When These Things Begin: Conversations With Michel Treguer by René Girard

Author:René Girard [Girard, René]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: philosophy, General, Political, Religion, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation
ISBN: 9781628950175
Google: xn9XAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: MSU Press
Published: 2014-01-01T23:42:12.072520+00:00

MT: In primitive societies, the mimetic crisis culminates in a phase of unbearable undifferentiation that is resolved by the violence of sacrifice. By the same token, on a global scale, whereas in Christ's day the planet was highly differentiated, today the Earth is being unified right before our eyes: doesn't that mean we're getting close to a mimetic crisis and, thus, to a global sacrifice?

RG: Perhaps, but not necessarily. In my view, the mimetic crisis that we're living through is very different from those of primitive societies: it cannot resolve itself because it cannot escalate in the way that crises that truly produced myths and rituals could. Even though it hasn't immunized us against mimetic desire and even though regressions are always possible, the Christian, modern world has raised our “escalation threshold” a great deal; our societies hardly ever experience phenomena of collective possession anymore. We're still in an in-between zone that is perhaps the definition of what it means for History to be open-ended.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.