10/2/2012

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

Masters of Suspicion

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

Ren Girard

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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. [Ren Girard]

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According to Girards 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.

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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), Girards mimetic theory hold that I desire according to the other (my desire is directed according to what the other desire).

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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 modelrival.
[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]

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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

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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?

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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.

Girards 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

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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)

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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

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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 Augustines 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 Marduk created 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 cant 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.

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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.

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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 Gods 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.

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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 Gods 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!
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Girards 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 (JulyOctober 2008). "Crusade Violence: Understanding and Overcoming the Impact of Mission Among Muslims". International Review of Mission (World Council of Churches) 97 (386-387): 273291.

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We can see that Jesus attitude of nonretaliation not a minor thing for Girard. Girard call his project antiNietzschean

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

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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 Girards positive vision? > contra Augustine, we are not offered a theology of two cities

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