Social Legal Normativity

by Shlomo Giora Shoham

The Isaac Syndrome is related to the myth of the Sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis and its application to human behavior. Myths, in short, are a projection of wishes and experiences, both on the individual and group levels. We explicate this view in Salvation Through the Gutters:

Our methodological anchor is the conception of myths as projections of personal history. The individual is aware of his personality as the sole existential entity in his cognition. This awareness of existence is the only epistemological reality. Myths cannot, therefore, be divorced from the human personality. Whatever happened to us in the amnestic years and even later is projected onto our theory of the creation of the universe, magic, and other human beings. The events that happened in the highly receptive amnestic years have been recorded and stored by the human brain. Events that happened after the amnestic years may be recalled cognitively, but whatever happened within these first years of life is recalled inter alia by myths of cosmogony. Myths as personal history may therefore be regarded as the account of some crucial developmental stages in the formative years. Moreover, human development, in the early formative years, passes in an accelerated manner through the whole evolutionary phases of the species. [1]

Consequently, myths are also a projection of the development of the species as inherent in the development of the individual. Interestingly, the conception of myths as a projection of personal history may be inferred from the Apocalypse of Baruch, which states, “Every man is the Adam of his own soul.”[2] One might interpret in this expression that every human being experiences Original Sin.

We hold, therefore, that myths structure meanings of human behavior, and serve as motivation and prime movers for both individuals and groups. As myths are projected models of human behavior on all levels, they are records of past experience, as well as structures for future longings and goals. Myths are also expressions of overt behavior, of covert dynamics, of the here-and-now, and of transcendence. The dimensions of myths may also greatly vary, from micro-myths, like names of persons and places, which express meaningful experiences or quests, to meta-myths such as the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus, which represent two polar types of human behavior. Sisyphus was punished for eternity, condemned to roll a stone to the top of a hill. Whenever he neared the summit, the stone would roll down and Sisyphus had to start again. Tantalus stole nectar and ambrosia from the table of the Olympians and was punished. Whenever he wanted to drink, the liquids evaporated and food he reached for was whirled out of his reach by a gust of wind.

Myths vary with time and place, and every society and culture has its own indigenous mythology. Myths move in time, from the sacred myths told before recorded history, to modern myths which include the master detectives Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and John Le Carré’s Smiley, or Superman who implements the dreams of omnipotence in the downtrodden, henpecked inhabitants of Metropolis. Myths can also relate to individuals, such as in the offerings of Isaac and Iphigenia, signifying the sacrificial enmeshing of the young within the normative system of society. There are also group myths, such as the adventures of the Olympian gods and the tribal exploits of the German Aesir. The Nazi movement may indeed be studied as having been triggered and sustained by a collective myth.[3]

The Mytho-empirical manifestation of the normative sacrifice of the young is the sacrifice of Isaac, denoted as the Isaac Syndrome. Its female counterpart is the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon. Yet the sacrificial cycle returns to the parents, because the life of an Abraham or an Agamemnon becomes unbearable due to their guilt and pain following the act of sacrifice, even if Isaac, Iphigenia, or Jesus were willing victims.

On the socio-psychological level, the Isaac Syndrome may be related to the process of norm sending and norm reception. The socio-psychological theoretical systematization of the processes leading to conformity to social norms analyses the transmission and enforcement of norms by the group (norm sending) and the degree to which the norms have been received and internalised by the individual.[4] The norm sending process first requires a statement by the group as to the desired behaviour and the consequences to the individual if he does not comply. The group should then maintain surveillance over the person in order to determine the extent (if any) of his compliance to the norm; and, lastly, the group should apply sanctions to non-complying individuals.

Oedipal pressures of children against their parents for bringing them into the world are subconscious, ontological and existentialist, as well as psychosexual (as Freud claimed). More consciously, they rebel against their socialization by harsh rites of passage. Thus, in tandem with the guilt and grief of the parents for having normatively sacrificed their offspring, children bear guilt at not having done everything to prevent the suffering of their parents in old age and sickness and for not being able to prevent their deaths. Man is thus ever vacillating and torn between his guilt as a parent and his guilt as a child. The Oedipal rejection of the parents also stems from a child’s wish to experience life; the child disregards the parents’ counsel not to engage in certain ventures or to perform in a given manner. The rebellion of youth and the “generation gap” are Oedipal, and suppression of that rebellion by parents relies on the primacy of moral “righteous indignation”. “Law and order,” and the assumed sovereignty of the “rule of law”, stem from the Isaac Syndrome.

Isaac and Iphigenia

Social separation is not effected, as Freud and Erickson have postulated, by psychosexual developmental phases, but rather by conflictual normative indoctrination, and by deprivational socialization within the family.[5] These factors are exemplified by the numerous rites of passage, studied by anthropologists, and by the lonely burdens of responsibility imposed on post-adolescents in every human society.

In most cultures, the father, or his surrogate, is the doctrinaire figure, playing an instrumental role in imposing norms and duties on his sons and daughters, thus preparing them for their social roles. We denote a father’s normative impositions on his son as the Isaac Syndrome.[6] Whereas the first victimization of the child, at the oral stage of development, is maternal (a process that blocks the free expression of the child’s incestuous desires), the second victimization is paternal, coercing and harnessing the child into the normative system of society. This coercive and normative victimization is usually backed by the absolute authority of God, the Fatherland, or a secular political deity. As in the model of the Offering of Isaac, there is usually a symbiotic relationship between the stern doctrinaire father and a metaphysical source of absolute authority. It is important to note that the continued victimization of the child by his parents, from early orality onwards, is an integral part of the developmental socializing separation process. Paternal victimization leads to a “separant” insertion of the pubescent individual into the normative pigeonhole, sanctioned by society.

The mother, however, serves as the symbol of grace. She represents carefree, participant longing for the forgiveness and irresponsibility of children within the family fold. In some tribes, rites of passage from childhood to puberty are presided over by the elders, while the mothers join in the wailing of the circumcised, suffering sons.[7] A mythological corroboration of the mother as the image of grace in the eyes of the pubescent son is found in the angel who orders Abraham not to slaughter Isaac. The angel is invariably depicted as female in the iconography of the offering of Isaac[8] It is not far-fetched, therefore, to regard the female angel as a representation of Isaac’s mother, Sarah.

The essence of the myth of the offering of Isaac lies in the sacrificial enmeshing of the young into the disciplinarian boundaries of the normative systems of society.[9] All normative socialization involves, to a varying degree, curbing the well-being and freedom of the pubescent young for the benefit of the collective. Literature abounds with examples for the sacrificial coercion of children into the carnivorous exigencies of the normative system. Kafka’s letters to his father reek with the agonies of a son, who was abused by his father in the name of bourgeois morality. Kafka’s relationship with his father most likely filtered into The Metamorphosis, where the petit bourgeois father degrades his misfit son in order to ingrain in him shame and fear of social norms. Similarly, in his play The Awakening of Spring, Frank Wedekind portrays a father who justifies the commitment of his son in a notorious institution of juvenile delinquents with his conviction that the institution stresses and enhances Christian thought and logic. The boy’s mother prays for grace and forgiveness as in archetypal image in the iconography of Isaac’s offerings. The mother laments that their son, a good boy in essence, is bound to become a hardened criminal in the institution. Stern paternal judgment prevails, however, and the boy, Melchoir, is confined to an institution for the heinous crime of having sex with a girl. Wedekind’s play focuses on the sacrificial coercion of parents, mainly the suppression of sexual manifestations in the name of social propriety, morals, and religion.

Paternal sanction and raging admonition also burst forth from Francis Bacon’s Study after Velasquez (i.e., “The Screaming Pope”).[10] In this painting, Bacon takes Velasquez’s serene portrayal of Pope Innocent X, seated in full regalia on his throne, and covers it with a transparent projection of a frozen scream. The Pope’s mouth is wide open and it appears to emit shrieks of horror, howling curses, and screams of damnation. One might interpret these howls to represent Bacon’s authoritarian father when he learnt that his adolescent son was a transvestite. Here, we also recall the modern televised interviews with the late Pope John Paul II, whose benign, good-natured face became hard and stern whenever he confirmed the Church’s proscriptions of married priests, abortion, and homosexuality. Indeed, sex remains one of the normative strongholds of the Church, perhaps because the Church sees God’s programming of humanity in sexual roles. The persistent proscription of free manifestations of sexuality, especially between consenting homosexual adults, induced John Money to label official authorities, both secular and religious, as sexual dictatorships hunting sexual heretics.[11] Money’s label is an extension of the Isaac Syndrome to societies and collectives, whereby the authoritarian figure of Abraham permeates the power structures of society and religion.

Mothers usually warn their children when they are naughty, “Wait till Daddy comes home and I’ll tell him all about your behavior today.” By such a statement, the mother implies that she does not wield the normative rod; rather it is the role of the authoritarian figure in the family, the father, to impose due sanctions. The doctrinaire role of the father is equally directed towards sons and daughters. The contents of social norms imposed by paternal authority vary, however, with the sex of the child. In most patriarchal societies, the son is often coerced, to undertake the burden of social responsibility, whereas the daughter is harnessed into her feminine roles of marriage, childbearing, and keeping household duties.

A partial feminine counterpart to the sacrificial rites of passage inherent in the Isaac Syndrome may be inferred from the Greek myth of Demeter and Koré. Zeus, Koré’s father, was instrumental in her abduction, ejecting his daughter from the family and the protective fold of her mother and delivering her to his hellish brother, Hades.[12] The implication here is that Koré was taken away from the care of her mother through the devices of her father, who exposed her to the trials of matrimonial servitude to her husband. The experience was registered by the pubescent Koré as coercive and infernal. Yet, this experience is the social essence of the betrothals of daughters throughout most of history and in traditional societies today. Daughters are given away in marriage to the appropriate husband who is mainly chosen according to their fathers’ political calculations, social expectations, and economic needs.

The most striking feminine parallel to the Isaac Syndrome, however, both in its gory, sacrificial details and profound socio-normative implications, is seen in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, as dramatized by Euripides. In the play, Iphigenia was to be sacrificed to the gods by her father, Agamemnon, for the glory of the collective and its patriotic honor. The authoritarian agency of Agamemnon served the exigencies of socio-religious commands, in the same way that the normative authority of Abraham was the extension of Divinity. Unlike Abraham, however, who never doubts God’s commands, Agamemnon waivers and rages against the need to sacrifice his daughter for the glory of the army and the honor of the mob. The divergence between the two myths stems from differences between the Judaic and Greek conceptions of Divine authority. For Abraham, God’s commands were the epitome of justice, neither doubted nor questioned, whereas the anthropomorphic Greek gods made no pretence of being just.

In the case of Iphigenia, the Greeks knew that their gods were the arbiters of necessity and fate, the prime movers of the Greek religious and normative systems. Despite these differences, both the Greek and the Jewish fathers made the same decision, each of them willing to sacrifice his son or his daughter to the Divine projections of socio-normative mandates. According to the Midrash, the traditional and mythological interpretation of the Bible, Isaac runs joyfully to the altar and binds himself to it.[13] Iphigenia, however, is not so willing a victim. In one of the most shattering monologues in world drama she pleads with Agamemnon:

Had I the voice of Orpheus, O my father,

If I could sing so that the rocks would move,

If I had words to win the hearts of all,

I would have used them. I have only tears.

See, I have brought them! They are all my power.

I clasp your knees, I am your suppliant now,

I, your own child; my mother bore me to you.

O, kill me not untimely! The sun is sweet!

Why will you send me into the dark grave?

I was the first to sit upon your knee,

The first to call you father.[14]

Eventually, however, she accepts her fate and goes to the altar, patriotically announcing, “Bid my father come and touch the altar, which will this day bring victory and salvation unto Greece.”[15] Like Sarah, Isaac’s mother, in the myth of the Offering of Isaac, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia’s mother, is the figure of grace. Clytemnestra condemns paternal cruelty as expressed in the Divine mandate to sacrifice her daughter for the glory of Greece.

The father presides over the vicissitudes of social separation, the cruel rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, the harsh coercion into the delimiting social norms, and the sacrificial horrors of the Isaac and Iphigenia syndromes. These acts induce children of both sexes to long for the cushioned forgiveness and lenient protection of their mothers. For the homosexual Proust, this longing became so intense that he shut himself in a padded, womb-like room and wrote volume after volume idealizing his beloved mother. For Camus, who was ardently heterosexual, his great love for his mother may have turned into a longing for the grace of womanhood in general, rather than for a specific woman. Thus Camus undertook a lifelong quest for the tender friendship of women.[16]

In the original Hebrew of the Bible, as well as in Aramaic and Syriac, the word for “grace” is hessed. According to the Aramaic language the word, hessed also means “incestuous” or “sinful.” Through lack of sources that witness the relevance of that second meaning to Hebrew Scripture, the linkage between the two meanings of the word hessed seems to be wide stretched. Indeed the original Hebrew of the Bible cannot be considered as the source for that second meaning. On the contrary, hessed and “incestuous” / “sinful” are etymologically linked. This illustrates, etymologically at least, that the son’s longing for the mother’s grace appears to have sexual and incestuous undertones. This longing, of course, is a corollary of the suppressed, incestuous desire of the son for his mother at the oral stage, and the relation of this suppressed desire to his subconscious. Primarily, this might explain boys' attraction to girls who remind them, directly or symbolically, of their mothers, since the amatory and sexual longing for their mothers is blocked by the deep internalized prohibition of their very early incestuous desires. The parallel attraction of daughters to men who resemble their fathers might also be related to the dynamics of complementarity. The pubescent daughter, through identification with her mother, is attracted to a complementary authoritarian figure linked to the normativeness of the father. Of course, these relationships vary in families in which the father is soft and benign, while the mother is harsh and authoritarian.

We have expounded the Isaac Syndrome as the sacrificial pressures of balance towards children to complement the oedipal pressures of the aggression of children against their parents. According to psychoanalysis, the legal system is an extension of paternal authority and the infringement of paternal authority. When internalized, offences, deviance, and oedipal pressures become an acceptance of paternal authority as manifest in the normative system so that the complementarity between the oedipal pressures and the Isaac justification of norms become a basis for societal normative system.