Celui par qui le scandale arrive (Pluriel)

Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture (SVMC)

by René Girard

“Why is there so much violence in our midst?” René Girard asks. “No question is more debated today. And none produces more disappointing answers.” In Girard’s mimetic theory it is the imitation of someone else’s desire that gives rise to conflict whenever the desired object cannot be shared. This mimetic rivalry, Girard argues, is responsible for the frequency and escalating intensity of human conflict. For Girard, human conflict comes not from the loss of reciprocity between humans but from the transition, imperceptible at first but then ever more rapid, from good to bad reciprocity. In this landmark text, Girard continues his study of violence in light of geopolitical competition, focusing on the roots and outcomes of violence across societies latent in the process of globalization. The volume concludes in a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, where Girard’s twenty-first century emphases on the continuity of all religions, global conflict, and the necessity of apocalyptic thinking emerge.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Nonfiction, Religion

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2001

About the author

René Girard was a French-born American historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy.

He was born in the southern French city of Avignon on Christmas day in 1923. Between 1943 and 1947, he studied in Paris at the École des Chartres, an institution for the training of archivists and historians, where he specialized in medieval history. In 1947 he went to Indiana University on a year’s fellowship and eventually made almost his entire career in the United States. He completed a PhD in history at Indiana University in 1950 but also began to teach literature, the field in which he would first make his reputation. He taught at Duke University and at Bryn Mawr before becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. In 1971 he went to the State University of New York at Buffalo for five years, returned to Johns Hopkins, and then finished his academic career at Stanford University where he taught between 1981 and his retirement in 1995.

Girard is the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature on his work and his influence on disciplines such as literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, psychology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy.Girard’s fundamental ideas, which he has developed throughout his career and provide the foundation for his thinking, are that desire is mimetic (all of our desires are borrowed from other people), that all conflict originates in mimetic desire (mimetic rivalry), that the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry, and that the Bible reveals these ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.

In 1990, friends and colleagues of Girard’s established the Colloquium on Violence and Religion to further research and discussion about the themes of Girard’s work. The Colloquium meets annually either in Europe or the United States.

René Girard died on November 4, 2015, at the age of 91 in Stanford.

Reviews

[Andrew Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who hasn't read Girard, this book would be like entering in the middle of the conversation. For those who have read many of Girard's books, this is a valuable supplement. It's kind of like a mop up operation, but an important one. Especially valuable is the essay on the gift, a reply and rejoinder to Mauss and Hubert, and the essay on sacrifice where he explains his change of mind on the subject through much discussion with Raymund Schwager.

[Mathias · Rating 5 out of 5]

The future is Girard

[Luis Sierakowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neste livro Girard aborda de forma frontal suas aproximações e divergências com relação à antropologia de Lévi-Strauss, e constrói uma breve história de seu percurso teórico, o que ajuda a situá-lo com relação à filosofia do século XX. Os positivistas acham que só há fatos. Os estruturalistas e desconstrutivistas acham que só há interpretações. Girard advoga a necessidade de um método mimético, e histórico, para vencer essa oposição e mostrar como fatos e interpretações se relacionam.

[Mats Winther · Rating 1 out of 5]

Few scholars of comparative religion take Girard seriously, because his theory is so far-fetched. In The One by Whom Scandal Comes, he says that “[t]he archaic gods are sacralized scapegoats. In revealing their innocence, the Judeo-Christian tradition desacralizes scapegoats and brings the age of myth to a close” (p. 39). But there’s no evidence that innocent victims of persecution, such as people accused of witchcraft, have been elevated to gods. On the contrary, people of high status in society, such as roman emperors, or Inca rulers, have been worshipped in temples.

Although he views Christianity as superior, he aims to “demystify” religion, thinking that the sacred status of the scapegoat keeps us in thrall to violence. He has a secularist agenda. On this view, Jesus is not truly divine but merely an innocent scapegoat. This realization is supposed to free us from the grip of mythic violence, as if religious myth were the wellspring of power and violence, and instinct and social conflict played no important role. Anybody with a little common sense can understand that war and violence will prevail even if we eradicate myth and religion. In fact, chimpanzees practice warfare, despite the fact that they lack religion. I give the book the lowest score, because his theory is so implausible and empirically unfounded. Read my critical article, ‘Profane Pseudotheology: A Critique of René Girard’s Theory of Mimetic Violence’: http://mlwi.magix.net/girard.htm

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to be back reading Girard. As usual, he is both very stimulating and very frustrating
to read. Stimulating because he has such BIG ideas and such confidence about them,
and draws them from such a breadth of sources, and frustrating because the unfounded assertions
come thick and fast. One occasionally wants some evidence to back up his theories--but then,
some of them are so big that they must be either accepted or rejected, on the basis
of a sort of inference to the best explanation.

The dialogue format worked much better here than in "Things Hidden...", probably because he had
one interrogator instead of two. And later Girard also seems more humble and willing to be understood.

[Philip Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to read Rene Girard, don't start here. But if you have read any of his earlier work on mimetic theory, violence and scapegoating, this later work brings you up to date.

Girard is perhaps one of the most important thinkers of our time. His understanding of the role violence plays in culture is profoundly important and revelatory. This thin book is an essential addition to his oeuvre.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of essays and interviews with one of the most profound thinkers of the 20th century. Would have been five stars but for it being mostly a survey of ideas than an in depth narrative, which it loses a bit by.

[Kimberly Boenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly just not for me

[Ben Palpant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some Darwinian silliness, but still an essential read.

[Dylan Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Rene Girard. It's good.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another title to add to the growing Girard library I'm collecting.