From: "Charles Gavette" <chaosmosis-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: pharmakon
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 08:36:02 PST


Yes, Michelle, I think it was in Derrida's essay that spoke of the myth. 
Was there an essay entitled "White Mythology"?...I have forgotten. In 
the essay, he speaks of the scapegoat and village sacrifice. It is the 
pharmakos or pharmakon. Kristeva, Cixious, or Braidotti, or?.... also 
mentions "pharmakos" somewhere....... Since ancient times, humans have 
maintained a plethora of self-deceptive explanatory myths which we used 
to help us survive. These myths include such things as explanations for 
why bad things happen to people(curses cast on the innocent through), 
why one should help the poor(they may be gods in disguise), and what 
sacrifices to make to improve crops(blood and bone make lovely 
fertilizer). Primitive people also believed that inanimate objects could 
bring evil and disharmony on society by their very existence. These 
objects, known as "deodands," would be ceremoniously destroyed by 
sorcerors in public rituals. The Pharmakon was the next step up from the 
deodand. "Pharmakon" is a Greek word with two meanings: "drug," and 
"scapegoat." When Greek society focused on a troublesome individual, 
they would claim him responsible for all the evils of the society and 
then kill him with a cup of poison. In their view, Socrates became the 
Pharmakon when he drank the hemlock; his death brought rejoicing, 
because now they had been freed to return to a golden age of peace and 
prosperity. As Joseph Campbell has said, "Symbolism made real can be a 
very ugly thing."

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