Freedom in a Culture of Hotdogs and Scapegoats

Self Portrait, Istvan Ilosvai Varga

Rene Girard speaks of a tension that necessarily arises in society with many individuals seeking the same thing. This tension, for Girard, has most evidently in ancient cultures involved a scapegoat. For instance, in Aztec culture, a scapegoat was offered up to the gods in satisfaction. In turn, those who offer the sacrifice require a remediation of their hurts and the bestowal of what they desire.

When we think of this current in American culture, we may encounter some fairly astounding revelations regarding our use of scapegoats and the ends we seek by external sacrifice. The world has its own Lent, its own process by which it seeks to approximate itself to the things it values. America, in brief, values a peculiar definition of freedom. 

This concept of freedom is manifested more or less materially: the trappings of pleasure (e.g. boys and cars, girl and boats, the NFL), laws protecting entitlement (e.g. welfare, separation of church and state, and the incoming so-called “gay marriage” laws), and convenience (e.g. internet, pre-nuptial agreements, contraception).

Freedom involves sacrifices. Egotism threatens freedom; violence threatens freedom; intellectual oppression destroys freedom – these are not welcome in a free society. Quite often, however, we conflate two different concepts, and in doing so place human rights in danger of utter loss. These two concepts are 1) free will and 2) freedom. 

Free will refers to the inherent and obvious capacity of a human being to choose one thing or the other: a sandwich or a smoothie (not green). 

Freedom refers to a state of being in which the human is able to make the best possible choice without hindrance (e.g. “I will better myself and no one can stop me”). The concept of “freedom” thus involves the moral idea of goodness, whereas the concept of “free will” allows for both good and evil. This is simply a matter of defining terms. 

Many Americans use “freedom” in the sense of “free will”, and truly believe that they may do as they please whilst they dwell in this country. Of course, they will enter into argument about how their sense of “freedom” depends upon the cultural context in which they were raised. However, this cultural context is ever-shifting: the argument means nothing if the concept of “freedom” can change at the whim of the masses. How can we define “freedom” if the word becomes unmanageable due to uncertain content? 

And America has multiple cultural contexts! Oh, the rabbit trails we could run.

We could ask the contextualist, “And so ‘freedom’ could refer to a position of complete oppression depending on the context in which it is used? This is simply a matter of language, then. You are using one word which previously had one meaning to refer to another. How can one know what he values, then? How can we discuss this thing called a ‘cultural value’? And if we assert that freedom is changing, how can we decry the dictatorship?” Indeed, we do not decry the dictatorship.

What the American is truly trying to say is that he has the right not to be bothered by any doubt of his correctness in living how he chooses to live, and he will deflect any doubts with whatever means necessary, including casting doubt upon the value of language and its ability to order our world. Language even becomes a scapegoat. When language becomes a scapegoat (it hasn’t worked with us), this is a sign that the self is willing to sacrifice his communion with other human beings in order to have whatever he craves. The autonomous self – the dead self.

In the end, the sense intended is this: “Freedom”, for many Americans, refers to uninhibited will.

However, as we see in effect today, this uninhibited will often clashes with the will of others. What is needed to mollify the escalating anxiety caused by the infringement upon our will by another? A scapegoat. To preserve a semblance of peace, the members of society come together at various points – waves reach over the sandbar and touch. As long as the scapegoat is there, society may go on with its mediocre state of temporary pacification. When the scapegoat disappears, war – the waves clash.

And what preserves our American stasis, our lone wolf syndrome of doing what one likes? What preserves our pleasure, entitlement, convenience?

• We all believe that love can and should die.
• We all believe that children can and should die if they interrupt our particular phase of life.
• We all believe that the enemies of uninhibited will should be scorned and defaced.
• We believe in the dead self, a hatred of self sold as a love of self.

And if these things hold our society together, they are like the abyss that opens in the ground, so that the walls of earth seem to join as they collapse, falling inward upon themselves. We commune only when we wish to break apart, and we shall break apart if we do not commune.

The self is not autonomous. It depends upon its intricate bonds to other members of society for survival, comfort, and even personality. When it begins to sever these bonds for the cry of mere inclination, it ceases, in unsustainable ways, to be human. It distorts nature and bends her to its will like Kim Jong Un, Hussein, Hitler. Imagine the horror and the isolation of an entire nation of “autonomous selves”, each attempting to sacrifice each because of the turmoil caused within, until the scapegoat becomes the self in that final surfeit of guilt that is yet a selfish act. Alone in a bunker with cyanide.

And true guilt? The answer that G.K. Chesterton gave to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?”:

 “I am.”

This is freedom.




"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish"
-- Mother Theresa of Calcutta