SRS 1110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Moral Evil, Modern Paganism, Pedophilia

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: SRS 1110
• Professor: Shelley Rabinovitch

Document Summary

Scapegoat an anthropological term meaning of sacrificial victim whose murder purges the community of violent tension brought on by social crises not directly related to the victim. Europe had killed a significant number of jews. Nevertheless, sporadic bouts of plague and other disasters, continued to happen, so we needed a new victim. Misogyny (hatred of the feminine) early modern europe did not have our current concept of heterosexuality. It was women, and not men, who were seen as the hypersexual beings. They had a one-sex model, women and men did not form an equal dyad. Instead, god instituted a divine hierarchy, whereby womankind literally came from mankind. Furthermore, it was womankind who had brought evil into the world, by giving into the flesh and succumbing to the temptation of the devil. Fertility concerns the black plague had ravaged europe and caused significant depopulation. Owing to this process of recovery, there was an increase preoccupation with women"s fertility and childbirth.