rene girard and mimetic theory
DESCRIPTION
A pdf file of PowerPoint slides about the French thinker Rene Girard who originated the mimetic theory. Rene Girard authored the groundbreaking book "Deceit, Desire, & the Novel."TRANSCRIPT
10/2/2012
1
Masters of Suspicion
Yes, Nietzsche is right in…
� critiquing instrumentalized religion
� exposing the idolatry of reason
� highlighting the need for authenticity
� arguing for the necessity of
genealogical uncovering
But Nietzsche is wrong (I believe)…
� about Christianity and ressentiment
� in positing an ontology of violence
� on the nature of compassion
� in how he portrays Jesus
� in the way he frames eschatology
Response to Nietzsche in this class:
� The character of God in the light of the theology of the cross > cruciform beauty
� Metaphysics of peace > “breaking the cycle of violence”
� Embrace and ethics as first philosophy > that is what “affirmation of life is”
� The politics of Jesus and Christian apocalyptic
René Girard
10/2/2012
2
Step # 1
“The Romantic Lie”
� Girard concerned with the “collapse of
the autonomous self ”
� Later on he stated how he approached
this study in a “pure demystification”
mode > cynical, suspicious
“An experience of demystification, if radical
enough, is very close to an experience of
conversion.” [René Girard]
10/2/2012
3
� According to Girard’s mimetic reading of
the Dream, the classic notion of stable and
autonomous love is ruthlessly and
persistently help up to ridicule.
� Shakespeare presenting before our eyes
the volatility of mimetic desire.
� Repudiation of the “Romantic Lie” > the
notion of stable and autonomous love
The verdict: The self is an
“unstable, constantly changing, evanescent structure,” brought
into existence by desire.
Step # 2
Mimetic Desire
� The self is unstable, constantly changing
> brought into existence by desire
� We imitate the desire of others
� Most of in not all of our desires could be
traced back to this act of mimesis.
“Any kind of market is nothing other than
a mechanism for the harmonious
mediation of desire.”
10/2/2012
4
“Man is distinguished by other life-forms by
his capacity of imitation”Aristotle, Poetics
� The other person who brought the
desired object to recognition becomes a
rival and an obstacle
� Girard uses the world skandalon or
“stumbling block” to name the model
who has become a rival
� Desire posses a triangular structure.
How does all of that
matter?
While Hegel speaks of “desiring the
desire of another” (I desire that the other
recognizes me), Girard’s mimetic theory
hold that I “desire according to the other”
(my desire is directed according to what
the other desire).
10/2/2012
5
� Trousotsky > both his wife
and one of her lover dies
� He attaches himself in a
bizarre fashion to the other
lover, Veltschaninoff
� He wants to remarry, and
asks V. to come with him >
the predictable happens…
“The Eternal Husband is
incapable of loving
someone unless that choice
has been ratified and
approved by the model-
rival.”
[Kirwan]
What forms of
mimesis do we have?
� Acquisitive mimesis = when desire is
centered on a specific object
� Metaphysical mimesis = when no specific
object is aimed at but rather an
indeterminate yet insistent yearning for
the fullness of ‘being’
“It is not strictly true that the subject always
desires an object at all. What really drives
the individual may be something much
more elusive and imprecise: the search for a
a quasi-transcendental state of well-being,
or fulfillment, or self-actualization, which
goes beyond simple possession of any
object or set of objects.” [Kirwan]
10/2/2012
6
“The Fall narrative of Genesis tells of a
good creation which starts to go awry
because of an act of appropriation by
Adam and Eve. It is not simply that the
fruit itself is desirable as an object: what it
signifies, the knowledge of good and evil,
and therefore a share in the very Being of
God, makes this an example of
‘metaphysical’ and not just ‘acquisitive’
mimesis.”
� External mediation = safe form of
mimesis > when distinctions are too
significant
� Internal mediation = when people are
“too close to comfort”
In a world in which long-term
differentiations are eroded, mimesis
encounters fewer and fewer barriers.
Result?
A world characterized by intense
competition, rivalry, envy, and jealousy.
� When mimetic pressures become too
strong > ressentiment
� Salieri = “the patron saint of ressentiment”
10/2/2012
7
“Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind
which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is a lasting mental attitude,
caused by the systematic repression of certain
emotions and affects which, as such are normal
components of human nature. Their repression leads to the constant tendency to indulge in
certain kinds of value delusions and
corresponding value judgments. The emotions
and affects primarily concerned are revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and
spite.” [Scheler]
Step # 3
Scapegoat Mechanism
� For the second phase of his mimetic
theory he turns from literature to cultural
anthropology
� As rivalry intensifies the object will
become less important
� Battle for prestige or recognition (Hegel)
� After a while people might ask,“What are
we fighting for?”
10/2/2012
8
� After a while people might ask, “What are
we fighting for?”
� In other words, how are we to stop the
mimetic contagion?
� Hobbes > human nature = permanent
state of warfare
� G. agrees, but disagrees with the solution
� The idea that people would sit town in the
midst of conflict to elect a sovereign is
ridiculed by Girard.
� Girard’s solution is different.
� A new mimesis comes about
� Just as acquisitive mimesis started the
conflict, so mimesis in the opposite
direction can end it.
� This new mimesis is possible because the
original object of envy has disappeared
� We now have metaphysical mimesis
� Because of that, a new basis for unity can
be found
� The new mimesis of “all against one”
unites rather than divides
� The victim is the embodiment of all evil
� “Scapegoat”
10/2/2012
9
� The new mimesis of “all against one”
unites rather than divides
� The victim is the embodiment of all evil
� “Scapegoating” = a spontaneous and
unconscious psychological mechanism, by
which someone is falsely accused and
victimized
� The community deals with violence by
channeling it.
� The enemy can be external or internal
� As a result of its aggression being
expended in this way, the group
experiences a transcendence and harmony
which seems to have come from ‘outside’.
� The new-found harmony comes to be
attributed in a mysterious way to the
expelled victim, who thus acquires a
‘sacred’ numinosity, even a divine status.
(39)
10/2/2012
10
� Double transference = scapegoat both as
evil and cathartic
� “Religious phenomena such as
prohibitions (taboos), rituals (sacrifices)
and myths all have the function of
helping the community to ‘contain’ its
mimetic violence
� “Prohibitions cordon off or ‘quarantine’
the objects or behavior which are the
potential sources of conflict.
� Ritual (especially sacrifice) is a momentary
relaxation of taboos, whereby the
community allows itself an ‘acceptable’
dosage of violence and chaos, much as a
small dose of a virus may inoculate
against the disease in its more virulent
form.
� According to Girard, mimetic desire is not
recognized by individuals on an everyday
basis, and at the level of cultural
institutions the mythical mentality holds
sway, so that the horrible truth of the
victimage killing is concealed.
“It is better that one man should die than
the whole nation to be destroyed”
10/2/2012
11
The explanation of
religion which is being
offered here is
summarized by the
declaration that ‘violence
is the heart and secret
soul of the sacred’.
� Main point = at the
foundation of all
human relations and
endeavors is a volatile
proclivity to violence
� His vision reflects
Augustine’s idea in the
City of God
“Caiaphas was invoking a mechanism for preserving culture that is as old as culture itself. Whether it is
the Assyro-Babylonian myth declaring that Mardukcreated the world by killing the monster Tiamat;…or
Pope Urban II declaring that God willed the first Crusade; or Thomas Jefferson saying that the tree of
liberty must be periodically watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants; or Lenin saying you can’t
make an omelet without breaking eggs — cultures have forever commemorated some form of sacred
violence at their origins and considered it a sacred duty to reenact it in times of crisis.” [Bailie, 7]
Step # 4
Jesus Breaking the Cycle of
Violence
� Scapegoating process enables a
community in crisis to recover or preserve
its equilibrium.
� This is only effective if the community is
able to disguise from itself the true nature
of what it is doing.
� None of the religious practices – myths,
prohibitions and rituals – declare openly
what is happening.
10/2/2012
12
What sort of myths and
narratives are being perpetuated
today to hide our individual and
collective act of violence in the
past and in the present?
� In this sense ‘myth’ is derived from the
same root as ‘mute’: myths perpetuate a
silence about violent scapegoating.
� Several years after publishing Violence and
the Sacred 1972 he turns to the Bible
� His conviction > biblical revelation runs
in the opposite direction to myth as he
has defined it
� God is on the side of the innocent victim,
not of the persecutors; the Bible operates
as a critique and condemnation of
sacrificial scapegoating, not as an example
of it.
� The Gospel is the biblical spirit which
exposes the truth of violent origins, takes
the side of the victim, and works towards
the overcoming of scapegoating as a
viable means of social formation.
10/2/2012
13
� There is a struggle between two
perspectives on human nature: one which
denies the complicity of desire, religion
and violence, the other which exposes it
“In the New Testament, the teachings of
Jesus, his prophetic critique of religion and
above all the events of the Passion and
Resurrection, all yield readings which are
supportive of a mimetic interpretation: that
Jesus’ ‘strategy’ as the ambassador from a
loving, non-violent Father is to expose and
render ineffective the scapegoat process, so
that the true God may be known.”
“Passion of Jesus lends itself to a ‘dramatic’
interpretation, as Jesus allows a scapegoat
crisis to be ‘acted out’, with himself at its
center. Like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah,
however, his innocence, his refusal to seek
for vengeance – and above all the
vindication of God (who asserts Jesus’
righteousness by raising him from the dead)
combine to expose the truth of the
persecution.”
“Biblical history is the history of one true,
loving God, urging us to cast aside false
idols and to live in the truth – and the most
important of the untruths which must be
rejected is the false transcendence which
issues from our conflictive desires and our
negotiation of them through sacred
violence….
… The entirety of the biblical revelation is
nothing less than God’s struggle to lead his
people towards this new awareness, one that
will indeed ‘set them apart’ from the other
nations. The face of the true God is
gradually but inexorably revealed as
infinitely loving, and completely beyond all
violence.”
10/2/2012
14
� G.’s comparison of the Genesis narrative
and the Prologue of the Gospel of John
� In John > the Word is the expelled one
“If we turn to the Prologue of John what
we find is a re-writing of the Genesis
narrative – from God’s perspective, as it
were, therefore from a perspective which
has nothing in it of mimetic anxiety or
retributive vengeance.”
“The upshot of this is that God can never
be recognized as one of the persecutors.
God is emphatically denied all involvement
with violent actions. Even the resurrection
must be read as his declaration of his
absolute non-involvement with violent
death, much less with the retribution which
one would expect to follow the massacre of
his Son….
… Yet, only by ‘acting out’ the Passion, and
taking the part of the innocent victim, was
Jesus able to initiate the process of
traumatic conversion, one which enabled
those who ‘know not what they do’ to be
enlightened, and to have a change of heart”
[Kirwan]
Ecce Homo!
10/2/2012
15
Girard’s Vision
� For Girard, the Bible is essentially the
gradual unfolding of a non-violent God.
� The Bible, by choosing the side of the victims, desacralizes violence.
� Violence is exposed as being
essentially a human phenomenon.
� Satan is identified with the “circular
mechanism” of violence.
� In other words, humans are inhabitants of the kingdom of Satan, captives of violence.
� Jesus came to invite everyone to
renounce violence, to give up the idea of retribution.
� Jesus showed humanity its true destiny: to rid itself from captivity to
violence
� Sadly, the Church has often forgotten
the message of Jesus
� Ergo, Constantinianism [to come!]
“The word ‘violence’ can be defined to
extend far beyond pain and shedding blood.
It carries the meaning of physical force,
violent language, fury and, more
importantly, forcible interference.”
Nayak, Abhijit (July–October 2008). "Crusade Violence: Understanding and
Overcoming the Impact of Mission Among Muslims". International Review of Mission (World Council of Churches) 97 (386-387): 273–291.
10/2/2012
16
� We can see that Jesus attitude of non-
retaliation not a minor thing for Girard.
� Girard call his project anti-Nietzschean
“Violence may be defined as follows: any
action, verbal or nonverbal, oral or written,
physical or psychical, active or passive,
public or private, individual or
institutional/societal, human or divine, in
whatever degree of intensity, that abuses,
violates, injures, or kills. Some of the most
pervasive and most dangerous forms of
violence are those that are often hidden
from view (against women and children,
especially); …
… just beneath the surface in many of our
homes, churches, and communities is abuse
enough to freeze the blood. Moreover,
many forms of systemic violence often slip
past our attention because they are so much
a part of the infrastructure of life (e.g.,
racism, sexism, ageism).”
Freitheim, Terence (Winter 2004). “God and Violence in the Old Testament.”
Word & World 24 (1). Retrieved 2010-11-21.
The basic thesis of Violence is that there are
two forms of violence: subjective and
objective. Subjective violence is immediately
palpable. We see a perpetrator, an angry
mob, a violent criminal, a terrorist act.
Objective violence comes in two forms,
symbolic and systemic. Symbolic violence
comes in the language we use, in our terms
for such broad concepts as terrorism and
justice. Systemic violence is what is reflected
in structures, in ideologies.Evaluating Girard
10/2/2012
17
1. Is all desire indeed mimetic?
2. That is, cannot desire be evoked by
the intrinsic value and beauty of the object?
3. What is Girard’s positive vision? > contra Augustine, we are not
offered a theology of “two cities”