René Girard's Mimetic Theory - Lecture 1

For Girard, we are different than animals because of our desires, our myths, our lies. We invent stories, we go to war for abstract concepts etc. This is a the object of his psychological focused philosophy. 

Similar to how class was the nexus of socialism, how casts worked in Hinduism, or rationality in liberalism. 

According to Girard, is a social mechanism that arrises from a cataclysmic event. A troubled society murders an "innocent" victim (blamed for all evils) & thus gains cathartic release and gains new new Gods. This event is dramatised, captured in myth and then translated back into the society in the form of rituals & prohibitions. 

Ex: Julius Caesar is ritually killed as he is blamed for the fall of the Republic. However, as his nephew becomes emperor, Caesar becomes a God. And later on an institution emulated by all rulers. 

The Christian mythology follows the same Girardian arc: civil unrest in Judea, Jesus crucified as a scapegoat, turned into a God, institutionalized through the church. 

However, the unique element is that the story is told for the perspective of the victim, rather than of the accusers. In the Bible, the victim is innocent, the crowd was mistaken.

It is this unique care for the victim that spills into our modern worldview and institutions: from human rights to work ethic. In a sense we all live in a Christian society even if we don't consider ourselves as Christians. 

For Girard, violence is natural. But modern day seems quite peaceful. And Girard credits 2 institutions:

• capitalism: which Girard sees it as a status seeking game more than a rational transfer of resources.
• laws: a set of institutions that mediates disputes and acts as a monopoly on violence 

For Girard capitalism is this stew of violent energies that needs to be contained through laws. One can not function without the other.