What would occur if members of society became aware of the scapegoating mechanism and how violence was being used by the group? Might it be possible to ameliorate societal violence? Rene Girard wrote about Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. I write about “awakening from the nightmare of history.” Is it possible to develop an awareness of the manner in which societal acts of sacrificial violence are used to maintain the national group?

Central to Girard’s understanding of the relationship between societal violence and community life is the idea that the sacrificial mechanism must be disguised or hidden in order for it to work. We avoid perceiving what is going on by averting our eyes from the victim. S. Mark Helms states that the working of mythical sacrifice requires that people “know not what they do.” He says that the scapegoating mechanism is “most virulent when it is most invisible,” that the effectiveness of the mechanism of sacrificial killing depends on a certain “blindness to its workings.”

I suggest that society’s attitude toward the soldier is not unlike the posture adopted in relationship to the scapegoat. Specifically, we do not wish to look too closely at what happens to the soldier’s body in war. The maintenance and perpetuation of this institution requires that we “avert our eyes” from the victim, that we avoid looking at the dead or mutilated body of the soldier. Central to the sacrificial mechanism that lies at the heart of warfare is repression or denial of what actually happens to the body of the soldier.

The son of Douglas Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief responsible for the disastrous Battle of the Somme, reports that the General “felt that it was his duty to refrain from visiting the casualty stations because these visits made him physically ill.”

The French Commander Joffre, after pinning a military decoration on a blinded soldier, said to his Staff: “I mustn’t be shown any more such spectacles. I would no longer have the courage to give the order to attack.” War is a ritual in which the body of the soldier is given over to society in the name of maintaining the unity of the nation and preserving its sacred ideals. We want our “beautiful” ideal, but don’t wish to look too closely at the soldier’s mutilated body.

World War II documentaries of the Fifties such as “Victory at Sea” depicted American airplanes attacking Japanese battleships, and Japanese planes attacking American battleships. Based on these films, how glorious and exciting war seemed. With heroic music blasting in the background, warfare resembled a monumental Fourth of July celebration—the rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air. Occasionally, one might see a body drop on the battlefield, but this seemed incidental or accidental. One never saw a wounded or dead body.

I hypothesize that inherent within the institution of war is the attempt to repress or deny the soldier’s body and what happens to it. We prefer to experience war at a distance. Like scapegoating, war works best when we are able to avert our eyes from the victim. It is difficult to relish the glory of one’s nation—to experience a sense of triumph or victory—in the face of a mutilated body. The actuality of a wounded or dead body spoils everything.