Unmasking the Powers
A sacrificial crisis derives its power and effectiveness from being masked or hidden. This power is prolonged through rituals – actions that reenact the crisis. The moment the sacrificial crisis is unmasked as a lie the power is lost.Rene Girard called stories that mask and prolong the original crisis, the myth. And he called stories […]
Principalities and Powers
Mimesis occurs on both a micro and a macro level. On a micro level, mimetic desire occurs between persons and groups of people. On a macro level, mimetic desire occurs within institutions, formal structures, and large governing bodies. Girard called these principalities and powers. Because of their macrostructure, principalities and powers have mimetic gravity – […]
Ritual
Rituals, or rites, form part of what Rene Girard called the sacred order – the ways societies establish accord with the violence created by mimetic desire. As mimetic desire escalates into violence it spreads disturbance, uncertainty, and upheaval throughout the culture. This leads to scapegoating and eventually sacrifice. In order to commemorate these upheavals, and […]
The Sacred Order
Rene Girard believed that scapegoating fulfilled a sacred role in society by establishing order and unity among the people. This order is both complex and delicate and depends on society’s “proximity” to the sacred – apparent in their rituals, myths, and taboos. Girard compared society’s relationship to the sacred with drawing close to a fire. […]
The Divinization of the Victim
In extreme cases of mimesis, which end in the sacrificial crisis, the chosen victim will often become an object of intense fascination and reverence in the wake of its death. Society, having purged itself suddenly and definitely of the great violence, now looks upon the satisfying victim with a kind of wonder – being both […]
Post Hoc Rationalization
The natural consequence of mimetic violence is post hoc rationalization, the widespread acceptance and approval of the scapegoat and the scapegoating mechanism used. This act of rationalization is restorative. By justifying the violence imputed to the scapegoat, society washes its hands clean of ‘guilt’ in the matter. For time violence simmers. Balance is restored.
Inherent Scarcity
Mimetic rivalries are fought over objects that are scarce. Often these objects are metaphysical and include such things as honor, power, and prestige, which are perceivably limited. Presumably, if there was enough of these objects to go around, mimesis would be defused. However, mimetic theory challenges the classical economic assumption that an object’s scarcity creates […]
Acquisitive Mimesis
Acquisitive mimesis describes the transfer of desires from one person to another. In triangular, or mimetic desire, a mediator exists between the person desiring and the object being desired. These mediator models how to desire and thus passes on the desire. Depending on how far removed the mediator is from the subject, the desire can […]
Triangular Desire
Mimetic desire involves a subject (the person desiring), an object (the thing being desired), and a mediator (the person modeling desire) between the two. These three points, when mapped, form a triangle. Hence triangular desire. Rene Girard’s insight into the shape of desire radically transformed the previously held assumption that desire is strictly horizontal, occurring […]
Shared Ignorance
This blog by Sherwood “Woody” Belangia is a preparation for his book on Plato’s Republic, which will be what he calls a “defective reading” of the text. By defective he means that his study of the text is not actually about the text but about his real object of interest (and, in his opinion’s, Plato’s) […]