The sacrifice and the origin of culture: how can the culture be derived from the ritual sacrifice?

Résumé du document

Culture is the only thing that is proper to mankind. Other animals have no culture, or very little. We are different from other animals because we have the power to modify the nature. But culture is not only acting on nature, it's also the capacity to transmit our history to the next generation. All the texts, and these memories that are transmitted from generation to generation, that found our culture and our civilization begin with violence. To escape from the violence inherent in all societies, the community has to established common values that constitute the base of the culture. The sacrifice of Isaac, the crucifixion of Jesus or the murder of the original father are the only way to channel the violence into a unique subject. The sacrifice can be seen as the beginning of culture. Culture is always violence, because violence founds it. The sacrificed object (a person, an animal or a symbolic image) is first hated and then becomes sacred. The sacrifice itself becomes an object of cult, and its symbolic repetitions are a way to channel the violence accumulated. Culture and sacrifice are deeply linked, and we will see how this relation works. First, we will analyze the place of the sacrifice in the first societies, and its relation with the beginning of a culture. Then we will see if, like the transmission of culture, the sacrifice is not a mimetic phenomenon. To finish, I want to analyze the Jewish religion from the point of view of the sacrifice. There are indeed many signs of the sacrifice in the practice of the Jewish religion, and the Jewish religion is similar in many points to ancient forms of religion.

Extraits

[...] Everywhere a sacrifice involves a feast and a feast cannot be celebrated without a sacrifice. The sacrificial feast was an occasion on which individuals rose joyously above their own interests and stressed the mutual dependence existing between one another and their god”. But it is also the place of cultural activity. In his famous book, The birth of tragedy, Nietzsche analyses the context of the creation of tragedy. Why and how the Greeks invent the tragedy? For Nietzsche, there are two different elements in Greek culture: the Dionysian and the Apollonian. [...]

[...] The origin of Judaism has to be found in the symbolic sacrifice of Isaac and brand new rites of sacrifice. If Judaism changed the practices of the ritual sacrifices, it keeps the idea of sacrifice as a way to gather the community. Indeed, “religion” comes from the Greek relegere, bind, to gather”, its purpose is to gather a community of human being around common values. The sacrifice permits to expiate one sin. Judaism is indeed a religion of sacrifice. All the rites are linked to the symbolic sacrifice. [...]

[...] The first father is the totem of the tribe, represented by a symbolic figure. This totem is the beginning of the culture. Freud, in Totem and Taboos, speaks about the creation of the totem and its relation with the original father: “What is a totem: It is as a rule an animal (whether edible and harmless or dangerous and feared) and more rarely a plant or a natural phenomenon (such as rain or water), which stands in a peculiar relation to the whole clan. [...]

[...] Indeed, a play is like a festival or a sacrifice: it represents the violent passions of mankind to stop it. It is a symbolic sacrifice that has been rationalized: men no more participate to the sacrifice, they watch it. The transformation of the sacrifice happens through the culture: it becomes a ritual festival and then a tragedy. The sacrifice products culture, and culture transforms the form of the sacrifice. The consequence of this transformation is that there is less violence expressed in the society, but there is much more violence accumulated in the persons. [...]

[...] Then we will see if, like the transmission of culture, the sacrifice is not a mimetic phenomenon. To finish, I want to analyze the Jewish religion from the point of view of the sacrifice. There are indeed many signs of the sacrifice in the practice of the Jewish religion, and the Jewish religion is similar in many points to ancient forms of religion. The sacrifice of the primitive father and his totemisation. The first societies are in fact families. A father, several mothers and the children are the base of every society. [...]