Every “culture” is founded on certain rituals, institutions, prohibitions, taboos—things that, according to Girard, are all predicated on a founding murder. Cultural rituals, institutions, prohibitions, and taboos are all thing devised to manage the spread of violence and, in essence, to re-enact the founding murder that was the foundation of culture through rituals rather than through actual blood sacrifice.
The founding murder, in Girard’s view, is the foundation of culture. Every culture, whether it be a company culture or a nation’s culture, comes from some act of ritual sacrifice or violence that the culture tries to hide and re-act in its traditions.