Abstract

René Girard’s work often seems suspect to liberals, because it appears as a totalizing narrative. Such hesitancy with respect to either dismissing or endorsing it follows from the demise of “grand narratives” that brought with them imperialistic and hegemonic tendencies. Yet if a liberal viewpoint does not embrace Girard, it is for different reasons that conservatives are either fully supportive of his thought as promising a return to religious values or hesitant about accepting his theories because they critique a form of violence inherent to any community. Girardian thought, it can be argued, has focused on deconstructing mythological justifications for violent activity at the expense of establishing a fruitful position regarding positive communal formations. The tensions between these juxtaposed liberal and conservative viewpoints, as taken up in this article, illustrate an impasse between deconstructivist-genealogists (representing trends within liberal discourse) and communitarians (representing conservative or orthodox viewpoints)—one that shows up in a variety of contexts today. Highlighting this particular standoff in interpretations of Girard can, nevertheless, yield important insights regarding the ultimate significance of his work.

Highlights

  • There can be no doubt that the groundbreaking work of René Girard has far-reaching implications for almost every realm of critical thought

  • René Girard’s work often seems suspect to liberals, because it appears as a totalizing narrative

  • 2 Yet what Girard proposes in his theory of the single-victim mechanism, or theory of scapegoating, is something that seems all at once to respect claims about a sort of nonviolent identity and admit that such an identity is only possible if it focuses almost entirely on deconstructing its own claims to power—what Gianni Vattimo develops through his readings of Girard into a form of weak thought

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Summary

Introduction

There can be no doubt that the groundbreaking work of René Girard has far-reaching implications for almost every realm of critical thought. Girard’s work, much as the deconstructivist or negative-dialectical position would assert, is an attempt only to end the false sacred in our world, not an effort directed at maintaining the (sacred) bounds of a given society With such a declaration, we can see how Girard’s thought has certainly resonated deeply with various negative political-theological points of view, and how it seems to exacerbate practical problems regarding the governance of existing communal and political systems. As he phrases matters, “[i]f our world were really to escape the influence of Christianity, it would have to renounce the concern for victims.”

Conclusion
Theodor Adorno
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