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CHAPTER 1
Mimetic Theory: Basic Concepts
A Hedgehog (with Wings)
Roberto Calasso gave us a good-humored definition: René Girard, he said, "was one of the last hedgehogs" in the history of thought.
The author of Ka was alluding to the distinction between the fox and the hedgehog; while the fox knows a little about everything but never comes to know very much about anything at all, the hedgehog has mastered just one subject, about which he knows everything there is to be known. As the Italian essayist Calasso put it, Girard understood the mechanism of the scapegoat better than anyone. His witty observation, while correct at first glance, doesn't hold up to a careful examination of the works of the author of Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. Girard's work cannot be reduced to an insight. The second "big thing" (actually, in chronological order, the first) discovered by Girard comes forth in Calasso's definition. In seeking to summarize his understanding of mimetic theory, Calasso turned to English philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who laid out the difference between the fox and the hedgehog in his oft-referenced "The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History." Berlin, for his part, had borrowed the distinction from the Greek poet Archilochus of Paros. Perhaps, and here the circle comes to an appropriate close (or simply begins again, depending on your point of view), Archilochus may have lifted the concept from some other bard, or from an oral tradition. A subtle current flows through the centuries, traveling from the seventh century BCE, the age of the poet, to the present. In Girard's works, this current has a name: mimetic desire. If Girard is a hedgehog, then we must be forced to imagine a hedgehog with wings — the scope of his theory certainly does not rest on a lone, obsessive concept. On the contrary, it is framed by the complex interrelationships among a variety of concepts, united by a trailblazing discovery: the mimetic origin of desire stems, above all, from violence.
Let us move forward, however, step by step, so as to understand the architecture of the cathedral erected by Girard's thought. As one of his most important critics, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, puts it: "Girard's cathedral is a pyramid resting on its vertex — the mimetic hypothesis." In Giuseppe Fornari's words, this architectural meaning gave rise to a true "Girard-system."
In this chapter, in light of its panoramic scope, I will not go into depth on specific aspects of mimetic theory. Rather, I will pave the way for a reflection on collective interdividuality, a defining trait of the dilemmas of Latin American cultures.
Three Insights, Three Fundamental Books
I will begin by highlighting the three insights that structure René Girard's thought. Then, in an attempt to remain faithful to the style of the author of The Scapegoat, I will underscore the paradoxical nature of his reasoning. I will discuss the three concepts on which mimetic theory stands, which relate to one another through a series of paradoxes, and show how they develop in Girard's first three books. Each of these books contains a central dialogue, which the author establishes with both a particular field in the humanities and a specific thinker within that field. I will then relate the three notions at hand to the context of the time in which each book was published. Finally, I will touch upon aspects of René Girard's biography, dwelling only on the elements related to the writing of his works.
This chapter is thus based on the interaction among three elements and their variations.
We're on familiar turf here: if mimetic desire has a triangular structure, why not adopt this geometrical form as a thought experiment?
An Initial Definition
In several instances René Girard equated mimesis and imitation. As this is the key point, we would do well to flesh it out. For example, Girard once referred to the "notion of a mimetic, mediated or imitated desire." Regardless, it is essential to recognize the subtle difference between the terms, a difference that lies at the heart of the scapegoat mechanism, which can only work if the social group that resorts to it is in a state of méconnaissance of its motivation. I will return to this subtle difference between mimetism and imitation in chapter 5; it is indeed a decisive difference, for it also entails different forms of méconnaissance.
Méconnaissance is a new term, I know, and a crucial one, I might add. Bear with me: we'll discuss it later on. Very briefly, it implies that the ones who sacrifice a scapegoat are utterly convinced of his guilt. I will follow Paul Dumouchel's lead: "I have retained (and will continue to do so) the French word méconnaissance and avoided translating it into English."
Let us return to the distinction between mimetism and imitation. In Girard's words:
I employ the two words differently. There is less awareness in mimetism, and more in imitation. I do not want to reduce mimesis to mimetic desire in all its forms. It is a typical twentieth-century epistemological attitude. Behaviorism, for instance, is a total refusal of imitation.
Imitation becomes desire when there arises a dispute over a given object. Desire is a second-tier imitation, as it entails the adoption of a model. In Girardian terms, without a model, there can be no desire. Mimetism is not conscious, which helps to understand the complex phenomenon that is méconnaissance — without which the scapegoat mechanism would not be possible. It is then indispensable to introduce the consideration of a temporal lapse between mimetism, which is in itself fuel enough to produce the scapegoat mechanism, and imitation, which already supposes the emergence of cultural institutions and, above all, the adoption of models. I will return to this critical issue in chapter 5.
For Girard, mimetic theory is the explanation for human behavior. It provides an integrated narrative of the emergence of culture — or, rather, of the centrality of violence in the process of hominization. A recent collection edited by Scott Garrels, Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion, represents an important step in the full development of mimetic theory in that it links Girardian thought to contemporary research, particularly studies of mirror neurons.
This is a delicate matter.
Girard's rhetoric oscillates between great confidence in the explanatory power of mimetic theory and the recognition that the topic has yet to be exhausted. The following declaration is symptomatic of this impasse: "It remains to elaborate a properly mimetic method." To say nothing of the constant drumbeat of self-criticism aimed at the composition of his own work. Here is how he evaluated one of his books: "This study admittedly lacks a sense of balance. ... I hope that my readers will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and conjure up at least a faint picture of what a more perfect realization of the same project might have accomplished." This is not empty self-deprecation, but rather a reflection of the challenge facing any theory aimed at explaining the emergence of culture.
Nothing more, nothing less!
And what to say of Girard, the unforgiving reader of Violence and the Sacred? Let's listen to his severe judgment:
I tried to [reason] very carefully, logical step by logical step. I feel that the problem itself is circular, and one has to choose a point of entry into this descriptive circle, which isn't self-evident. What one has to demonstrate, and what helps one demonstrate it, is very often a continuum. Nonetheless, I must acknowledge that I haven't found a completely clear way of putting it, because my theory engenders an enormous amount of misunderstanding.
Any careful reading of Girardian thought must consider these three aspects: Girard's complete confidence in the workings of mimetic theory, the impossibility of exhausting said workings, and the inevitable self-criticism in light of this impossibility.
(You've got it, haven't you? The problem itself is circular.)
I'll take advantage of the opportunity to propose an initial pact with the reader: let us accept the explanatory power of mimetic theory as grounds for a first approach. This doesn't mean that one can't disagree here or there, or even ultimately reject the hypothesis it puts forth. However, in order to dialogue with Girardian thought, one must understand the flexibility of the variations of mimetic desire, as well as the architecture behind its construction.
It's true: this pact gives the appearance of an inexcusable tautology, an inelegant suspension of one's critical gaze. Even so, I stand by it: before breaking into the explanation of the internal coherence of mimetic theory with doubts (however plausible and legitimate), the reader should pay the courtesy of following along with the logical steps of its reasoning. After this effort to listen, objections, rather than standing as narcissistic quibbles, ideally lead to a productive conversation. I'm not unaware of Eric Voegelin's cutting critique of the sort of pact I'm putting forth: "In conversations with Hegelians, I have quite regularly found that as soon as one touches on Hegelian premises the Hegelian refuses to enter into the argument and assures you that you cannot understand Hegel unless you accept his premises." I maintain the proposal, however, that the acceptance of Girardian premises is merely the first step, which may well be followed by a radical divergence. The explanatory power to which Girard refers is based on three fundamental, interrelated intuitions. Mimetic theory sprung from these notions has had a visible effect on the ways in which we understand literary criticism, anthropology, and Biblical studies.
An effect, it should be said, often expressed as a categorical disagreement.
Mimetic Desire
We have arrived at the first intuition: that desire is fundamentally mimetic. The "self" does not desire based on a self-centered subjectivity that may set its own rules. The self's desire springs from an other, which is taken as a model in determining the object of said desire. This ontological precariousness is related precisely to the centrality of the other in defining the self. As Girard puts it, "What we call desire or passion is not mimetic accidentally, off from time to time, but it is mimetic unavoidably, all the time. Far from being the most personal emotion there is, our desire comes from others. Nothing could be more social."
Girard's first discovery underscores the mimetic nature of desire, which stands as the alpha and omega of the human condition. "Imitation is human intelligence in its most dynamic aspect. It goes beyond animality." Since this is a key concept, there's no harm in repeating it: desire is learned from a model. This, the very dimension that ought to define the modern subject, becomes an index of his vulnerability. Girard clarifies the concept in a concise turn of phrase: "To understand desire is to understand that its self-centeredness is undistinguishable from its other-centeredness."
(Shakespearean cultures are particularly keen, collective manifestations of "other-centeredness.")
Of course, you're right: this intuition about mimetism is hardly original! Ever since Plato and Aristotle, it has been a central concept in the philosophical tradition. Indeed, I am not referring to modern definitions of desire, but to the imitative character as an indelible element of the human as a political animal. The ?? ?? ?o?? ???o?, as defined by Aristotle, is inherently tied to the anthropological bent of the Poetics. Imitation gives rise to not only politics, but also aesthetics:
The habit of imitating is congenital to human beings from childhood (actually man differs from the other animals in that he is the most imitative and learns his first lessons through imitation), and so is [...] the pleasure that all men take in works of imitation.
By Girard's first book, however, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, the notion of mimetic desire bears consequences that are truly singular, and whose development makes it possible to envision the cathedral evoked by Jean-Pierre Dupuy.
The Girardian project began with an apparently modest proposal, constrained to the field of comparative literature: "What I wanted to do was to write a history of desire through the reading of great literary works." One key element would broaden the horizons of his concerns: mimetic desire is the root cause of human violence.
The author himself underscored the uniqueness of this take on the issue:
The great Greek philosophers, and particularly Plato and Aristotle, recognized the cardinal importance of imitation in human behavior, but they misunderstood the nature of mimetic rivalry. ... Plato pretends to disdain imitation, but plainly he fears it, even if he never actually says what it is he dreads....
Aristotle, for his part, seems scarcely even to suspect that the cause of violence might be found in imitation, which he takes to be unproblematic.
This is Girard's contribution to the understanding of mimesis, and the link between imitation, the adoption of models, and the violence resulting from this process is crucial for my reflections on the non-hegemonic condition. Girard's reading of Plato is even more intense, as he revealed in an interview in Diacritics, in a special edition to mark the release of the American edition of La Violence et le Sacré:
Plato's problematic fails to mention the domain of application where imitation is inevitably conflictual: appropriation. No one has ever perceived this failure. Everybody always imitates Plato's concept of imitation. As a result of this curious mutilation, the reality of the threat imitation poses to the harmony and even the survival of human communities has never been correctly assessed.
Violence emerges as an unforeseen offshoot of the mimetic nature of desire. With this understanding, we may dodge a common misunderstanding: "As I see it, the jumping-off point is not violence, but imitation."
Let's see.
Better yet: let's delve into reflection. This is the pledge inherent in Girardian thought — in describing the consequences of mimetic desire, the scholar must recognize herself in the behavior of others.
Girard himself starts things off:
My case was still more severe because I was allergic to reading anything suggested by someone else. The most extreme form of mimetic malady is an intransigent anti-mimetic attitude because, although one must not be a slave to other people's opinion it's impossible to shut oneself from everything that comes from others.
Hence the principally ethical sense of mimetic conversion, a notion that appears in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel and which has a tendency to provoke interpretive short-circuits.
Steady, now: the ethical sense is not necessarily a religious one. According to Girard, "Raymund Schwager said that my theory requires a conversion, because the main thing is understanding that one is always part of the mimetic mechanism."
In adopting a model for the constitution of desire, I draw closer to it, establishing a master-disciple relationship. But to the second point, the same phenomenon tends to transform the model into a future rival. Now, if I experience desire as the model predicts, we wind up struggling over the same object — be it a physical, everyday object; a more complex object, like a feeling; or a metaphysical object — and my desire becomes a Bovarist desire to be exactly the same as my model. No matter: if we desire the same object, we will find ourselves in a shadowy zone on the verge of violence, derived from the "mimesis of appropriation," a concept that underscores the singularity of mimetic theory.
This is the great leap that Girard's contribution affords.
Mimesis is potentially appropriative: "If one individual imitates another when the latter appropriates some object, the result cannot fail to be rivalry or conflict." This acquisitive angle gives rise to the violence of human relations. Mimesis is not an anodyne transmission of codes and values. On the contrary, it is the very origin of conflict.
If mimetic desire can explain the root cause of violence, it also clarifies the first form that it takes: revenge, when the object of my desire is taken by another; or resentment, when I am unable to take it as my own.
This is Girard's first great insight: the mimetic nature of desire. Revenge and resentment are not merely psychological traits, they are structural elements.
We have not yet reached institutionalization in the figure of the organized State, nor are we even at the level of a formalized ritual, a development that falls to religions. Revenge and resentment are strictly human institutions because they imply a series of practices and codes that may be repeated and adopted by an entire group.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Shakespearean Cultures"
by .
Copyright © 2019 João Cezar de Castro Rocha.
Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
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