentation, Girards theory of the scapegoat mechanism arose

mainly through his analysis of classical literature such as Tolstoy and Shakespeare. I will briefly

21Ren Girard with Pierpaolo Antonello and Joo Cezar de Casto Rocha. Evolution and Coversion: Dialogues on

the Origins of Culture. (New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2007), 60.22 Ibid., 61.23 Ibid.


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describe the major components of what Girard calls the scapegoat mechanism. Expanding his

prior theories of mimetic rivalry and interpersonal violence into a more general theory of social

order, Girard stated that it was a societys conception of the sacred through which

interpersonal violence was contained, preserving the social order.24 It is within this context of

the sacred, within religion itself, that Girard sees the scapegoat mechanism as operating

opportunistically.

The scapegoat mechanism operates at two different levels of a societys self-

understanding, that of divine-human interaction, as well as interpersonal relations, beginning

with the distinct cosmic realms of sacred and profane which are brought into being through

sacrifice of a victim through expulsion or execution. Describing the scapegoat mechanism as a

social process, Girard characterizes the time when a community begins to seek out a victim as

when the cultural order is destabilized or endangered by the escalation of mimetic desire25

and

plunges into crisis. Characterizing the crisis as perceived in almost apocalyptic proportion, the

community as becoming collectively obsessed to the point of seeming possessed in a unified

manner, especially when it seems that the crisis cannot be found without resorting to violence.

Thus, according to Girard, the crisis is resolved by a realignment of the aggression, all against

one,26

venting blame for the cause of the communal disturbance onto the shoulders of one

person. Having selected its victim, the scapegoat through which the community hopes to regain

peace, the group becomes unified in violently eradicating the victim they deem profane from

within their midst through the victims death or expulsion. This experience of being united in

24Michael Kirwan.Discovering Girard. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2005), 38.

25 Ibid., 38.26 Ibid., 38.


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aggression against a common enemy allows the group to experience a transcendence and

harmony which seem to have come from outside.27

The communal threat abated and a state of beatitude achieved through the removal of the

scapegoat victim, the mob that expelled/exterminated the victim attributes the beatitude of their

new state to the victim itself, allowing him/her to acquire a sacred numinosity, even a divine

status.28

Thus the victim is attributed with conflicting qualities: demonization as the attributed

cause of the communitys disaster, as well as some kind of salvific role. Girard assigned the

purpose of cultic prohibitions, rituals and myths as functioning to control a societys impulses

towards mimetic violence, even if they do so by contradictory means such as permitting ritual

sacrifices.29

While prohibitions serve to separate the community members from potential sources

of conflict and violence, sacrificial rituals serve as momentary relaxation of taboos, whereby the

community allows itself an acceptable dosage of violence and chaos, serving as a kind of

inoculation against the infectious spread of mimetic violence.30

In bringing together his analysis

of literature and conception of myth, Girard establishes a link between mimetic desire and

victimization summed up in his declaration that violence is the heart and secret soul of the

sacred.31

The name of Girards scapegoat mechanism is derived out of the popular usage of

scapegoat, rather than with reference to the scapegoat as a part of the Day of Atonement ritual

discussed in Leviticus 16, as an innocent victim against whom the violence of entire community

is channeled.32

The victim of Girards mechanism is in some sense random, possibly singled out

27Ibid., 39.

28 Ibid., 39.29

Ibid., 39.30

Ibid., 39.31 Ibid., 39.32 Ibid., 49.


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because of some significant difference or defect, against which the community enacts a

controlled, limited use of violence in order to prevent a more widespread violence from

engulfing and destroying the whole group.33

Included in his scapegoat mechanism is the

assumption that scapegoating is a spontaneous and unconscious psychological mechanism,

which Neo-Girardian theorists have admitted, and taken farther into an idea that post-sacrifice,

the victims experience may enable the community to realize its own violence, as James Alison

has theorized about the death of Christ providing mankind with an intelligence of the victim

which both demonstrates the innocence of the victim as well as the communitys own propensity

for violence. Neo-Girardians interpret the process of scapegoating as that which can give the

violating community and understanding of its own violence, a redeeming factor in the cyclic

system of scapegoating.

Comparison of Girard and Hobbes

Picking up on the theme of mimetic rivalry which we have witnessed as the

anthropological basis to both Hobbes and Girards theories, I will return to Palavers proposition

concerning a katchon in the secularized political system Hobbes proposes, which can be

brought to a greater light through comparison with Girards mimetic theory. To restate the

definition ofkatchon, Palaver suggests the term can refer to the restraining of chaotic violence

through violence.34 We see this in the social contract theory of HobbesinLeviathan, where the

uncontainable violence of individual persons is restrained by their mutual agreement to be ruled

by an absolute, tyrannical sovereign. Reversing Scholastic Christianitys claim concerning

humanity in the image of God, Hobbes pinpoints human rationality as that which allows human

33 Ibid., 49-50.34

Wolfgang Palaver.Hobbes and the Katchon: The Secularization of Sacrificial Christianity. Contagion: Journal

of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. (Vol 2., Spring 1995), 65.


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beings to develop mimetic rivalry of which animals are incapable. Writing in the wake of the

Protestant Reformation, Hobbes did not identify the Catholic Church with a political katchon as

the Medievals had,35

no longer recognizing any kind of religious institution which could

maintain order. Instead Hobbes creates, in the terminology of Carl Schmitt, a political

theology36

which exemplifies secularization in Hobbes analogous depiction of God and his

concept of the state and of sovereignty.37

Instead of looking to God to restrain human violence, Hobbes chose one of the great

biblical images of the principle of disorder38

the Leviathan, as a civic symbol of order. Palaver

notes that mimetic theory helps to explain this reversal of a principle of disorder to a principle

of order, for it shows us that sacrificial order itself is a product of chaos.39

Palaver claims that a

transfer of sacrificial theological concepts40

is evident in Hobbes social contract theory through

not just a secularization of the Catholic empires katchon power which comes from Divine

authority, but also in the way that Hobbes state functioning a katchon, holds back the advent of

Christs kingdom.41 By depicting his Leviathan state as a kind ofkatchon, fulfilling the

Medieval functions of restraining violence and the paraousia of Christ, Palaver argues that

Hobbes makes sacrifice still necessary to maintain peace, which breaks with other Protestant

authors who saw the katchon as already removed since Protestants tended to identify the Pope

as the Antichrist.42

Unlike the Catholic tradition of daily representing the sacrifice of Christ to

God, Protestants eliminated the need for a sacrificial tradition, believing the end t imes were

35 Ibid., 66.36 Ibid., 65.37

Ibid.38 Ibid.39

Ibid.40

Ibid.,66.41 Ibid., 68.42 Ibid., 66.


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unrestrained after the Reformation. Reading Hobbes system as a secularization of the sacrificial

Catholic empire, Palaver reads a sacrificial element into Hobbes Leviathan common-wealth.

How can Hobbes be seen as creating a secular sacrificial system by which to restrain the

mimetic tendencies of human beings towards violence? Answering this requires comparison to

Girards explanation of the scapegoat mechanism, which is itself a sacrificial system to end

human cultures need for a sacrificial victim. Girards scapegoat mechanism describes the

sacrificial process by which Girard interprets all societies to function. Following Aristotle in the

Poetics, Girard alights upon the distinguishing characteristic of human beings as imitation, not

merely in behavior, but also in our desires.

43

Building on Hobbes analysis of mans nature in

which we find three principal causes of quarrel [:] First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence;

Thirdly, Glory,44

Girard theories the idea of a kind of social contract as well to diffuse a

perceived crisis point. This contract is not a redirection of fear and violence through the giving

over of individual power to a monarch, but rather towards one member of the society who can be

easily pinpointed as the alleged cause of the disturbance, fear, or violence. For Girard, the

society then becomes unifiedin the action of expelling or destroying the victim. Or the group

finds an external focus for its aggression, an enemy without who similarly unites them.45

In

this way, Girard provides a sacrificial outlet for internal violence of a group through elimination

of a group member or redirection of animosity to an outsiderwhom Hobbes has designated as

the sovereign monarch.

Placing Girards terminology in the framework of Hobbes explication of the functioning

of Leviathan, the mimetic rivalry for Hobbes is solved when the individuals redirect their

collective animosity towards the sovereign monarch. Yet it is this depiction of the Leviathan as

43Michael Kirwan.Discovering Girard(Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2005), 17.

44 Thomas Hobbes.Leviathan. MacPherson, C.B., ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), 185.45 Michael Kirwan.Discovering Girard(Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2005), 38-9.


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solution to a peoples realized need for a katchon that Girard objects to as implausible.46

Instead

of agreeing that they need an outside aggressor as scapegoat in time of peak violence allowing

them to cease their hostilities, Girard thinks war more immanent than agreement to submit to an

absolute sovereign.47 Seeing Hobbes system of diffusing mimetic rivalry as entirely improbably,

Girard suggests a temporary violence of all against one person,48

either eliminating them or

throwing them out of the community. This persons eradication from the presence of the all

triggers a united experience of a transcendence and harmony which seem to have come from

outside.49

Yet later, Girard thinks remorse will set in and cause the scapegoatted person to be

viewed in an extremely positive light for having served to bring about the unity now enjoyed.

While Girard himself may scorn Hobbes system of regaining harmony, Girards own scapegoat

mechanism allows for Hobbes system without the concluding remorse and magnification of the

scapegoat (for Hobbes the absolute monarch).

Conclusion

Both Hobbes and Girard share a similar conception of the individual person in their

natural state: violent, scared for their own existence in an animalistic way. Yet where Hobbes

pits individual against individual, Girard sees individual violence melding together in communal

violence rather than communal peace. While for Hobbes fear and survival instincts drive this

individualistic state, for Girard it is something called mimetic rivalry, competitive selfish

desires which drive individuals into conflict with one another. Hobbes suggests a mitigation of

his conception of individual violence through the creation of a social contract where, for the

46Ibid., 45.

47Ibid.

48 Ibid., 38.49 Ibid., 39.


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survival of all, each individual agrees to act in harmony with one another, allowing an absolute

monarch to hold a tyrannical over them as individuals. Girards scapegoat mechanism offers a

way in which the transfer of aggression from individual rivalry to Hobbes absolute sovereign

can occur, enabling this system to act as katchon for the mimetic rivalry between individuals,

though allowing it to reign at the level of the sovereign monarchs activity towards the people.

Girard has openly rejected Hobbes conclusion to a system so similar to Girards

scapegoat mechanism, denying that people would be able to agree to a social contract that would

allow this transfer of aggression to the sovereign monarch. However, Girards theory of the

scapegoats blame and elimination is exactly the same as Hobbes, considered in the redirection

of animosity towards the sovereign which allows the people of the state to live in harmony with

one another, except for the fact that Girard insists the scapegoat mechanism will result in feelings

of remorse from those who victimized, causing them to praise the scapegoat victim for their

newfound unity. According to Girard, this scapegoat mechanism will cyclically continue

whenever a dire situation rises in a group or community, whereas for Hobbes, the sovereign

monarch is the solution to individual persistence in survival though it does not entirely eliminate

animosity, since the people of Hobbes Leviathan will live in terror of the monarch. The double

transference of Girards victim, as author of violence and author of peace,50

makes Girards

conception unique when compared to Hobbes. Both systems demonstrate sacrificial operations,

the redirection of violence from all-against-all to all-against-one, only Girard rejects the notion

of a katchon, generally a conception of politics where the overriding purpose of political

institutions is the restraint of conflict,51

while Hobbes maintains it. For Girard, the only true

50 Ibid., 52.51 Ibid., 45.


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solution to mimetic rivalry is found through the Gospel accounts of the sacrifice of Christno

human work will satisfy this.

Bibliography

Girard, Ren with Pierpaolo Antonello and Joo Cezar de Casto Rocha. Evolution and

Coversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture. New York: Continuum InternationalPublishing, 2007.

Hobbes, Thomas.Leviathan. MacPherson, C.B., ed. Baltimore: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968.

Kirwan, Michael.Discovering Girard. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2005.

Palaver, Wolfgang.Hobbes and the Katchon: The Secularization of Sacrificial Christianity.

Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. Vol 2., Spring 1995. Pg. 57-74.

Raphael, D.D.Hobbes: Morals and Politics. Political Thinkers, 6. Geraint Perry, ed. London:

George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1977.

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