
The Last of the Hedgehogs: René Girard - pelt
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-last-of-the-hedgehogs
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zpeti
I think most people would have heard about him from Peter Thiel. Based on his
recommendations I read The Scapegoat last year and it was a real eye opener,
with many "mind blown" moments.

For me the really fascinating thought is that the reason the west thrived, was
the fact that christianity has an inbuilt awareness about the scapegoat
mechanism. Scapegoat being a person who is blamed for all societies ills, who
by their martyrdom reduce the tension in a society. Blame all problems on
someone, kill them, and suddenly society works better because you've taken the
pressure off the pressure cooker.

However, if you understand this mechanism you don't tend to fall into it.
Which is exactly what christianity did, the central story in it is literally
the killing of a scapegoat. Therefore the west became almost immune to this
self created violence.

But this theory in the modern world is completely unacceptable in the
mainstream. Anyone who suggests that christianity has any positive side is
automatically silenced everywhere. Which is a shame, as he has some really
interested theories.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Which is exactly what christianity did, the central story in it is literally
> the killing of a scapegoat. Therefore the west became almost immune to this
> self created violence.

That's a very nice story that even a casual awareness of the history of the
Christian West makes totally implausible.

The Christian West was not immune to scapegoating in much the same way that
the sea is not above the sky.

Honestly, you could frame the entire history of the Christian West around
_who_ the main scapegoat was at a particular time and place (heck, the
Christian understanding of witches/satanists was pretty much an invention
almost from whole cloth to fill that role.)

~~~
coldtea
> _That 's a very nice story that even a casual awareness of the history of
> the Christian West makes totally implausible. The Christian West was not
> immune to scapegoating in much the same way that the sea is not above the
> sky._

Didn't have to be immune (humans are humans after all, nothing is 100%
perfect), just more immune than what preceeded it.

The main idea Christianity added to the table was that the victims are not
just unfortunate, or losers, or collatera damage to the natural order of
things, but possibly even more justified than those who lord over them.

There were still masters and slaves, injustice, etc despite Christianism, and
even in its name, but not _because of_ it.

Similar to like there was injustice and slavery after the Constitution or
injustice and racism in the US today, but it's not because of the Constitution
itself - which was an improvement and placed a seed for betterment --, but
because people are people).

The seed that got into the culture with Christianism was that this is not just
"the way things are". Suddenly the victims had a claim to moral superiority
and injustice. In the ancient/pagan world they would be laughed off. In the
Christian world they might be driven off with sticks still, by those in power,
by they couldn't totally eradicate their claim to injustice [that's also why
Christianity caught on with oppressed populations, even with those that shared
the religion with their opressors, like black slaves in the US or indians in
Latin America: it offered a way for the slaves to claim moral superiority and
dignity. Incidentally that's how it got its major boost in ancient Roman
empire as well].

That's one of the themes of Nietzsche by the way, which he sees as a negative
of Christianity (kind of like some lament the modern "victimhood culture") -
he preferred the good old times, when masters where masters, and victims would
just suck it up and admit defeat and accept that they are lesser men.

(As for the hunt for the "witches/satanists" it's an overplayed minor
characteristic of Christianity. Plus, the reason we see those victims too in a
favorable light, it's still because of Christian influence. The
culture/religion of the group that persecuted them is exactly what promoted
them to innocent victims to be pitied/vindicated. The ancient world only cared
for effectiveness, victims were merely losers to be tossed aside.

------
iorrus
Here is a far better written intro to Rene Girard [0], the article linked is
worst kind of overwritten academic verbiage with nothing substantive to say,
almost incoherent.

[0] [https://alexdanco.com/2019/04/28/secrets-about-people-a-
shor...](https://alexdanco.com/2019/04/28/secrets-about-people-a-short-and-
dangerous-introduction-to-rene-girard/)

~~~
082349872349872
Feudalism (and we still have monarchies to this day _cough_ KSA _cough_ ) in
tl;dr is the notion that social relations between homo sapiens should be built
on the same asymmetric principles as social relations in other large herding
domesticated species.

Can we come up with better, more primate, or even more human, systems? I would
claim we could, by swapping reflexive antisymmetric transitive relations for
reflexive symmetric transitive ones (as those of us with T-V distinguishing
languages have largely done), but nearly a half century of people watching has
convinced me there exist large numbers of people who are perfectly happy to be
servile to some as long as they get to be arrogant to yet others.

------
motohagiography
Girard's idea of _mimetic violence_ , which is the result of people being too
similar and not sufficiently different to be considered an un-threatening
other, provides both explanatory and predictive power for the culture war as
well. When we talk about the uncanny valley in tech, it's a similar visceral
reaction. The out-group is us, and yet not us, and is thus an existential
threat that makes total war seem inevitable. I didn't read his suggestions for
how to unravel that Gordian (Girardian?) Knot, and rather hope he had some
prescriptions for avoiding or rolling back points of no return.

