On Public Executions

from Google AI:

Historically and sociologically, public executions functioned as both a pharmakos (scapegoat mechanism) and a carnival, depending on whether you look at the event through the eyes of the ruling authorities or the rowdy crowds in attendance. [1, 2]

Instead of being mutually exclusive, the two concepts operated as a symbiotic paradox: the state provided the pharmakos to enforce order and expiate social anxiety, while the populace transformed the event into a carnival to temporarily escape and lampoon that very same authority. [1]

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The Comparison: Pharmakos vs. Carnival

Dimension	Public Execution as Pharmakos 🏛️	Public Execution as Carnival 🎪
Core Concept	A ritualistic scapegoat expelled or sacrificed to purify the community of collective guilt, crime, or crisis.	A festive, chaotic space of misrule where everyday social boundaries and hierarchies are temporarily upended.
The Primary Actor	The State / Sovereignty: Uses the condemned body to project total power, restore moral order, and cleanse social "poison".	The Populace / Mob: Uses the space for morbid curiosity, mass entertainment, drinking, and defiance.
Atmosphere	Solemn, instructional, and structured (e.g., execution sermons, public confessions).	Rowdy, disruptive, and commercialized (e.g., vendors selling snacks, pickpockets, cheering folk heroes).
Function	Expiation: To rid society of an "other" so the remaining collective can imagine itself free of blemish.	Catharsis: A temporary safety valve to release pent-up public rage and mutinous energy.

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1. The Execution as Pharmakos (The View from Above)

The ancient Greek pharmakos ritual involved taking an outcast—a criminal, slave, or marginalized person—and parading them through the streets to be beaten, exiled, or killed to purify the city from plague, famine, or crisis. [1, 2, 3]

When the state conducted a public execution, it acted on this exact principle:

• The Dual Nature of the Poison/Cure: In Greek philosophy, pharmakon means both poison and medicine. The criminal represents the "poison" introduced into society. By publicly executing them, the state administers the "medicine," absorbing and purging the evil to restore the body politic. [1]
• Re-establishing Order: The ceremony was designed to make the community complicit in casting out the bad actor, thereby reaffirming the dominant group's laws and values. [1]

2. The Execution as Carnival (The View from Below)

While the state intended the scaffold to be a solemn stage of absolute power, the public frequently hijacked it into a literal party—what Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin termed the "carnivalesque". [1]

• The "Hanging Day" Festival: In 18th-century England or 19th-century America, public executions drew tens of thousands of spectators. People took work off, brought their children, rented grandstand seating, climbed trees, and treated it like a county fair. [1, 2, 3]
• Subverting Subjugation: Rather than leaving terrified, the crowds often cheered the condemned as folk heroes, jeered the executioners, or rioted if a hanging was botched. [1, 2, 3]

The Convergence: How They Fed Into Each Other

The reason public executions ultimately ended in Western societies (moving behind closed prison walls by the late 19th and early 20th centuries) is that the carnival broke the pharmakos. [1, 2]

Governments realized that the "carnival-like atmosphere" stripped the event of its solemn, deterrent power. Instead of reinforcing the sanctity of the law, it fostered disorder, bloodthirstiness, and mockery of the state. [1, 2]