After the Scapegoat

Reineke, Martha J.

doi:10.5840/philtoday201256233

Cited by 3 publications

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“…This becomes most obvious in his last book Battling to the End, which recommends Hölderlin's "mystical quietism" (Girard 2010, p. 123). Several authors who are familiar with mimetic theory have criticized Girard for his quietist leanings (Reineke 2012;Colborne 2013;Avery 2013, pp. 244-50).…”

Section: Breaking With the Cycle Of Violence: Progressively Substituting Force With Nonviolencementioning

confidence: 99%

Gandhi’s Militant Nonviolence in the Light of Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology

Palaver

2021

Religions

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Nuclear rivalry, as well as terrorism and the war against terror, exemplify the dangerous escalation of violence that is threatening our world. Gandhi’s militant nonviolence offers a possible alternative that avoids a complacent indifference toward injustice as well as the imitation of violence that leads to its escalation. The French-American cultural anthropologist René Girard discovered mimetic rivalries as one of the main roots of human conflicts, and also highlighted the contagious nature of violence. This article shows that Gandhi shares these basic insights of Girard’s anthropology, which increases the plausibility of his plea for nonviolence. Reading Gandhi with Girard also complements Girard’s mimetic theory by offering an active practice of nonviolence as a response to violent threats, and by broadening the scope of its religious outreach. Gandhi’s reading of the Sermon on Mount not only renounces violence and retaliation like Girard but also underlines the need to actively break with evil. Both Gandhi and Girard also address the religious preconditions of nonviolent action by underlining the need to prefer godly over worldly pursuits, and to overcome the fear of death by God’s grace. This congruence shows that Girard’s anthropology is valid beyond its usual affinity with Judaism and Christianity.

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Section: Breaking With the Cycle Of Violence: Progressively Substituting Force With Nonviolencementioning

confidence: 99%

Gandhi’s Militant Nonviolence in the Light of Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology

Palaver

2021

Religions

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Green Mimesis: Girard, Nature, and the Promise of Christian Animism

Wallace

2014

Contagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture

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THE SONG OF THE WOOD THRUSH Today the wood thrush returned to the Crum Woods. I have been waiting for this event for months. I moved to a house in the woods three years ago, and at that time I heard a strange and wonderful bird call in the forest. The song of the wood thrush is a melody unlike anything I had ever heard. Liquid, flute-like, perfectly pitched-the thrush vocalizes a kind of duet with itself in which it simultaneously produces two independent musical notes that reverberate with one another. I have read that Tibetan monks can also sing two notes at the same time, a baseline and a melody line in contrapuntal balance, so now I think of the wood thrush as the singing monk of the forest. 1 In the spring and summer I wake up, and often go to sleep, to the vocal pleasures of a bird that I cannot see but whose delicate harmonies pleasantly haunt my dreams. Like God's Spirit, I know the thrush is there-I hear its lilting cadence from dawn to dusk-but I've only seen one wood thrush during the time I've lived in the Crum Woods. I creep around the forest floor looking skyward, hoping for a sighting, but it always escapes my gaze.

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Apocalyps, notre amour

Nys¹

2019

Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift Voor Wijsbegeerte

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Apocalypse, notre amour. An essayThe apocalypse entails the idea of a final judgment. Thinking about the apocalypse then invites us to consider the question of mankind’s goodness. With Immanuel Kant, I will argue, that such reflection warrants a deep pessimism. Humankind falters in light of the moral standard. Yet, such pessimism leaves room for a political optimism in which impartiality and reciprocity are key elements. Even if moral goodness is nigh-impossible to achieve, we can and should strive for minimal decency. Also, I will claim that those who have reason to doubt Kant’s rationalist and metaphysical foundations for such a modest political program (because they believe in pluralism), still have reason to endorse a similar political liberalism. We will need confidence in this endeavor to respond to a growing relativism, possibly foreshadowing an Other Apocalypse in which all judgment is judged to be wrong.

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After the Scapegoat

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Gandhi’s Militant Nonviolence in the Light of Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology

Gandhi’s Militant Nonviolence in the Light of Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology

Green Mimesis: Girard, Nature, and the Promise of Christian Animism

Apocalyps, notre amour

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