Mimetic Rivalry Research Articles

Ontological security and protracted conflict in frontier societies: towards a trans-local turn in peacebuilding

ABSTRACT This article proposes a trans-local turn in peacebuilding in frontier societies. Drawing on René Girard’s concept of ‘mimetic desire’, the article conceptualises how a crisis of ontological insecurity cannot be addressed by rational approaches to institutionalising a process to resolve incompatibilities between conflict parties, but requires de-escalation of the mimetic rivalry between the parties, who are often described as being in conflict over identity. Empirically, the article focuses on the, apparently very different, examples of intractable conflicts in Northern Ireland and Korea, and the trans-local peacebuilding interactions between the two. This article demonstrates how relationships of unresolved mimetic rivalry have intensified ontological insecurity in both cases, creating dynamics of existential anxiety and mutual antagonism, and how the reflexivity based on peacebuilding stories from other frontier societies, which do not impose direct ontological threats, appears to increase hope for change by transcending the endemic sense of ontological insecurity.

ETHICS IN THE CONTEXT OF PEACE AND WAR

The article deals with the problems of ethics in the context of peace and war. Today, during the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, it is especially relevant to return to ethical issues, to such concepts as justice, truth, immortality, leniency, event, loyalty to oneself, etc. The war situation forces us to rethink their meaning through open discussions that help improve the mental state of Ukrainian society and maintain hope for victory. The authors of the article, starting from the ethical theories of A. Badiou and R. Girard, try to give an answer to today's difficult question about how to remain human during a military confrontation. According to A. Badiou, any ethical statement requires contextual applicability to the situation. Taking this into account, the philosopher develops the concept of the event, according to which the event is not so much what happens to the subject, but what the subject does in the situation - his active participation - a response to an external challenge. Next, the authors apply Rene Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry to identify the reasons for Russia's military aggression against Ukraine. One of these reasons is the non-recognition of the independence of Ukraine, the complete denial of its existence, and the identification of the Ukrainian people with the projection of enemies, in the struggle against which Russians form their identity. At the end of their analysis, the authors come to the conclusion that if you hate and mentally eat the enemy like a cannibal, you can get a moment's pleasure from it, but such a position will never give the opportunity for a better future and true development, hatred leads only to hatred and destruction. The important tasks of ethics during war are to prevent what can injure the individual, to find a basis to help save the soul from destructive ressentiment and to remain a person who is able to evolve.

René Girard. A theater of envy: William Shakespeare

The review is devoted to a book by the philosopher, culturologist, and literary critic René Girard, who famously devised the concept of fundamental anthropology with an emphasis on mimetic violence and scapegoating as cornerstones of social life and culture. His ‘mimetic theory’ constitutes one of the last big narratives of the humanities in the 21st c. A Theater of Envy is a must-read for those interested in Girard’s ‘canon’ and an unconventional interpretation of the English playwright’s oeuvre. The scholar is particularly interested in the Bard’s hypermimetic sensitivity. The book reveals a mimetic dimension in Shakespeare’s works, arguing that the playwright was always drawn to plots with mimetic potential. Following brilliant handling of complex structural models and paradoxical inversions, Shakespeare moved on and gradually lost interest in the mechanics of mimetic rivalry, focusing instead on ethical and human repercussions.

To not nurture a war – education against violence (Girard - Patočka)

The author is primarily interested in violence in the form of joining Girard's persecution crowd. Thus, the text concerns violence not in the general sense as the use of force to break resistance, nor symbolic violence in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu, but in the sense of human disposition to retaliate and persecution - in other words, violence is analyzed here in terms similar to what Erich Fromm called malignant aggression - the tendency to destroy and gain unlimited control over other people and the world.In the text, the author radicalizes the question about the pedagogical context of violence, treating the tendency to hasty curricular and organizational changes (which often occur after events of escalating violence in schools), as well as the utilitarian search for effective preventive evidence-based measures, as illusions and part of the problem we face with violence. He recognizes that pedagogical reflection must go much deeper. He seeks knowledge about the sources of violence and the cultural formations that foster it in the works of the French anthropologist René Girard and the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. The ideas of mimetic rivalry and the 20th century as war can give us insight into the phenomenon of violence and suggest the direction of educational transformation.The author conducts the analysis in several steps. After a critical introduction to the contemporary reaction of education to violence, he first outlines Girard's concept of the mimetic mechanism, then emphasizes three ideas present in it (with references to the nowadays): violence as an anthropological feature embedded in the human condition, unawareness of one's own violence and unanimity of the persecuting crowd. In the end, these three accents become the basis for the postulate of existential reorientation of education, based on Patočka's concept of forces of the day and the night.

The golden calf of Bethel and Judah’s mimetic desire of Israel

Based on René Girard’s mimetic theory, this article reexamines the vilification of Jeroboam’s cultus in 1 Kgs. 12.25–33 as an attempt to depict Bethel and the Northern Kingdom as the monstrous double of Jerusalem and Judah. Mimetic rivalry and mutual desire often impose a grotesque mixture of the emotional residues of mimetic crisis—be they anxiety, fury, or fear—on rivals’ faces. Although the text attempts to highlight differences between Bethel and Jerusalem, mimetic theory suggests that the rivals’ mutual blame conceals their fundamental similarities. The text paints Jeroboam’s golden calf as a monstrous double of Jerusalem’s cherubim, but the monstrous depiction of the calf as a pagan idol also conceals Judah’s own insecurity and mimetic desire of Israel. As the “inferior” party, Judah imitated Israel and eventually supplanted her older sibling, and this sense of insecurity is reflected in the accusations against her rival.

Beyond Contagion of Violence: Passionate Love and Empathy in the Thought of Ren\xe9 Girard and Max Scheler

In his last book René Girard depicts apocalypse as disclosure of mimetic violence that is world-ending. He claims that in times of violent pandemic we are not called to fight for this world, but follow Christ in his withdrawal from the world. However, such an assertion creates serious theoretical and practical issues for the effort to heal interhuman relations from the virus of mimetic hostility. I argue for the importance of restoring a foundational distinction between passionate love and acquisitive mimetic desire from the forgotten regions of Girard’s oeuvre. With Max Scheler’s interpretation of Stendhal’s concept of l’amour passion, I explore in each thinker a fundamental insight about possibilities of transforming violent contagion through empathy and loving commitment to the world. I conclude that respective “passive” and “active” approaches to the contagion of mimetic rivalry and violence are necessary and equally valuable.

Religious Rivalry in the Seventeenth Century: A Buddhist–Christian Case in China

To shed new light on the place of Christianity in seventeenth-century Chinese society and the debates and conflicts between Christians and Buddhists, this paper reflects on Christians' critiques of Buddhist dogma and praxis as well as rejoinders from the Buddhists. It will focus on the sustained debates, roughly between 1590 and 1690, with regard to the relative ‘merits and defects’ as represented in polemical texts. Several treatises serve as the essential link of the continuous debates, eliciting back-and-forth elaboration and rebuttals from both sides. Through an analysis of the polemical discourse, I argue that the Buddhist–Christian case offers an instance of what René Girard termed ‘mimetic rivalry’. The conflict entails internal rivalry resulting not only from different religious perspectives but also from social, cultural and economic ones. Seeking interconnectedness between traditions by creative imagination and analogy may offer a way out of ignorance and enmity in dealing with interreligious relationship. 1

Mimetic rivalry in practice: The case of Kosovo

In this article, we advance a framework that highlights the relational nature of rivalry emergence and its ongoing manifestations, before illustrating this framework in practice through an analysis of the rivalry between Serbs and Albanians over the issue of Kosovo. We argue that the locus of rivalry lies in the inherently social character of human desire and the destructive reciprocity elicited by human mimetic behaviour. The manner in which rivals portray their plight, and legitimise their cause, is, we argue, a function of their desire to acquire that which they imagine the other has. As such, rather than adhering to the conventional view that rivalries are characterised by difference, we argue that rivals share a set of common goals/desires. Thus, though rivalries are characterised by mutual antipathy – and the attendant devotion to constructing self-serving myths – this is but a superficial manifestation of an underlying mimetic dynamic. To focus only on how myths are constructed and instrumentally employed, is not sufficient when seeking to explain the persistence of rivalries. Rather, we must understand the underlying desires the respective rivals seek to fulfill through the proliferation of these myths if we are to truly understand the nature of the rivalry.

Rivalités mimétiques entre les arts : musique/littérature

The comparative method in literature, as it has been conceived in the romantic milieu, has always considered analogy, similarity, exchange, as the main reference criteria in criticism. Such criteria are partly due to a political (and ideological) perspective that we tend to apply to the phenomenon of art production. Our reference model is in fact the modern social exchange of men and things in liberal society. Nevertheless, hermeneutic profitability in art is mostly based on distinction and mimetic rivalry.

Феномен жертвенности: философско-антропологическое прочтение

The consciousness of modernity sees the phenomenon of sacrifice/spirit of sacrifice as something that has to be overcome and driven away from social reality. However, the contemporary anthropological paradigm (M. Scheler, P. Ricœur, E. Levinas, R. Girard, and G. Agamben) proves the spirit of sacrifice to be the main driving force of anthroposociogenesis, the basis for constituting religious, political, economic, and socio-cultural life of humankind. Thus, we can speak not only about different understandings of this phenomenon, but also about the rift between the ideology of “living without sacrifice”, propagated by a number of agents of our time, and evidence presented by the social sciences. The author of this paper believes that social philosophy should view the phenomenon of the spirit of sacrifice in the light of diversity, goal-setting and multi-directionality of its actualization. One of the main goals for contemporary intellectuals (religious and secular) is to achieve maximum clarity in differentiating diverse attitudes and forms of understanding related to this phenomenon. In particular, it is necessary to consistently deconstruct the intention of the ideology of ressentiment (M. Scheler) aimed at simplifying the lifeworld of human beings and form a philosophical and anthropological paradigm of understanding the spirit of sacrifice as a mode of free spiritual practice. The essence of the latter consists in devoting one’s life to the values of family, freedom and fecundity, making it possible to overcome the existing “order of violence” through restraining the processes of mimetic rivalry by detecting, criticising, preventing, stopping and transforming them. According to the author, the richness of meanings hidden in the term sacer represents the quintessence of the social and existential strategies and practices of humankind. This article intends to make a theoretical and methodological step in comprehending the phenomenon of sacrifice/spirit of sacrifice as well as in understanding the contexts of its analysis and development in contemporary society.

Religion and Violence in the Horn of Africa: Trajectories of Mimetic Rivalry and Escalation between ‘Political Islam’ and the State

ABSTRACT Religiously inspired violence is a global phenomenon and connects to transnational narratives, necessitating comparative analysis of socio-historical context and patterns of ideological mobilization. Northeast Africa hosts several radical-extremist and terrorist groups, mostly of Muslim persuasion, tuned in to these global narratives while connecting to local interests. Christian radicalism and violence also occur but are less ideologically consistent and less widespread. I examine key aspects of the current role and ideological self-positioning of Islamist radicalism in state contexts, comparing Somalia, affected by Islamist violence since the late 1990s, and Ethiopia, where Islam's mobilization followed a different path and where the state so far contained politicization and open radicalism of Muslim groups. A brief contrastive case from Nigeria is also provided. It is observed that Islam, while of course not ‘equaling’ violence, easily provides a militant political theology, frequently instrumentalized in conflicts and situations of (perceived) grievance, and via mimetic rivalry then becomes radically ideological. Securitized response patterns of state authorities toward militancy play a role in furthering violent radicalization. I follow a sociological-anthropological approach but also refer to key aspects of national-legal frameworks regarding state and religion, next to societal and political bases of Muslim militant mobilization for collective aims and self-presentation.

The Quranic Jesus: Prophet and Scapegoat

A major theme in René Girard’s work involves the role of the Bible in exposing the scapegoating practices at the basis of culture. The God of the Bible is understood to be a God who takes the side of victims. The God of the Qur’an is also a defender of victims, an idea that recurs throughout the text in the stories of messengers and prophets. In a number of ways, Jesus is unique among the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. It is argued here that while the Quranic Jesus is distinctly Islamic, and not a Christian derivative, he functions in the Qur’an in a way analogous to the role Jesus plays in the gospels. In its depiction of Jesus, the Qur’an is acutely aware of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating, and the God who comes to the aid of the persecuted. Despite the significant differences between the Christian understanding of Jesus as savior and the way he is understood in the Qur’an, a Girardian interpretation of the Qur’anic Jesus will suggest ways in which Jesus can be a bridge rather than an obstacle in Christian/Muslim dialogue.

Seven correlations between interpersonal violence and the progression of organised religion

While the majority of organised religions determine the origins of religion itself in an act of divine revelation, social science literature takes an evolutionary perspective. Without engaging the question of origin of religion from either perspective, this article proposes seven correlations between interpersonal violence and the progression of organised religion by suggesting that interpersonal violence plays a significant role in the institutionalising process of organised religion. Although interpersonal violence does not necessarily cause the structuring of faith, it reinforces and provides solutions to the existing patterns of threat faced by the community, which together lead to the organisation of religion. The first part of this article (stages 1–4) surveys the psychology of violence by focusing on the theories of frustration–aggression, mimetic rivalry, triangulation and the genesis of scapegoating and guilt. The second part (stages 5–6) marks the transition from personal to social psychology and surveys violence in the primitive religion, as manifested in the ritualising process of the scapegoat, and the genesis of sacrifice. The third part (stage 7) highlights the complexity of ritual, ethics and doctrine, in the evolution of religion from a primitive state to an advanced organised institution.

The Fall of Satan, Rational Psychology, and the Division of Consciousness: A Girardian Thought Experiment

This paper proposes a revision of Girard’s interpretation of Satan, along traditional theological lines. Appreciating the essential correctness of the Girardian characterization of mimēsis, it is an argument, contra Girard, that (1) Satan cannot be reduced to a mimetic process but is a hypostatic spiritual reality and, following from this, that (2) the origins of mimetic rivalry go back before the emergence of humankind and provide a model for human rivalry. Employing concepts drawn from Husserlian phenomenological psychology, Thomist theology, and psychoanalysis, it hypothesizes Satan’s psychological state, prior to his fall, as metastable anxiety and trauma and his state, afterwards, as a narcissistic, malicious, self-induced pathology in order to explain Satan’s impossible rivalry with God, a rivalry that precedes hominization and has always endangered human existence.

From Mimetic Rivalry to Mutual Recognition: Girardian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Research Article| May 01 2019 From Mimetic Rivalry to Mutual Recognition: Girardian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalysis Scott R. Garrels; Scott R. Garrels The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles SCOTT R. GARRELS is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Pasadena, California and a candidate at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles. Dr. Garrels’s research interests include the role of imitation in child development, adult intersubjectivity, and culture and religion, including implications for clinical theory and practice. He is the editor of Mimesis and Science: Empirical Research on Imitation and the Mimetic Theory of Culture and Religion (2011). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Joy M. Bustrum Joy M. Bustrum The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, and Azusa Pacific University JOY M. BUSTRUM is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of clinical psychology at Azuza Pacific University. She is also a candidate at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles. Bustrum maintains a private practice for adults in Pasadena, California. Her research interests address the intersection of relational psychoanalysis and multicultural theory and practice. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Contagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture (2019) 26: 9–46. https://doi.org/10.14321/contagion.26.2019.0009 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Scott R. Garrels, Joy M. Bustrum; From Mimetic Rivalry to Mutual Recognition: Girardian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Contagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture 1 May 2019; 26 9–46. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/contagion.26.2019.0009 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressContagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © Michigan State University Board of Trustees Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Mimetic desire and mirror neurons: the consciousness of workplace bullying

Workplace bullying is important to business and government, because it has a real impact on unfortunate casualties’ wellbeing and organizations’ benefits. Studies into the causes and outcomes of workplace bullying with a focus on the key psychodynamic factors underlying harassment and the subsequent results are rare. This paper applies Rene Girard’s mimetic desire theory to clarify the elements and non-cognizant components associated with “interdividual” connections prompting aggression for the victim by the harasser. The disclosure of mirror neurons affirms that mimetic desire grows unwittingly through a mediator of the mimetic brain. Mimetic desire theory helps to recognize and understand that the destructive patterns of behavior and emotional responses to situations leading to moral harassment is a direct consequence of the mimetic rivalry between the bully and the victim. The unconscious mechanism is then brought up to the consciousness. The bully and the victim can avoid becoming entrapped within dysfunctional and toxic relationships such as bullying. The use of the mimetic desire concepts also enables human resources managers, bystanders, and practitioners to better deal with protagonists. This can help minimize or eliminate workplace bullying.

Nacionalismo, identidad y política: España y Catalunya desde la perspectiva de la rivalidad mimética

El auge del nacionalismo en Catalunya es un ejemplo de lo que Girard entiende por rivalidad mimética. También de lo que Maalouf define como lucha de identidades, basada en estereotipos convertidos en convicciones profundas que llegan a hacer que la mayoría se sienta amenazada por la minoría, en palabras de Appadurai. El peligro de esta deriva ideológica no es sólo una eventual secesión política, sino también una escalada de tensión social que podría desembocar en episodios de violencia.

One Europe or None

The European post-Cold War order assumed monist forms. Instead of the geopolitical and ideological diversity sought by Mikhail Gorbachev as he brought the Cold War to an end in the late 1980s, a type of monist cold peace was imposed in which Atlantic security institutions and ideas were consolidated. The monism was both institutional and ideational, and the two reinforced each other in a hermetic order that sought to insulate itself from critique and transformation. Russia was excluded as anything but subaltern. The post-Cold War European peace order was thus built on weak foundations, provoking a cycle of mimetic rivalry. In Russia the fateful dialectic of external challenge and domestic stultification once again operated, heightening the Kremlin’s threat perceptions. Russia’s relations with the European Union (EU) and Washington veered between the cooperative and the confrontational, until settling into a conflictual mode in 2014, as it is argued in the article.

Pośrednie. Co łączy Judith Butler i René Girarda?

Starting from the performative vision of culture as a spectacle, which is based on a desire that is not determined by natural dispositions and creates unstable and social worlds lined with identity panic and threatened with mimetic rivalry leading to uncontrollable outbursts of violence, Judith Butler and Rene Girard come, despite their dif‌ferent sensitivities, to similar and sometimes complementary conclusions. While Butler somehow sympathises with collective acts of disobedience and Girard primarily fears massive outbursts of aggression, they both praise the intermediate. ‘The intermediate’ can be understood as social infrastructure (in a broad sense), which allows the establishment of individuality as a certain space for maneuver, an open f‌ield of interpretation within institutions guaranteeing its relative mental and physical security.

The Mimetic Crisis in René Girard’s Project of “Fundamental Anthropology”: Main Aspects

The focus of this paper is on comprehension of concepts and problems central to the theory of Franco-American philosopher and anthropologist R. Girard. Despite the recent increase of interest in the ideas of the author among Russian-speaking audience, in Russian educational community his creative heritage have not yet been sufficiently explored. The topics developed by R. Girard have a significant place in the modern science of man and society: the nature of human aggression, the origins of religious and cultural institutions, the phenomenon of crowd and the laws of imitation, the social morality. The paper aims to analyze the most important problems and concepts of R. Girard’s philosophical project (scapegoat, constituent violence, duplicity, sacrifice), focusing on the mimetic theme inside his theory. Researching various sources, from ancient literature and mythology to studies in psychology and ethology, the author of “Fundamental Anthropology” reaches the conclusion that at the basis of all social institutions lies mimetic capacity that makes human beings reproduce the actions and borrow desires of their tribesman. The “desire without object”, leading to mimetic rivalry, represents a threat to the stability of society, reflected in a risk of mimetic crisis, destabilization of moral values and “war of all against all”. According to Girard, the practice of sacrifice acts as a compensatory mechanism, so-called “pharmakon”, which helps to overcome the destructive consequences of mimesis.