What's really impressive is his admitting that mimetic desire is already in the Ten Commandments and that he only got to its knowlegge later than his first book on mimetism. Actually René Girard (re)became Christian late in his life, so it's a genuine thing the honors him. OUI, VRAIMENT UN GRAND PENSEUR.
So, largely, Christianity ends (or attempts to end or guides us to end) the cyclical behavior of mimetic desire? I find this theory of mimetic desire, it being the driving force of civilization, so interesting. Desire. A desire to have what your neighbor desires and then desiring to be your neighbor, the multiplication of individuals who desire the same objects, the realization of the scarcity of that object, a fermentation of conflict and then a sacrifice of a scapegoat to quench the fires that have been created by desire. Is this correct?
Shortly, yes. Though even larger part of Girard's theory is abandoning scapegoat sacrifices. According to his theory this is what human groups could have been inclining to channel the inner neurosis which originated in mimetic desire. Understand that such a desire is sub-conscious, one does not know why one desires. As member's desires collide, it causes tension, everybody is irritable. The inner agression may cause the mutual combat, a group's disaster. Girard's thesis is that in such a scenario the group, again sub-consciously, chooses some individual as a scapegoat, who is 'determined' as the 'guilty', executed in a common action. This relieves the tension, the group may continue to live. Sure, it has not been substantianed, the scapegoat was not the cause, definitely not of all the tensions. But because there is a relieve, the group may repeat the process. The group may even ritualize it and modify it, eg. to sacrifice an animal. In Christ, you are shown that he was innocent. Once understood, it is much more difficult to regress into scapegoating again. Hence you need other methods how to prevent the tension at all. You are focused on your own deeds and feelings, to have better control of them.
@@reluminopraha5948 so Christianity is an attempt to disrupt the scenario/behavior by making individuals look inward (self, ground zero of mimetic desire) for the solution and nip it in the bud instead of outward (scapegoat)? Is desire the result of having a body or is it a part of the spirit?
To take unto ourself an image of God, Self or Reality is the basis for a false or 'perverted desire' - as it is the basis for a sense of self-lack set to external seeking. To want what does not belong to you is to deny that it has rightful belonging IN you. So we seek for love or power outside ourselves in the getting of things or states that not only cannot fulfil a sense of separateness, but must reinforce it as the social order of needs, under cultural judgements of values set. The commandments are best seen as witnesses for a true alignment and not as prohibitions set under a god of terror. The loss of Felt Connection sets up the attempt to regain or recover what was lost from the belief it must be earned or propitiated by sacrifice, because loss or sacrifice is the experience of self-consciousness at odds with natural function - or out of balanced alignment. Persistence of self as an image, symbol, mythical derivative and conceived experience correlates an object model of powers, forces, thinks and things persisting through time. Repetition seems to be continuity, yet behold - I make all things new! Persistence of attention establishes value, as a conditioned identification, that becomes internalised or subconscious to the creation of an experience of self and world by which we can become 'unconscious' of the underlying programming of judgements rules and filters that effectively operate beneath what we take as 'our mind' or consciousness as a focus of attention. Creation is a gift of seeing miraculously - that is of a self or mind and world renewed. The 'seeing' is not a passive perception to an externalised other, but a total engagement - for the beam that goes forth, alights in the extension of truth as the movement of being - not in time - but as synchronicity or alignment of time and space as an unfolding fulfilment. Such is the nature of the ordinary moment as a specific expression of Infinity. There is no thing else to be of. 'Falling into imaged reality' frames us in the body, in formed identity of the phished 'angel' of a Timeless knowing cast out or projected in the wish for getting. But wishing is not willing, and it is the restoration of the true will that redeems or dispels what wishing made real to the mind of a mis-taken inheritance. To want only what is truly belonging us, is to accept truth as our belonging - instead of seeking to add to or get rid of a self made by judgement, that suffers its own measure unwitting. That we suffer pain of life is witnessed by our self-medicating adjustments by which to make tolerable what would rightly be attended as a call to heal. This does not make us wrong or faulty, but indicates conflicts of thought that are masked over or projected into false 'solutions' as attempts to solve conflicts externally (magically).
He's almost gets it right... it isn't that there is no longer sacrifice, it is a continuation in the lesson that the sacrifice for sin must come from God -- not from humanity -- for it to be effective. Abram/Isaac is the same kind of "type" or allegory. Psalm 50 is another spotlight on this concept that it isn't God who wants the sacrifice, it is humanity. To put a very fine point on it -- imo -- it is the clergy part of humanity which uses their "spiritual authority" of the perceived need for forgiveness as a a cudgel against the congregant seeking forgiveness --- rather than teaching that the Eucharist's purpose is to remind the world that God has already provided that forgiveness in Christ. Denominations result from dueling gatekeeper claims around what the New Testament portrays as an initiation rite -- immersion for the signifying the receipt of the gift thru trust in God to recognize Christ as the sacrifice in the day of judgement... and the provision of the Holy Spirit as helper in the meantime.
