Rene Girard believed that scapegoating fulfilled a sacred role in society by establishing order and unity among the people. This order is both complex and delicate and depends on society’s “proximity” to the sacred – apparent in their rituals, myths, and taboos.
Girard compared society’s relationship to the sacred with drawing close to a fire. Come too close and the fire can be dangerous. Too far, and the heat and light of the fire are diminished. So Girard believed that societies, both primitive and modern, needed the “tutelage” of the sacred to properly confront the violence they would encounter, without being destroyed by it.