Prevent and punish the traitor

The traitor’s action destabilizes the whole society and gives rise to a general feeling of insecurity and mistrust. It creates irrational suspicions themselves sources of disorder and withdrawal into oneself: we fear and we systematically reject the stranger, the unknown felt by nature as an enemy waiting for a weakness to carry out his harmful projects; we hunt down the spy, the enemy within – the traitor par excellence – the one who, infiltrated, works the consciences, influences the minds, knows the weaknesses of the group. 

Betrayal is a trauma such that it provokes a salutary awareness for the survival of the group and gives rise to a real policy of prevention, just as the discourse on the traitor reveals the behaviors that must be prohibited in order not to be placed in this category. 

Guarantees are developed: oaths, solemn promises, sureties, guarantors; we oust those who arouse doubt by the very fact of their extraordinary character: the marginalized, the poor, certain minorities. More caution is exercised and the threat of punishment is raised to deter potential candidates. Certain punishments materially prevent the renewal of the fault and are judged as a sufficient guarantee for society. The severed right hand prevents, for example, perjury from re-offending. The traitor is therefore permanently marked physically in the eyes and in the knowledge of all, as heraldic defamation taints and reduces the social position of the one it punishes. we oust those who arouse doubt by the very fact of their extraordinary character: the marginalized, the poor, certain minorities. More caution is exercised and the threat of punishment is raised to deter potential candidates. Certain punishments materially prevent the renewal of the fault and are judged as a sufficient guarantee for society. The severed right hand prevents, for example, perjury from re-offending. The traitor is therefore permanently marked physically in the eyes and in the knowledge of all, as heraldic defamation taints and reduces the social position of the one it punishes. we oust those who arouse doubt by the very fact of their extraordinary character: the marginalized, the poor, certain minorities. More caution is exercised and the threat of punishment is raised to deter potential candidates. 

Certain punishments materially prevent the renewal of the fault and are judged as a sufficient guarantee for society. The severed right hand prevents, for example, perjury from re-offending. The traitor is therefore permanently marked physically in the eyes and in the knowledge of all, as heraldic defamation taints and reduces the social position of the one it punishes. Certain punishments materially prevent the renewal of the fault and are judged as a sufficient guarantee for society. 

The severed right hand prevents, for example, perjury from re-offending. The traitor is therefore permanently marked physically in the eyes and in the knowledge of all, as heraldic defamation taints and reduces the social position of the one it punishes. Certain punishments materially prevent the renewal of the fault and are judged as a sufficient guarantee for society. The severed right hand prevents, for example, perjury from re-offending. 

The traitor is therefore permanently marked physically in the eyes and in the knowledge of all, as heraldic defamation taints and reduces the social position of the one it punishes.

2The reflection on punishment is profound: it must have the value of an example, firmly redraw the limits not to be exceeded, reactivate the norm, the uses and the reference values. It marks the takeover of the situation by the person or persons who have been betrayed. 

Punishments have a strong symbolic value. It is necessary first of all to cleanse society of the defilement it has undergone, to free it from impurity. Punishment has an obvious cathartic function and the traitor’s blood seems to be, in many situations, the ideal instrument of purification. Above all, the traitor must be put to death, for as long as possible. 

We seek to obtain repentance from him because by committing his misdeed he not only offended men, he also offended his Creator. This is the essential aspect of the penalty inflicted on him.

•  1S . _ Scher, Traitors and Betrayals from Antiquity to Days, Paris, 2008, p. 82.

3The second function of punishment is a function that one would hardly dare to define as “educational” but it is nevertheless a question of transmitting the most effective message possible. The executions, theatrically organized, must strike the spirits and arouse the terror of the populations; keep men away from any temptation of betrayal. Punishment in all its forms has the value of exclusion: exclusion from the world of the living by physical death and by social death, by exile, by legal death, when it is not a question of identity death. “The group disengages from any obligation vis-à-vis the traitor [who struck at the heart of the We] and in particular that of protection and solidarity […] since it has broken, the treason must in turn be defeated 1. » Images, symbolic gestures show that he has become a stranger, another to himself, a man « upside down » but also « the adversary » that is to say the adversary, the one which turned against others. 

The rites of inversion, such as the display of the upturned shield, definitely undermine his fame. Even forgiven, the traitor will never really be reinstated: we will always be wary of him because we will consider that he can betray again. Nevertheless, in a predominantly Christian society, it is difficult not to envisage forgiveness, even of the traitor.