“Conversations with Rene Girard” by Rene Girard (edited by Cynthia L. Haven)

This is a short collection of dialogues between Girard and various interlocutors over the years. The conversations cover much of his career as an anthropologist and historian, particularly his theory of mimetic desire. This project has sought to glean insights into the modern world as it shifts to a post-Christian age. “We live in a world where a great deal more is demanded of the communities and of each individual in terms of self-mastery. But at the same time, very often our world is one which abandons ethics, which abandons any ideal of self-mastery. We surrender to a philosophy of self-gratification that ends up in pure consumerism.” There is a distinct lack of the role of the individual in Girard’s mimetic theory. “Since the individual figures in my scheme only so far as he is involved with other individuals, the epistemology of the isolated consciousness wouldn’t make a great deal of sense for me. I feel that one of the advantages of my theory is its pragmatic effectiveness…. That’s why mimetic theory interests me so much: you can start with it at the animal level and trace it across the threshold of hominization right into human culture. That threshold is when the victim becomes the conscious object of attention by members of the community…. You have cultural specificity, a break between animal and man.” Man is a competitive animal. “The error is always in reasoning from categories of “difference.” The root of all conflicts relies rather on “competition,” in mimetic rivalry between persons, countries, and cultures. Competition is the desire to imitate the other in order to obtain the same thing he or she has, by violence if necessary…. Human relations are essentially relations of imitation and competition…. What is happening today is mimetic rivalry on a global scale…. But if you ask me what mimeticism is, I will tell you: it’s pride, anger; it’s envy, jealousy—these are the cardinal sins. It’s lust as well. Human sexuality is very important, because it’s a permanent impulse, not something episodic or intermittent. There are no tranquil interludes in human life. Rivalry is what sustains desire…. Mimetic desire is when our choice is not determined by the object itself, as we normally believe, but by another person. We imitate the other person, and this is what “mimetic” means…. And of course, envy is mimetic. You cannot help imitating your model…. Envy is a denial of your own being and accepting the fact that you prefer the being of your rival.” As Girard has detailed before, the scapegoat mechanism was the route that archaic societies used to squash mimetic rivalry before violence spread out of hand within their own communities. “Before the advent of Judaism and Christianity, in one way or the other, the scapegoat mechanism was accepted and justified, on the basis that it remained unknown. It brought peace back to the community at the height of the chaotic mimetic crisis. All archaic religions grounded their rituals precisely around the re-enactment of the founding murder. In other words, they considered the scapegoat to be guilty of the eruption of the mimetic crisis. By contrast, Christianity, in the figure of Jesus, denounced the scapegoat mechanism for what it actually is: the murder of an innocent victim, killed in order to pacify a riotous community. That’s the moment in which the mimetic mechanism is fully revealed.”