René Girard is an anthropologist interested in how a culture conceals its collective violent origins. Just as history tends to be written by the victors in such a way as to make their victory seem just, the literature and rituals of a culture can obscure for the members of that culture their victimization of others. Girard argues that while members of the culture may be oblivious to the hidden violence, their stories or histories can be decoded:
According to Girard, religion tends to grant violence that brings a period of violence to an end sacred status. Thus some forms of violence are socially accepted. He cites Caiaphas, "It is better that one man should die than that the whole nation be destroyed." (John 11:50), Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of liberty must be periodically watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants," and Lenin, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
Gerald J. Biesecker-Mast summarizes Girard's theory of the origin mimetic violence and the rise of the scapegoat:
"In Rene Girard's theory, the beginnings of human society
are based on the religious transformation of mimetic violence
into the collective sacrifice of a scapegoat. Before the beginning
of humanity, according to Girard, hominids copied one another's
violence in a frenzy of retaliation and mimicry that can best
be described as the violence of all against all. At some
point, instead of being directed at everyone in general and no
one in particular, this violence became focused on a specific
victim, who was marked out by some kind of distinctiveness or
weakness. In the collective murder of this victim, or scapegoat,
the violence of all against all was brought to a halt as the first
community was united by its murder of the victim. In Girard's
theory, this distinction between the victim and the community
stands at the origin of both community and language, the first
signifier, so to speak. This founding act of signification is
based on a "single trait that stands out against the confused
mass or still unsorted multiplicity.
The momentary halt to violence produced by the collective murder
of what we can now call a scapegoat attributes to the victim a
kind of magical power that the newly formed community acknowledges
by seeking to reproduce this moment again and again, this time
through the reenactment of the original murder in sacred rituals
and by the substitution of "new victims
for the original victim, in order to assure the maintenance of
that miraculous peace." As this sacred ritual gets repeated
again and again, the distance of these acts of persecution from
the original murder becomes greater and the ritual becomes inscribed
by mythic features that both mark and mask the original founding
murder. Girard's research has found the story of the scapegoat
repeated again and again throughout numerous human cultures and
societies which he takes as a symptom of the universality of such
persecution." in "Reading
Rene Girard's and Walter Wink's Religious Critiques of Violence
as Radical Communication Ethics"
Girard argues that the New Testament reproduces the myth only to explode it by revealing its perversities and declaring allegiance to the victim of the myth of the scapegoat.
The Origin of Violence is Mimesis
The following are some key terms from our discussion:
1. Violence is like a Contagion: it spreads by contact. See the clip from the beginning of 2001 A Space Odyssey 1968.
2. Desire is imitative and acquisitive.
According to Girard: "Once his basic needs are satisfied (indeed, sometimes even before), man is subject to intense desires, though he may not know precisely for what. The reason is that he desires being, something he himself lacks and which some other person seems to possess. The subject thus looks to that other person to inform him of what he should desire in order to acquire that being. If the model, who is apparently already endowed with superior being, desires some object, that object must surely be capable of conferring an even greater plenitude of being. It is not through words, therefore, but by the example of his own desire that the model conveys to the subject the supreme desirability of the object." (Violence and the Sacred, p. 146)
3. Mimetic rivalry leads to jealousy, then to hatred, then to violence and vengeance and eventually the object of competition fades from view and all that is left is animosity.
4. Paradoxically the victim of mimetic violence is more likely to be those who have not rather than those who have.
5. The masking mechanism of mimetic violence is Scapegoating, (this often involves the act of blaming the victim)
6. Individuals polarize against fewer and fewer enemies until only one is left.
Desire or mimesis functions in a variety of ways to perpetuate violence and to maintain the order of domination and repression represented by the paradigm of kingdom. Those who have not desire that possessed by the top and hence present a threat to the top. Those at the top aware that those below desire what they have then see those who do not have as the enemy, as a threat, and, thereby, justify violence against those who do not have. Thus, we end up with the absurd picture of the totalitarian repressive regime that victimizes the innocent victims of the unequal distribution of power and goods.
Equally absurd is our tendency to value those things which we perceive others wanting. In order to increase the sense of value for that which we possess, be it status or cultural institutions, groups within society often generate a foe, a marginalized group who must be excluded in order to increase the value of the commodity denied them.
I consider our modern penal system an excellent example of the scapegoating mechanism.
In a commencement address 'Managing Angelic Rivalry' given a Stanford University on June 10, 2000, Theophus Smith of Emory provides examples from contemporary American experience to illustrate the sort of rivalry to which Girard refers.
Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly , Sacred Violence: Paul's Hermeneutic of the Cross, p. 23, "Mimetic desire is infectious. It is the "hunger for the envy of the other." Fashion is driven by mimesis, so is the arms race, and so are the stock and real estate markets. The intrinsic value of a stock or property is negligible compared to the exchange value. Marx used this insight to criticize capitalism for rendering us psychologically incapable of enjoying the intrinsic value of anything. We buy art for its investment potential and we write books for the market. The market defines our likes and dislikes rather than the other way around. There is very little free about the "free market system; it is a network of bondage to one another's imagined likes and dislikes, an essentially fantastic web of servitude to the phantoms of desire."
Girard points to the Cain and Abel story as an indication of biblical insight into the origins of violence. He treats Paul's words in Romans 7:14-21 as an acknowledgment of this irrational innate impulse for mimetic violence.
Unmasking the Scapegoat
The Crowd proclaims "Hosanna" on Sunday and "Crucify him" on Friday.
Jesus is portrayed as one without desire and as totally innocent. John 15:25 They hated me without cause.
His death brings to an end a series of victimizations of the innocent: "[T]his generation may be charged with the blood of the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to Zechariah" (Luke 11:50-51).
Jesus' words, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:24), points to the absurdity of the crucifixion as a means toward the end that his persecutors seek. The justification of the violence is false: it is based on misunderstanding, false witnesses, and lies.
Girard: "Jesus' death is a source of grace not because the Father is "avenged" by it, but because Jesus lived and died in the manner that, if adopted by all, would do away with scandals and the victimization that follows from scandals. Jesus lived as all men should live in order to be united with a God whose true nature he reveals." "Are the Gospels Mythical?" First Things 62 (April 1996): 27-31.
The Death of Desire
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Charles MaBee in "Text as Peacemaker: Deuteronomic Innovations in Violence Detoxification" in Violence Renounced: Rene Girard, Biblical Studies and Peacemaking, edited by Willard M. Swartley (Pandora Press, 2000), writes that "the Deuteronomic prescription for social solidarity and peaceful coexistence begins with this crucial point of redirecting desire toward Yahweh rather than the (things of the) other (personified as the neighbor's wife) and the property of the other (house, field, slave, ox, donkey, and the like) (p. 73)." "All Israel has its roots in slavery, the rich and powerful as well as the poor and exploited. The Exodus is the great democratizing reality that stands in the middle of Israel's identity. In the Exodus liberation, class and economic distinctions did not exit. the imaginative return to this experience in the text is de facto a call to reconceptualize societal equality as a basis for social order. The text leads to a certain kind of relationship to others. If that relationship is not instituted, the text has not been understood. this is why, in Israel's mind, behavior has priority over thinking. Thinking always takes place in the context of desire, whether wrongful desire or desire for Yahweh. This understanding of the intrinsic power of the text distinguishes it from the traditional law-codes of Israel's neighbors. the law-code is based on the morality of the powerful, on those who by definition have the means in society to force their will on others. Such a morality is imposed top-down and is essentially blind to the will of those whom it binds. In this context, the text functions in a way that eliminates action by sanctifying the status quo. The catechetical torah of Deuteronomy, on the other hand, demands the participating will of those whom it binds and motivates them to change the ever present corruptions of society that always fall short of the vision of the text. The plea of Deuteronomy is that the people freely choose the societal constraints that limit human desire and make authentic community possible. Only a community so constituted can long endure and have a reasonable hope for internal and external peaceful existence. If the community can embrace such a group affirmation of the meaning of its existence, it can drive out the social toxins of coveting and wrongful desiring of the (things of) the other from its midst. The text becomes, essentially, an agent of detoxification." (pp. 74-75.) |
The Deuteronomic ideal of the circumcision of the heart seems to fit into this discussion. The role of the law is not to be a compulsive force but to be an internal impulse, intrinsic to one's human intentionality. Hence the Shema (Deut 6:4-9).
Imitation of Christ rather than the mimesis of desire
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Jim Fodor "Christian Discipleship as Participative Imitation: Theological Reflections on Girardian Themes" in Violence Renounced To be sure, following Jesus as his disciples does not call for obliterating our mimetic desires; on the contrary, it demands that they be redirected, reoriented, and refashioned away form selfish, acquisitive, and violent forms of mimesis to patterns of imitation that are forgiving, other-regarding, peaceable, loving, and marked by humble service. Indeed, embarking on the way of Jesus, being made part of the life of Christian through incorporation into his body, the church, is precisely to have our mimetic desires so ordered, disciple, shaped, reformed, and reeducated that we become, in fact, what we have already been made; namely, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). p. 247 Discipleship ... is grounded in God, not in our own will or desire. External autonomous achievement does not secure our status as Jesus' disciples. On the contrary, the disciples' adequacy or excellence or attunement to God lies, in its most determinative sense, outside the agent's control. Our actions, in the final analysis, are grounded in God rather than in our own desires. In that respect human acts of faithfulness always show more than the life of the agent: they show the character of the Creator. The first word that needs to be spoken about discipleship, then, then is not mimesis but kenosis, self-emptying, a "relinquishing" or "giving over." The initial kenosis in the Godhead that under pins all subsequent kenosis is, of course, the Father's self-utterance in generation of the Son. God the Father must not be thought to exist prior to this self-surrender; rather, he is the movement of self-giving that holds nothing back. p. 256 |
One of my favorite passages in the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46 that I use to illustrate more than one point in this course, fits well into this context. Jesus tells the story of how the Son of Man will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are told that they inherit the kingdom prepared fro them from the foundation of the world because when the king was hunger they fed him and so forth. The sheep protest that they have no recollection of providing such a service to the king. The king then suggests that they did this for one of "the least of these" who were members of his family. Few exegetes take time to ponder the very odd notion that in this metaphor of a king, his family are hungry, sick and in prison. The important point in this context is that God or Jesus is depicted as surrendering his identity to the abject other. It is the desires of the others that are fulfilled. This is the nature of God's love. If love is desire or want it is the desire or want for that which is best for the beloved.
Surely Jesus admonition to love one's enemies must be seen in this context (Matt 5:443-48). If God's love is based upon a desire for reciprocity, it is imperfect love. To be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect suggest that one love without desire or want for oneself.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way: "Give no offense [do not become a scandal] to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Cor. 10:31-11:1)
The theme of relinquishing of desire finds expression in the early Christian ascetic tradition. Posterity has gifted us with the more dramatic practitioners: Simeon the Stylite who spent over forty years perched on a sixty foot column; Anthony spent 20 years living alone in the desert while consuming only a few crumbs each day; Dorotheus who lived sixty years in a cave slept sitting up.
Jesus presents us with the ultimate example of a person without desire.
Matt 16:24-26 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life."
Phil 2:5-8: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born inhuman likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross.
The Transvaluation of the Objects of our Desire
Jesus tells parables that describe the transvaluation of things that we consider desirable:
The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matt 13:44
The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Matt 13:45-46
Paul returns again and again to his experience of finding all that he once desired to no longer hold any value. The things that he once valued, for the most part, separated him from fellowship with other human beings who he deemed different from himself. In Christ, these differences become meaningless and no longer the occasion for rivalry:
Philippians 3:7-11 If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Galatians 2:19-20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 5:13-26 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
1 Cor 4:11-16 To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.
Romans 13:11-14:12 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.11 For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God." So then, each of us will be accountable to God.
The New Testament Notion of Freedom in Christ.
In an article entitled "The People Who Won't Commit: Opting Out -- And Copping Out" written for Civilization, the now defunct publication of the Library of Congress, Deborah Stone writes:
"Americans have long subscribed to a version of freedom that reads like a preschoolers' manifesto: Nobody can tell me what to do or stop me from doing whatever I want. Freedom means the right to use your property however you wish (once, this property included other people). Freedom means the right to contract however you please (once, this freedom meant workers could "choose" 16-hour work days). Freedom means weak federal government (once, we had a government that couldn't operate a bank, regulate commerce, tax income, or tell the states what to do). Freedom in the American lexicon has come to mean the unfettered expression of individual desire.
Lately, freedom has taken on a new consumerist cast: being able to choose from an array of goods in every aspect of our lives. We are not free, we are told, unless we can choose our health plan, our long-distance carrier, our electricity supplier, and our internet provider (not to mention our browser). Anything so standardized as universal health insurance, public transportation, or a public school system hems us in." p. 74 August/September 2000
The biblical notion of freedom is different.
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According to Richard N Longnecker: Liberty "in Christ" cannot, in actuality, be compartmentalized. The apostle never conceived or a purely forensic or a purely inward freedom. Yet for purposes of analysis we may speak of his teaching as having relevance in three areas: (1) in the believer's relationship to his God, or the forensic aspect; (2) in the believer's ordering of his own inner life, or the personal aspect; and (3) in the he believer's relationship to his fellow men, or the social aspect. Forensic liberty: The realization of having been set free by God to stand before Him as a free meaning Christ was basic to Paul's Christian experience and thought. Freedom from condemnation was the initial realization; and it comes out strongly in the opening words of Romans 8 .... Personal liberty: But while the Apostle speaks definitely of liberty in the forensic sense, he speaks at greatest length of that liberation which has taken place in the inward life of every believer. Of prime importance in this area is the freedom from the compulsion of sin.... This freedom from sin is not presented as freedom from the possibility of sin, for the believer too must beware the tempter, but as freedom from the inward power and authority of sin. The Christian is under no compulsion to sin, but is for the first time given true freedom of choice and power "to walk in newness of life." In close connection with this freedom is Paul's thought regarding the freedom from the tyranny of self. [cf. Rom 7:24]. Social liberty: Of the three categories mentioned above, that of liberty in its social aspect is least spoken of in the letters of Paul. ... In its context the expression of Galatians 5:1, "Unto freedom Christ has freed us," need refer to no more than such an inward liberty. But the later words of Galatians 5:113, "For to freedom you were called, brethren," in the context of verses 131-5, certainly refer to the outward man on the social side of liberty. Paul, Apostle of Liberty: The Origin and Nature of Paul's Christianity (Baker Book House, 1965): 170-174. |
Gal 3:28 "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
Gal 5:13-14 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slavers to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Girard's conclusions and arguments raise many questions for contemporary readers. The following represent a few of these with some response.
If the Gospel story is meant to eclipse violence, why has it begat more violence?
Girard argues that rituals are theatrical reenactments of mimetic crisis that prevent the mimetic conflict that they dread. We can see successful manifestations of this in Tibetan dance and it the scapegoat ritual of Leviticus 16. Christian baptism allows for death and resurrection without violence. In the Lord's Supper, Christians consume the victim, not the victimizers. I see our failure to grasp the point in the rituals preceding Easter Sunday. On Palm Sunday we process through the Church waving palm branches and proclaiming Hosanna. I know of only one congregation, that of my colleague Sylvia Keesmat, who on Good Friday join in yelling, "Crucify Him!"
How have we subverted the subversion of the scapegoat mechanism? We have generated scapegoats: Judas and the Jews.
Girard believes that atonement christology is a reassertion of the scapegoat mechanism.
Girard's claim that Christianity does what "primitive religions" fail to do seems to echo the cultural arrogance of nineteenth century scholarship. Is Girard a naïve reductionist?
While Girard argues that Christianity succeeds in unmasking the scapegoating mechanism, he does give Christianity this exclusive privilege. One also should attend to what Girard is calling primitive. One the one hand, much of his work is concerned with Greek myth; on the other hand, he is very much concerned with our contemporary crises in which primitive, as in long standing habits, responses perpetuate violence.
In "The Stereotypes of Persecution," Girard enters into the postmodern discourse about difference and reveals our abiding hostility to difference and how we mask our mimetic violence by appealing to our noble wish to preserve difference.
On-line bibliography
RACISM AS MIMETIC VIOLENCE Désirée Howells
The Cultural Reality underlying the classical dictum: the chieftain as scapegoat CHAPTER III: AFTER ANTISTHENES:John Howard Yoder, unpublished, 1995
Must There be Scapegoats? Raymund Schwager
"THE
CROWD IS UNTRUTH": A COMPARISON OF KIERKEGAARD AND GIRARD
Charles K. Bellinger, published in Contagion: A Journal of
Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 3 (1996): 103-119.