The Girard Reader

RENÉ GIRARD

THE GIRARD READER

Edited by James G. Williams

A Crossroad Herder Book
The Crossroad Publishing Company New York

-iii-

This printing: 2000

The Crossroad Publishing Company 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Copyright © 1996 by The Crossroad Publishing Company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

or otherwise, without the written permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Girard, René, 1923-

[Selections. 1996]

The Girard reader / René Girard; edited by James G. Williams.

p. cm.

"A Crossroad Herder book."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8245-1609-5. -- ISBN 0-8245-1634-6 (pbk.)

1. Violence -- Religious aspects. 2. Religion and culture. 3. Myth. 4. Scapegoat. 5. Sacrifice.

6. Bible. N.T. Gospels -Hermeneutics. 7. Mimesis in literature. 8. Mimesis in the Bible. 9.

Girard, René, 1923- -- Interviews. I. Williams, James G., 1936- . II. Title.

BL65.V55G572 1996

291.3′4--dc20 96-33185

CIP

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Contents

A Note to the Reader

vii

Acknowledgments

xi

René Girard: A Biographical Sketch

1

Part I OVERVIEW OF THE MIMETIC THEORY

1. Mimesis and Violence

9

2. The Surrogate Victim

20

3. Triangular Desire

33

4. Desire and the Unity of Novelistic Conclusions

45

5. The Goodness of Mimetic Desire

62

6. Sacrifice as Sacral Violence and Substitution

69

Part IV THE SCAPEGOAT AND MYTHS AS TEXTS

OF PERSECUTION

7. The Scapegoat as Historical Referent

97

8. Stereotypes of Persecution

107

9. Python and His Two Wives: An Exemplary Scapegoat Myth

118

-v-

Part V THE BIBLE, THE GOSPELS, AND CHRIST

10. The Bible's Distinctiveness and the Gospel

145

11. The Nonsacrificial Death of Christ

177

12. The Divinity of Christ

189

13. Satan

194

14. The Question of Anti-Semitism in the Gospels

211

Part VI THE CHALLENGE OF FREUD AND

NIETZSCHE

15. Freud and the Oedipus Complex

225

16. Nietzsche versus the Crucified

243

Epilogue: The Anthropology of the Cross: A Conversation with

René Girard

262

Glossary

289

Bibliography

295

Index

305

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A Note to the Reader

This Reader in René Girard's body of work is intended to present excerpts and articles which

cover all the basic aspects of Girard's theory of religion and culture, with special emphasis on

his present position on certain questions. Where an excerpt does not represent his present

views, this will be indicated in the brief introduction to each chapter. I recommend that the reader previously unacquainted with Girard's work read the selections in the order presented.

For many readers, especially students being introduced to Girard's thought, it would be very

helpful to read first the biographical sketch of Girard (pp. 1-6) and the interview that

concludes the main body of the Reader (pp. 262-288). Then when the selections have been

read, it would be useful to go over the biography and interview once more. That is the plan I

expect to follow with both undergraduate and graduate students.

The selections are arranged in six parts and an epilogue. The first part offers two selections

giving an overview of the mimetic theory. One of these is a journal article which is Girard's

own favorite written introduction to his work. The second part focuses on mimetic desire,

which is absolutely necessary to understand before proceeding further in Girard's work.

Chapter 3 in part 2, on triangular desire from the first chapter of
Deceit, Desire, and the

Novel
, is fundamental for sharpening the focus on mimetic desire. Then the beginning reader

will be prepared for part 3 on sacrifice and part 4 on the scapegoat and myths as persecution

texts. Part 5 provides selections on what Girard considers to be the most important aspect of

his work, establishing the place of the Jewish and Christian Bible, especially the Gospels, in

the unveiling of the scapegoat mechanism and the unmasking of scapegoaters (including

ourselves).

Part 6 will probably be the most difficult for the beginner, although a careful study of the first

five parts should prepare the way. For the person with a background in modern philosophical

or psychological thought, particularly anyone interested in critical theory or postmodernism,

part 6 may be the best place to start. It includes two key selections from the written record of

Girard's engagement with Freud and Nietzsche.

The epilogue is the revised written transcription of four hours of conversation which I had

with Girard. I had the content of the Reader in. mind with the questions I put to him. As I

have already remarked, this

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conversation could provide both an illuminating retrospective view of what is covered in the

Reader and an introduction to the whole work.

Girard's mimetic model is the brilliant and elegant expression of a basic set of ideas on the

origin and maintenance of culture, the structure and dynamics of the self and human relations,

and the transcendent basis of the world and human existence. He "has completely modified

the landscape in the social sciences," as Paul Dumouchel has put it
. 1. B
ut not only in the social sciences: the humanities, including religious studies and theology, are slowly but

surely being affected by Girard's theory. His way of seeing (Greek
theoria
, contemplation,

speculation, sight), his approach and his ideas are pioneering, opening up new paths into the

understanding of human relations, the formation of nonviolent human community, and the

affirmation of faith in the God of the Bible.

But in speaking of theory I do not mean to imply that Girard's thought is inaccessible. He is

remarkably clear and very committed to communication with all those who desire to engage

in an honest quest for intellectual and spiritual truth. He describes the experience of discovery

of truth as the most satisfying thing to him in his work. In the conversation with me that

concludes the Reader he recounts three moments or phases of this discovery process. First

was the dawning of insight into both how we learn and why we are prone to rivalry and

conflict which may, and often does, lead to violence:
we are mimetic, or acquisitively

imitational, creatures
. Our objects of desire and our ideas are based on the desires and ideas of others who are our models. This carries the potential of bringing us into conflict, even

violence, with the models we imitate, for there always lurks the danger that we might

compete with them for the objects of desire we have learned from them. The second moment

of discovery for Girard was the discovery of the scapegoat mechanism:
the age-old way of

gaining release from the violence or potential violence that mimesis produces is through

nonconscious convergence upon a victim
. Scapegoating, in other words. Girard notes in the

interview that this gave him a very plausible way of interpreting myth and ritual in ancient

cultures. The third great moment of discovery was Girard's encounter with the Bible:
the

Jewish and Christian Scriptures, especially the New Testament Gospels, are singular They

represent a revelatory movement away from scapegoating
. The Gospels not only disclose the

hidden scapegoat mechanism of human cultures, but witness to the God, the Spirit-Paraclete,

who stands with the Innocent Victim and is revealed through him.

Girard's theory of culture, religion, and violence emerged as a series of discoveries made in

the investigation of ancient and modern literary

____________________

1. Paul Dumouchel, "Ouverture," in Paul Dumouchel, ed.,
Violence and Truth: On the Work
of René Girard
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988), 23.

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and religious texts. However, its implications for understanding contemporary popular culture

are enormous. Gil Bailie has said, "I have found the interpretive range of Girard's theory to be

astonishing. Whether I have tried to understand a piece of literature, an ancient myth, a

historical event, or the morning newspaper, I have found Girard's insights invaluable. . . . In

my view, Girard has made the most sweeping and significant intellectual breakthrough of the

modern age."
 2. O
f course, such a claim can properly emerge only out of the personal context of engagement, critical reflection, and broad experience. I hope that the gathering of these

selections from Girard's writings and conversations will enable the reader to test this

judgment about Girard's breakthrough that I share with Bailie and a number of others who

have discovered his work while struggling and stumbling on a journey through what often

seems to be a religious and cultural wasteland.

And now one further comment about the selections in this book. Secondary aspects of

Girard's theoretical work, or ramifications which are more abstruse, have not been included,

although I have given references in his writings on certain subjects. The precognitive or

prerepresentational character of mimesis, for example, is not a subject into which the

beginner in Girard's thought will need to delve, while those familiar with his work will

already know where to look. But for the sake of completeness I have indicated where to find

this in his writings in the introduction to chapter 3, "Triangular Desire."

A case could have been made for including texts relating the victimary mechanism and

sacrifice to the origin of gods and kings. The logic of this connection is briefly indicated in

the introduction to chapter 6, "Sacrifice as Sacral Violence and Substitution." The interested reader should consult chapter 3 of
Violence and the Sacred
, especially pp. 104-10; chapter 3

of
The Scapegoat
; and
Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World
, pp. 51-57.

Both of these issues, mimesis as precognitive and the beginnings of divinity and monarchy, are included in the record of the interview of Girard that concludes the Reader. In this

conversation he responds to questions frequently posed and charges commonly made, as, for

example, that his theory exhibits male bias or is too forthrightly Christian.

A bibliography is appended, as well as a glossary. The first part of the bibliography, listing

Girard's books, chapters in books, and articles, was provided by the Girard Documentation

Center of the University of Innsbruck, which was started by Professor Raymund Schwager

and which Dietmar Regensburger currently oversees. The second, briefer list-

____________________

2. Gil Bailie,
Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads
( New York: Crossroad, 1995),

4.

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ing brings together recent books in English, French, and German by Girardian scholars. My

criterion for "recent" was from 1990, the beginning of this decade. It is a selective list in that I have included only works with which I am acquainted and about which I can attest that their

object is to explicate, apply, or criticize Girard's mimetic scapegoat theory, either in whole or

in part.

The glossary actually provides a review of aspects of Girard's mimetic scapegoat theory. In

the editor's introductions to the chapters of the Reader I have placed an asterisk (*) after the

first occurrence of names and terms which may be found in the glossary. In most of the