asangam's blog

It has been crucial in order to develope this paper, the studies about Mimetism carried out by René Girard, that is why I think it is important to tell something about his work because it is extremelly related to the topic of this paper.

René Girard (born December 25, 1923, Avignon, France) is a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. He is the author of several books , in which he developed the following ideas:

1. mimetic desire: imitation is an aspect of behaviour that not only affects learning but also desire, and imitated desire is a cause of conflict,

2. the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry,

3. the Bible reveals the two previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.
René Girard’s writings cover many areas. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature that uses his hypotheses and ideas in the areas of literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, psychology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy.

Another source of contention is Girard’s seeming to have left no role for beneficial imitation. Rebecca Adams argues that because Girard’s theories fixate on violence, he creates a ‘scapegoat’ himself with his own theory: the scapegoat of positive mimesis. Adams proposes a reassessment of Girard’s theory that includes an account of loving mimesis or, as she prefers to call it, creative mimesis. Some say there is also a good mimesis in the thought of Girard, for instance the imitation of Jesus. Another possible instance is the imitation of the “external mediation” when the model is “far” from me as, for instance, Amadis in Cervantes’s Don Quixote. In this last case, it is not a “good” imitation, but some “Girardians” point out the positive aspects of external mediation. Jean-Michel Oughourlian takes the example of the imitation of a politician: “The imitation can be totally peaceful and beneficial; I don’t believe that I am the other, I don’t want to take his place […] This imitation can lead me to become sensitive to the social and political problems…” It is also possible to quote this sentence from a short presentation of Girard’s theory: “(…) Young children imitate their teachers as closely as possible and are even encouraged to do so, but within an educational frame that maintains a certain distance between subject and model, prohibiting confusion. If many little girls want to become schoolmistress, it is later, and all is in this ‘later’.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard