Summary
First published:La Violence et la sacre, 1972 (English translation, 1977)
Edition(s) used:Violence and the Sacred, translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977
Genre(s): Nonfiction
Subgenre(s): Biblical studies; critical analysis
Core issue(s): Gospels; Jesus Christ; morality; sacrifice
Overview
René Girard begins Violence and the Sacred by looking at works of literature such as El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612-1620; better known as Don Quixote de la Mancha) by Miguel de Cervantes, Le Rouge et le noir (1830; The Red and the Black, 1898) by Stendahl, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (pr. c. 1595-1596) by William Shakespeare, and Bratya Karamazovy (1879-1880; The Brothers Karamazov, 1912) by Fyodor Dostoevski. In all of these, Girard says, the same concept of desire and an impulse toward violence prevail. We tend to want what other people want; in other words, desires are mimetic, primarily stirred by the desires of others rather than internal forces. Rivalry and violence are thus created by exposure to other human beings. Mimetic desire is not an entirely bad thing; it can be a constructive force, if our shared desires move us toward something that is good and can be shared. However, more often than not, it is a source of jealousy, anger, and violence.
Girard turns this concept outward to look at how it plays out with a larger social group. In early human history, small groups of hunter-gatherers wandered across the land and seas, rarely encountering each other. However, as time passed, the groups became larger stationary communities, and as the amount of daily interaction with other humans increased, rivalries leading to violence increased.
According to Girard, violence is mimetic. People witnessing it tend to act violently in turn, and more and more are drawn into the mimetic frenzy. Mimesis is not the issue, but the direction in which it leads people is. The only way to stop the wave of violence and keep societies from destroying themselves is through a sacrifice.
A sacrifice is a surrogate victim, animal or human, that acts as a scapegoat and dispels the violence. The scapegoat must have certain qualities. First it must be both part of the community yet somehow apart from it. Second, it must be similar to the target of rivalry that started the mimetic violence. Third, it must be a victim that can be sacrificed without fear of retribution.
Moreover, the ones enacting the sacrifice, the sacrificers, cannot be aware that they are making a scapegoat out of the victim. So that the sacrificers can perform the act without recognizing it for what it is, a misunderstanding must arise. Therefore, Girard argues, religion was invented in the form of a supernatural being demanding the sacrifice. In most societies, animal sacrifice became a substitute for human sacrifice. However, if the catharsis of animal sacrifice was not enough to maintain a society, then human sacrifice was employed. The culture that arises from this religious impulse will have sacrificial ritual, myth, and prohibitions.
In looking at mythology, Girard finds myth after myth acknowledging its violent origins while trying to cover them up, with deity after deity creating the world through its own dismemberment. Common prohibitions reflect the same mimetic crises, because often the most available and accessible objects are prohibited. As the most likely to provoke mimetic rivalries among members of the group, these objects are strictly regulated or forbidden. Societal hierarchies also work to lessen mimetic crises: When a desired object is not attainable...
(This entire section contains 1491 words.)
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because of class, the feeling of rivalry is reduced.
If, Girard asks, the solution to societal crises requires a social act whose meaning must be concealed, how can society see the truth of sacrificial violence and abolish it? For a way out of this dilemma, Girard turns to the Hebrew Bible, which records a slow transition away from the mechanism of sacrifice. In the Bible, the victim is given a voice for the first time: The blood of Abel, for instance, “cries from the ground.” Joseph, the target of collective violence by his brothers, becomes an agent of reconciliation. In the story of David, Jonathan rejects the mimetic rivalry with David that his father, Saul, attempts to draw him into, and with the renunciation of that rivalry, Jonathan demonstrates a new way for human beings to interact with each other. In addition, after a time, animal sacrifices begin to be denounced in the Hebrew Bible, because if the basic structure of the sacrifice is a repetition of the urge toward violence as social mechanism, it cannot move away from it. Instead, ethical structures begin to develop in place of the tradition of animal sacrifice.
Jesus represents the final movement away from this tradition, Girard says. He renounces the rival messianic model of a victorious warrior appearing to slay all enemies of God and warns his followers away from the connection between mimetic rivalry and violence: “You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one also.”
Jesus unmasks the violence and deception inherent in the old social mechanisms. Because of his ethical challenge to the sacrificial cult and the economy built around its tradition, demonstrated in his cleansing of the temple, Jesus is killed by the agents of those forces. His death demonstrates that in the craze of mimetic violence, truth is lost: The crowd that cheered Jesus now stones him, the disciples flee, and Peter denies him.
Jesus’ death, though, is not an appeasing sacrifice to an angry god as a punishment for human sin. Instead, Jesus is returned to life by God. Moreover, he does not return to avenge himself on those that killed him, but rather witnesses to his disciples that sacrificial violence can be short-circuited. Jesus becomes the bridge between the world of violence and the brighter kingdom of Heaven.
Christian Themes
Girard argues that Jesus has exposed sacred violence permanently and, in doing so, has moved us into a precarious time in which we splinter society because we continue to rely on the structure of the sacrificial tradition. Groups are organized around a victim or group of victims, decentralizing society by not having a single central victim. Furthermore, because humans have a tendency to avenge victims in a way that creates more victims, violence escalates and social chaos ensues.
At the same time, we are drawn to the Kingdom of God by witnessing Jesus’ statement regarding the sacrifice and its true meaning: that the sacrifice is no longer necessary. In doing so, we renounce rivalry, realizing that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to everyone and that to follow Jesus is to become an advocate for all of humanity. This brings us again to the concept of mimetic desire. Girard says that the more our human desires are patterned after the desires of Christ, the more we desire the life offered us by God be offered to others in turn.
By offering forgiveness and strength to resist violence, Girard argues, Jesus counters the worldly impulse to resolve conflicts through the competitive use of power. Jesus’ refusal to enact violence on those who had acted against him short-circuits the cycle of violence and removes the need for the mechanism of the sacrificial victim. Jesus has modeled the right way to act on the human impulse toward mimesis, a way urged on us by God.
In the same way, it is important for us to model Christ for others, serving as an example, Girard notes. The members of the Holy Trinity imitate each other with love, with no rivalry, in the same way that Jesus urges us to love.
Sources for Further Study
- Bailie, Gil. Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads. New York: Crossroad, 1995. Bailie uses Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and phenomena ranging from Aztec mythology to Bob Dylan to explore the power of Christian revelation.
- Girard, René. Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965. Girard analyzes the novel in terms of mimetic desire, setting the groundwork that he later draws on in The Violence and the Sacred.
- Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G.: The Gospel and the Sacred: Poetics of Violence in Mark. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1994. Uses biblical texts to interpret the modern social situation using a framework that draws heavily on Girard’s theories.
- Schwager, Raymund. Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1978. Applies the scapegoat theory to biblical theory to create a new frame for it.
- Williams, James G. The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence. 1991. Reprint. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1995. Approaching Girard’s theory from the viewpoint of a biblical scholar, Williams points out numerous places where the Gospels rely heavily on sacrificial violence.
