
An Introduction to René Girard - jger15
https://danco.substack.com/p/snippets-2-episode-1
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OliverJones
It's worth mentioning that Girard worked as an anthropologist and philosopher,
but in his later work primarily as a Christian theologian. When Dr. King said
"the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice" he describes
Girard's understanding of the process of developing civilization by rejecting
mimetic violence.

Can demonizing and sacrificing a scapegoat somehow short-circuit our human
need to use mimetic violence against each other and restore harmony? For
example, can ending Kevin Spacey's career because of his history of
mistreating female co-workers somehow make our culture better? Girard declares
"no!" At least not for very long.

Could crucifying Jesus of Nazareth somehow short-circuit the fury of the
Jewish population under the thumbs of the Romans and restore harmony? The
Romans and the Jewish temple bigshots hoped it would. Still, Girard declares
"no!" (I'm not equating Jesus with Spacey in any way other than pointing out
they're both scapegoats.)

The point of understanding mimetic desire and mimetic violence, according to
Girard, is to get past it: to understand it as part of human nature, and make
it our nature to resist it.

Unfortunately, Facebook is, explicitly, founded on the idea of focusing and
exploiting mimetic desire. That's why Thiel invested. That's why it's going to
be very difficult for Facebook to carry out any meaningful change.

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motohagiography
"Instagram’s real product isn’t photos; it’s likes."

This is a powerful view. I haven't read Girard yet, but this understanding
just bumped up the urgency.

I do disagree with the statement that the role model of narcissists is
themselves, mainly because I think it's necessarily an external figure who
inculcates a belief in a perfect self, which the narcisist must then either
feel reflected in his relationships, or defend that external image of self
with unreasonable ferocity. The role isn't "themselves," in this case it's an
idealized reflection they expect from others. Subtle, but key.

It's like the baby or child seeking out a source of pure maternal adoration
and then a belief in that lost perfection characterizing them as an adult.
When you meet someone in a narcisistic rage, it's because they have had their
self-belief wounded by an imperfect reflection, coupled with how hard they
have "worked," to deserve that reflection from a person with their sacrifices
and accomplishments. This is why they call it, "narcissistic supply," as they
will work pathologically to get the external approval of their Self that they
cannot produce for themselves. It's almost certainly contagious as well, since
parents who use their children as a source of supply love bomb them, creating
that reflected adoration high they crave, while leaving the kid with the same
sense of perfection and consequent need.

Arguably, coming of age rituals were designed to destroy that image and create
self acceptance, and why there is such a renewed cultural interest in "ego
death," from hallucinogens.

Trouble is, we know how useful people with narcisistic tendencies are, because
they will literally kill themselves for a bit of external approval, and as a
society we exacerbate it under guise of creating "pro-social," behavior. It's
like sugar, fine in small doses, but you probably don't want to carry around a
pump, and yet this is what we do with sources of external approval.

It will be interesting to reconcile this interpretation with Girard's idea of
role models and the narcisist's role being self referential. Unexpectedly
interesting post.

~~~
OliverJones
Girard's writings are quite impenetrable, unfortunately.

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foobar_
Girard is the greatest philosopher since Nietzsche. His analysis on mimetic
desire and the scapegoat mechanism is deeply disturbing and convincing. The
#metoo movement is full of scapegoats.

~~~
onetimeusename
The #metoo movement was largely borne out on social media, Twitter
specifically. Twitter has really started to worry me for the reason you said.
It seems like it is really effective at forming angry mobs. I remember reading
an interview that Girard did somewhere where he talked about social media's
influence and he said we should be working to prevent mobs, not form them.

~~~
OliverJones
The #MeToo movement became visible to many of us (particularly us pink-skinned
American men) on Twitter. Was it born on social media? I guess not so much. It
was born, I guess, in conversations between people who were the targets of
Gamergate and other much older systems of oppression.

These oppression schemes have been around for ages upon ages. Witness the
gospel accounts of the crowd chanting "Crucify him, crucify him" about a
particular outsider troublemaker a couple of millenia ago.

Social media amplified the movement. And social media called the oppression to
the carpet. Is #metoo a violent mob scene? Is it the same dealio as the stuff
on Facebook about attacking the Rohinga in Myanmar/Burma? Or the stuff on
radio about the Hutu-Tutsi violence in Rwanda? Those are hard questions to
answer. I personally don't know.

I suppose it's up to us all to stop short of exacting revenge, while insisting
on justice. That's probably the hardest task ever to confront humanity. We
gotta try.

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bmj
A counterpoint to Girard and his thought:

[https://arcade.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdfs...](https://arcade.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdfs/ROFL_v03i01_Landy_091512_0_0.pdf)

~~~
madspindel
Really, comparing it with Scientology? Can't take the text seriously with
claims like that.

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socrates1998
Kind of interesting, but it feels like Girard makes things more complicated
than they need to be.

The observation that people want "to be things" not "own things", is very
true.

People want status. Status has been important since we started collective
action by throwing rocks at lions.

If you didn't throw rocks, then you were out cast and were probably eaten by
lions. High status within human groups ensures reproductive success and
security.

I found the rest of the article unnecessarily complex in describing humanity.

If you want a much more enlightening and much easier to read book, try "The
Social Leap" by William van Hippel.

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varjag
Not sure using fictional characters from Dostoyevsky as specimen of
behavioural patterns is very convincing.

~~~
qazpot
Have you read Dostoyevsky cause those characters are not fictional.

~~~
varjag
It was in my school curriculum, hard to escape. I hope you do not really imply
it was a documentary work.

