Should libertarians consider Rene Girard? [Introduction to Rene Girard]

[batou]

And the implications of his theory on libertarian ideas. 

From a philosopher that I think will become very prominent with time.

He shows that we are inherently violent and that our desires have a mimetic nature, that is, that we copy our desires from observing other people (triangular nature of desire - subject, model and object, the subject gets it's desire for the object from the model) and that this inevitably leads to conflict. 

Quoting Girard, from Violence and the Sacred: 

Once his basic needs are satisfied (indeed, sometimes even before), man is subject to intense desires, though he may not know precisely for what. The reason is that he desires being, something he himself lacks and which some other person seems to possess. The subject thus looks to that other person to inform him of what he should desire in order to acquire that being. If the model, who is apparently already endowed with superior being, desires some object, the object must surely be capable of conferring an even greater plenitude of being. It is not through words, therefore, but by the example of his own desire that the model conveys to the subject the supreme desirability of the object. We find ourselves reverting to an ancient notion—mimesis—one whose conflictual implications have always been misunderstood. We must understand that desire itself is essentially mimetic, directed toward an object desired by the model. The mimetic quality of childhood desire is universally recognized. Adult desire is virtually identical, except that (most strikingly in our own cul-ture) the adult is generally ashamed to imitate others for fear of revealing his lack of being. The adult likes to assert his independence and to offer himself as a model to others; he invariably falls back on the formula, “Imitate me!” in order to conceal his own lack of originality.

For example Stefan is being a model for people's desires on FDR. He models a way of life, he shows himself as having "being," the right way. 

If all desire is sourced externally, this invalidates the idea, that our deires could be generated by a true self. 

Desiring the same object as other individuals, when the object is scarce, leads to conflict.

Which leads to a mimetic crisis: 

If two individuals desire the same thing, there will soon be a third, then a fourth. This process quickly snowballs. Since from the beginning the desire is aroused by the other (and not by the object) the object is soon forgotten and the mimetic conflict transforms into a general antagonism. At this stage of the crisis the antagonists will no longer imitate each other's desires for an object, but each other's antagonism. They wanted to share the same object, but now they want to destroy the same enemy. So, a paroxysm of violence would tend to focus on an arbitrary victim and a unanimous antipathy would, mimetically, grow against him. The brutal elimination of the victim would reduce the appetite for violence that possessed everyone a moment before, and leaves the group suddenly appeased and calm. The victim lies before the group, appearing simultaneously as the origin of the crisis and as the one responsible for this miracle of renewed peace. He becomes sacred, that is to say the bearer of the prodigious power of defusing the crisis and bringing peace back. René Girard believes this to be the genesis of archaic religion, of ritual sacrifice as the repetition of the original event, of myth as an account of this event, of the taboos that forbid access to all the objects at the origin of the rivalries that degenerated into this absolutely traumatizing crisis.

Girard says that all cultures are based on murder.

 

Perhaps more to come.

I will provide a few links for those interested (couldn't be more recommended):

Lecture, not so much about Rene Girard.. Some about the scapegoating mechanism and scapegoating jews in WW2 and how states kill the stateless in a crisis. Very exciting lecture

Interview: 

 

http://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Girard

essay on Christianity and Nietzsche

http://www.jesslayton.com/jessweb/Essays/Girard.VS.Nietzche%20-%201999.pdf

 

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

If we're inherently violent, then mimetics doesn't work very well. i.e., if I'm born with violence as my nature, there isn't much Stef and people like him can do to make me peaceful.

 

I don't know if you actually got that bit from Girard or not but in any case, I strongly disagree that we're inherenty violent. We are inherently self centered and because of that, we can be moved to violence as a means to an end but in as much as human nature is concerned, we are actually more prone to peaceful means than we are violent ones. The simple reason for this is that violence is always dangerous and any being that is self centered is also risk averse, for obvious reasons. But we are also mimetic, for sure. We learn from our environment and as such, if we're reared in an unsafe, violent environment, we will be violent. Likewise, if we're reared in a safe and comforting environment, we will be empathetic, compassionate and non violent.

 

From the rest of the excerpts you provided, it seems to me that his thesis is based solely on the observation of adult or, already learned behavior and that's not a very good foundation for determining how society can move toward a more peaceful existence. If we presuppose that people are always going to behave the way people behave today, the only options we have for any semblance of liberty involve the use of force, which effects exactly the opposite of what it purports to do. Instead of focusing on how adults behave and how we could change their behavior, we have to focus on why adults behave the way they do. We can't change that which is already carved but we can change that which hasn't been carved.

 

In my opinion, this focus on the why is what separates Stef from every other libertarian activist and philosopher who has been before him. He has been the doctor who actually looked for the cause of the cancer rather than focusing on the treatment. We need to treat the cancer once we have it but in the end, the patient always dies. We have to prevent it in order to effect real change.

[Guest darkskyabove]

 

... the observation of adult or, already learned behavior and that's not a very good foundation for determining how society can move toward a more peaceful existence.

 

Excellent response. I only quoted the above to highlight:

What about the children?

[batou]

Quoting Girard 

 

Violence is generated by this process; or rather, violence is the process itself when two or more partners try to prevent one another from appropriating the object they all desire through physical or other means”

Perhaps I should have said differently, we are not inherently violent, that violence somehow occurs from a vacuum, but that violence is the inevitable outcome of mimetic conflict. Not that it arises from every mimetic conflict, but that it does from some and that this is inevitable (or has been so far, perhaps we can find better ways to identify and stop it).

I have concluded (my conclusion, not Girard's) that we are inherently violent from that (by Girard), we have been going through this conflict (mimetic conflict spiraling into a mimetic crisis) throughout most of our evolution and then something happened, we figured out a way to resolve this conflict and unite people, create societies - the scapegoat mechanism. 

Children are not exempt from mimetic desire:

 

An example from common experience involves two small children playing (Bailie 1995, 116-118).  One child notices a certain toy that had gone unnoticed by both children until that point.  But when the first child notices the toy and makes an effort to acquire the toy to play with it, the second child sees this process and mimesis compels this child also to desire the toy.  Conflict thereby results as both children desire the same object. 

Girard’s theory explains that had the first child not engaged in the initial acquisitive behaviors for the toy, the second child would most likely not have desired the toy and the conflict would never have evolved.  However, since all human life is based around necessary acquisitions (as well as unnecessary acquisitions), conflict must always occur since acquisitive mimesis is one of the core human traits, according to Girard.  Whenever one person sees another person attempting to acquire some object, those around him/her will also begin to desire that object and attempt to acquire it.

http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/girard.html

I agree though, that in a world of abundance and empathy, there would be less mimetic conflict such as this above, but it would still exist, this type of mimetic conflict is inevitable:

Girard and the Oedipus complex

 

Girard grants that Freud was a superb observer, but was not a good interpreter. And, in a sense, Girard accepts that there is such a thing as the Oedipus Complex: the child will eventually come to unconsciously have a sexual desire for his mother, and a desire to kill his father; and indeed, perhaps this complex will endure throughout adulthood. But, Girard considers that the Oedipus Complex is the result of a mechanism very different from the one outlined by Freud.

According to Freud, the child has an innate sexual desire towards the mother, and eventually, discovers that the father is an obstacle to the satisfaction of that desire. Girard, on the other hand, reinterprets the Oedipus Complex in terms of mimetic desire: the child becomes identified with his father and imitates him. But, inasmuch as he imitates his father, the child imitates the sexual desire for his mother. Then, his father becomes his model and rival, and that explains the ambivalent feelings so characteristic of the Oedipus Complex.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/girard/#SH2d

I have found an interview/documentary on Girard, it's the best, most conprehensive, that I have found yet. Though it's quite long.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

Violence is not the inevitable outcome of conflict. True, it is the most common outcome in this world where violence is so commonly used, but that doesn't mean it is inevitable. I would also argue that the mimetic conflict Girard explains isn't problematic in and of itself. If it's two children and a newly discovered toy, the assumption might at first be that the second child wants the toy simply because the other child has it. A sort of greed to have what aothers have, as it were. However, what I see there is one child not wanting to miss out on the fun the other child is going to have with the new toy. And what's wrong with wanting to have fun? If it's two rationally reared children, the conflict will be resolved by sharing and the end result will be both kids having fun with the same toy. And... perhaps the toy maker will get to sell another toy after the parent of the second child sees that it is providing so much joy. Ultimately, there are any number of different ways that conflict can be productive. I can't help but think of George Carlin's Ten Commandmants bit where he explains that coveting actually drives the free market.

 

As Oedipus goes, Freud was observing a population of people who were reared in utterly brutal circumstances. I don't dispute that my son saw me as a competitor for his mother's affections at some point in his development but there is no plausible explanation whatever for assuming that it had anything to do with sexual desire. Like I explained above, he was a kid who saw some fun/affection being had and like all other children, he wanted to have as much he could have of it. Fortunately, he was never denied any affection from his mother. Like with the toy above, we shared. And the conflict that could have been never was.

[batou]

Girard traces back the creation of states and political power to the scapegoat mechanism:

 

According to Girard, this reverence for the future victims of ritual sacrifice is central to the rise of kingship: “The king reigns only by virtue of his future death; he is no more and no less than a victim awaiting sacrifice, a condemned man about to be executed” (Violence and the Sacred, 107). If the victim, before its sacrificial death, is able to transform the community’s veneration into real political power, we are confronted with the beginnings of kingship, or rather, in even more general terms, the beginnings of central political power. The stronger this power can develop, the longer the king’s eventual sacrifice is delayed. Kingship is rooted in the reverence the community shows the victim during the “lapse of time before the sacrifice” (Things Hidden, 53), which is then transformed into political influence. This power can become so pronounced that ultimately, it is not the victim who is sacrificed, but rather a substitute, any arbitrary victim close to him. The more the king is able to resolve conflict within the community and keep internal rivalries in check, the less his sacrifice—or that of the surrogate—is necessary. The element of sacrifice is marginalized until it disappears completely, giving rise to a form of political sovereignty that shrouds the connection to the scapegoat mechanism and is responsible for our intuitive skepticism with regard to the connection between ritual sacrifice and kingship. Numerous characteristics of sacred kingdoms can illustrate this general delineation of the origin of kingship. A first interesting instance is offered by the sovereign incest rites that can be observed in the enthronement ceremonies of several African kingdoms. In order to become king, the prince was forced to break one of the community’s extreme taboos, namely, to commit incest with his mother or another forbidden female member of his tribe. Here we see that the king, as original sacrificial victim, also embodied the negative, criminal elements of the persecuted scapegoat. The most primeval of criminal accusations emerge in the phenomenon of sovereign incest, which, from the perspective of the mimetic theory, provide clear evidence of the violent origins of kingship. The enthronement of kings is often accompanied by collective animosity against the king, or even violent acts, which likewise point to an original connection with the scapegoat mechanism. James G. Frazer, for instance, points out an example in Sierra Leone concerning the savage Timmes, who after electing their king collectively thrashed him prior to the coronation. Frazer adds that oftentimes the elected monarchs failed to survive these violent rites of passage.4 Elias Canetti describes similar phenomena in his portrayal of African kingship. An example from a culture in Gabon shows how the government there began with a terrifying rite in which the new ruler was encircled by bloodthirsty subjects who dangerously closed in on him.5 Canetti also mentions Nigerian enthronement rituals in which traces of the scapegoat mechanism can be clearly seen: “A newly elected king was made to run three times round a mound and, while doing so, was well buffeted [mit Stößen und Faustschlägen traktiert6] by the dignitaries.”7 Where Canetti describes the “the insults and blows that [the king] is subjected to before entering on his office” as an “intimation of what awaits him in the end,”8 he refers to the fact that many African kings were ritually murdered after a certain period of rule—that their rule was in fact derived from a suspension of their eventual sacrifice. Another reference to the connection between the scapegoat mechanism and kingship is found in the unwillingness of subjects in many cultures to become king, with the eventual “chosen one” forced with violence to take on the position. Girard mentions as an example a culture that determined its kings by means of a persecutory hunt, at the end of which the slowest member, the one caught, was eventually crowned.9 This fear of being appointed king is not unfounded; in many cultures, kings were simply killed if they were unable to overcome crises such as droughts or bad harvests. A further instance that displays the connection between the origin of kingship and the founding murder is found in the enthronement process of the Shilluk people of central Africa.10 At the outset of the process, the society was split into a civil war–like structure, with one half set against the other in fierce rivalry. Surprisingly enough, the future king—arbitrarily chosen—always belonged to the defeated camp. At the final moment, when the elected victim faced the ultimate coup de grace, he was crowned king of the entire people. Several examples also document the murder of surrogate victims who were sacrificed in place of the king.11 Frazer points out an interesting case among Tibetan Buddhists.12 For twenty-three days after the beginning of the Tibetan new year, a “Jalno” monk—and not the Dalai Lama—was entrusted with power over the Tibetan people. This substitute, however, often gained too much power himself and was replaced with another surrogate, the “King of the Years,” who governed for only a few days before being murdered. Frazer rightly concludes from this series of surrogate leaders that the Dalai Lama himself originally died as a scapegoat.

From Rene Girard's Mimetic Theory (Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture) by Wolfgang Palaver

http://www.amazon.com/Girards-Mimetic-Studies-Violence-ebook/dp/B00AYTH57I/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1366992455&sr=8-6

 

[batou]

I also need to correct myself, I said that Girard shows that we are inherently violent, this is a misrepresentation of Girard by my part.

What Girard would say is probably closer, that we are inherently mimetic and that mimesis leads to rivarly, which leads to violence. 

This is not to say that every mimesis leads to violence, but there is a potential to lead to violence, especially when the desire is "internally mediated," as Girard calls it, that is when subject and model are close by (by proxinity and social hierarchical position).

[PatrickC]

I strongly disagree that we're inherenty violent. We are inherently self centered and because of that, we can be moved to violence as a means to an end but in as much as human nature is concerned, we are actually more prone to peaceful means than we are violent ones.

This was well said

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

 

I also need to correct myself, I said that Girard shows that we are inherently violent, this is a misrepresentation of Girard by my part.

What Girard would say is probably closer, that we are inherently mimetic and that mimesis leads to rivarly, which leads to violence. 

This is not to say that every mimesis leads to violence, but there is a potential to lead to violence, especially when the desire is "internally mediated," as Girard calls it, that is when subject and model are close by (by proxinity and social hierarchical position).

 

 

The problem here and, with almost everything I've read on the subject of human action, is that the foundation of his arguments is based on a presupposition of human nature. One can never reach an accurate conclusion by looking only at human actions or at the most obvious motivations. In simple terms, research too often focuses on the what that humans do rather than the why. We are inherently mimetic, that's safe to say. It's the foundation of how we learn and it's the trait that 99% of parents ignore when they presume they can teach their children through words rather than actions. We mimic what we see more than what we hear. Thus, when we tell our child not to hit and punish him with hitting... the lesson learned comes from the action, not the words.

 

Moreover, there is nothing at all about human action that should lead us to assume that mimicking someone will lead to violence. Sure, it can lead to conflict but as stated above, conflict is not synonymous with violence. Violence can be entirely unprovoked and often is. Likewise, if two non-violent individuals enter into a conflict, that conflict may exist for any given amount of time, may never be resolved or may be satisfactorily resolved and throughout the whole process no violence whatever will occur. Take that exact same scenario, replace just one actor and there may indeed be violence. Perhaps at the beginning, perhaps in the middle of the conflict or perhaps at the end. And to break it down further, that violence could be minor or it could be murder. Again... it's the individual actors and, most importantly their histories, that are the determining factors... not mimicry, not human nature and not the material source of the conflict.

[batou]

bbeljefe, perhaps I should have been more clear. 

I agree with you, that the conflict can be resolved without violence, but the point of Girard is exposing the whole mechanism, from mimetic rivarly to scapegoating.

When a crisis occurs (this might be a plague, an economic downturn...), the mimetic rivarly may get more and more intense (it might still be non violent at this point, like the current economic crisis, or Germany around 1930).

Stress and/or violence builds up and the community eventually finds someone to kill. This fixes the crisis and reunifies the community, but only temporarily. 

 

 Again... it's the individual actors and, most importantly their histories, that are the determining factors... not mimicry, not human nature and not the material source of the conflict.

I never said they weren't, but you seem to be pretty quick about the idea, that "mimicry" can have such an effect. Also mimetic desire (which is all desire) was acquired at some point in time, either present or past, so of course, the past is important. 

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

batou -

 

I appreciate that he's attempting to point out a problem but he's disseminating incorrect information. That said, he may not agree with me and that's fine. But, his good intentions don't make up for the lack of due diligence in finding the root of the problem, nor do they make his incorrect premise correct.

 

Humanity will never move past the point we are at now if those we trust to find the real genesis of our problems contnue to stop looking further back than adult action. I understand why most of these people can't loook further back but still, it is no different for a psychologist or a sociologist to say that there is a serial killer gene today than it was for a priest to say the sun revolves around the Earth 400 years ago. It's wrong information and when we start from a flawed premise, everything we do past that point is also flawed. Another good example of wrong headed science is Steven Pinker's book about the decline of human violence. I forget the exact reasons he claims violence has diminished but it's nothing to do with child rearing and that is simply false. A lot of these people would have you believe that humans aren't subject to environmental influence until they turn twenty, when quite the opposite is the case.

 

And I apologize for the rant. This is a topic that's just so plain and clear to me and it's frustrating to see such dissonance around it.  [head2wall]