Criticism, Critique, and Crisis in Assessing the Work of René Girard

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 6-15
Author(s):  
Sandor Goodhart
Keyword(s):  
Center Of Gravity ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
Innocent Victim ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Big Ideas ◽  
Scapegoat Mechanism ◽  
The Individual

Perhaps it is time to begin the second stage of René Girard’s passing: the labor of a full critical assessment of his life’s work. In preparation, I thought I might consider some of the misunderstandings to which his work has been subject. After briefly recalling Girard’s three big ideas (mimetic desire, sacrificial violence and the scapegoat mechanism, scriptural revelation of the founding murder), I will suggest the most common misapprehensions: (1) the idea of the innocent victim; (2) the idea that there is a good and a bad mimesis; and (3) the relation between Girardianism and the ethical. Other issues remain to be clarified. Among them are the following ideas: (1) that Girardian thinking is scientific; (2) that it is not an advocacy of any kind but a way of producing knowledge; (3) that the center of gravity remains the process of sacrificial genesis and the scapegoat mechanism, mimetic desire, and their scriptural revelation serve that end; (4) that violence is not a thing or essence but difference gone wrong; and finally (5) that Girardian thinking is not an essentialism; it is not about what is “really” good, true, beautiful, or present but strategies of doing and acting. We best honor the work of our teachers and foremost thinkers by endeavoring to get it right for future generations for whom we, who have known the individual personally, remain a conduit.

scholarly journals Girard and the Millennials: New Perspectives on Evangelization

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Sutherland, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Human History ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
René Girard ◽  
Secular World ◽  
Scapegoat Mechanism ◽  
The Cross

René Girard in conversation with Charles Taylor can help us to analyze the connection between violence and religion. Girard’s lens of mimetic desire helps to clarify how Jesus was the anti-sacrifice who desired to end the scapegoat mechanism. Taylor provides a lens on the transcendent and its sometimes hidden presence in our secular world. People are constantly feeling the cross pressures between a closed immanent frame and an openness to fulfillment outside of one’s self. Taylor’s analysis becomes concrete in the sociological research regarding Millennials and their ambivalence toward organized religion. Many young adults today are seeking the transcendent but have no idea how to find it. Additionally, they are wary of the divisiveness of religion and many view religion as but another contributor to an already violent world. However, Boeve’s image of theology as interruption gives us a lens with which to see Girard’s narrative as God’s interruption of human history. This interruption demands an equally serious, committed response. Such a demanding and meaningful narrative can be attractive to Millennials who generally view religion as simply one equally meaningless choice among others.

A Girardian Approach to LaVeyan Satanism: Theological Perspectives

2020 ◽  
pp. 002114002097765
Author(s):  
Gabriel Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Positive Aspect ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Rene Girard ◽  
René Girard ◽  
Scapegoat Mechanism

This article addresses some convergences in Rene Girard and Anton LaVey’s understandings of Satan. Rene Girard understood Satan as the representation of both mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism, both of which have detrimental influences on human culture. In that sense, in continuation with Christian orthodoxy, Girard did not find any positive aspect in Satanism. By contrast, Anton LaVey had a more positive approach to Satan. LaVey was an unsophisticated Nietzschean, who nevertheless understood well that the German philosopher’s views were not dissimilar to what Satan represents. Rene Girard’s understanding of who (or what) Satan is, makes this clearer.

scholarly journals Capí­tulo Segundo: Mundo Reo.

Xihmai ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesús Ignacio Panedas Galindo
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Human Race ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Future ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
The Individual

Resumen Cuando se empezaron a conocer los testimonios de los supervivientes de los campos de exterminio nazis, la humanidad se consternó. El sufrimiento provocado y la aplicación sistemática y consciente de la técnica a la destrucción de la persona, fueron descubrimientos que pusieron en alerta al hombre sobre la naturaleza del hombre mismo.   Tanto fue el horror que se alcanzó a entrever a través de las narraciones que el  tiempo  se  congeló.  El  reclamo  silencioso  de  las  auténticas  ví­ctimas, quienes murieron, se suspendió en el aire de la memoria hasta que los responsables reconocieran sus culpas. El olvido no podí­a abrazar tan profundos crí­menes.   Por este motivo no puede realizarse el fin de la historia. Los sufrimientos del hombre provocados hasta este grado por el mismo hombre fuerzan un pendiente que ya no puede borrarse. El grito de dolor recuerda a las generaciones futuras la necesidad de una reparación, del perdón, del reconocimiento.   Palabras Clave: Testimonio, memoria, campos de exterminio, fenomenologí­a, hermenéutica, sufrimiento, herencia.   Abstract When testimony from the survivors from Nazi extermination fields were first known, the human race filled with dismay. The suffering provoked and the systematic conscious application of the technique of destruction of the individual, were discoveries that alerted the individual on the nature of the individual itself.   Such a horror was seen through the narrations that time froze.     The silent demand from the authentic victims, who died, was suspended on the air of memory until the responsible recognized their  guilt. Obscurity could not hold such deep crimes.   For this reason the end of history cannot be made. The suffering of the individual provoked up to this point by the individual itself, force an unresolved point that cannot be erased.   The scream of pain reminds the future generations the need to repair, forgive and recognize it.   Key words: Testimony, memory, extermination fields, phenomenology, hermeneutics, suffering, inheritance.

The Signature of Modernity: Experiential Foundations of the Open Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Leidhold
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Two Stages

The open society and its complement, the open mind, are the foundations of modernity. On both the individual and social levels, openness results from the combination of four specific modes of experience. These modes have evolved in two stages: first in the time of Greek antiquity and later during Western modernity. In the first stage, the discovery of self-reflection occurred, and the noëtic turn emerged. As a result, both in political and intellectual life, methods gained priority over faith in sacred authorities. In the second stage, the discovery of creative imagination took place, and the turn to consciousness evolved. Creativity led to the innovative dynamics of modernity, and personal and collective identities developed from the turn to consciousness. The combination of these four modes of experience constitutes the signature of modernity, crystallizing in the intellectual and political discourse of modernity, and creating what we call a liberal society.

scholarly journals Smoothing Algorithm for Planar and Surface Mesh Based on Element Geometric Deformation

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuli Sun ◽  
Minglei Zhang ◽  
Zhihong Gou
Keyword(s):  
Weighted Average ◽  
Processing Unit ◽  
Smoothing Algorithm ◽  
Surface Mesh ◽  
Polygonal Mesh ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Geometric Deformation ◽  
Error Metric ◽  
The Individual

Smoothing is one of the basic procedures for improvement of mesh quality. In this paper, a novel and efficient smoothing approach for planar and surface mesh based on element geometric deformation is developed. The presented approach involves two main stages. The first stage is geometric deformation of all the individual elements through a specially designed two-step stretching-shrinking operation (SSO), which is performed by moving the vertices of each element according to a certain rule in order to get better shape of the element. The second stage is to determine the position of each node of the mesh by a weighted average strategy according to quality changes of its adjacent elements. The suggested SSO-based smoothing algorithm works efficiently for triangular mesh and can be naturally expanded to quadrilateral mesh, arbitrary polygonal mesh, and mixed mesh. Combined with quadratic error metric (QEM), this approach may be also applied to improve the quality of surface mesh. The proposed method is simple to program and inherently very suitable for parallelization, especially on graphic processing unit (GPU). Results of numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of this method.

“A Life Worthy of Being Called Human”

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-332
Author(s):  
Catherine Larrère ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Ecological Transition

“Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on Earth.” How can we understand Jonas’ “maxim”? Is it too anthropocentric to be of any interest for an environmental ethic? Is is too limited to survival to have a moral signification in a truly human ethic? One can argue first that it is not so much anti-Kantian than that it challenges the current prevailing “presentism” and obliges us to take into consideration not only future generations, but also the context in which one anticipates these future generations to be living. Therefore, we can distinguish two different interpretations of Jonas’ maxim: in a first stage, that of sustainable development, it was understood as taking into consideration not only the needs but also the rights of future generations; in a second stage, that of an Anthropocene and ecological transition, it means that making sense of humanity implies connecting human beings to the Earth and other living beings far from opposing them.

Die Ministererlaubnis für den Zusammenschluss von Unternehmen - ein Konflikt mit der Wettbewerbsordnung

2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen J. Roth ◽  
Michael Voigtländer
Keyword(s):  
Competition Policy ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Competition Control ◽  
The Individual ◽  
State Secretary

AbstractOn 5. July 2002 State Secretary Dr. Alfred Tacke gave ministerial approval for the merger of E.ON and Ruhrgas. Previously both the German Cartel Office and the Monopoly Commission had voted against the fusion on the basis of feared restricted competition. According to paragraph 42 § of the GWB Law, the German Economics Ministry may revise the decision of the German Cartel Office, when in the individual case the restricted competition is balanced out by the overall economic advantages of the merger, or the fusion is justified by an overwhelming general interest.In this article it will be examined, whether there is really a conflict between competition policy and general interest. In the first stage the demands of a ministerial approval are defined from a proper political perspective. In the second stage it is examined whether in the actual process the presented common welfare grounds were tenable. It turns out as a result that the ministerial approval represents a violation of the independence of competition control.

Deregulating the Genetic Supermarket: Preimplantation Screening, Future People, and the Harm Principle

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
COLIN GAVAGHAN
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Screening ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Genetic Composition ◽  
Genetic Traits ◽  
Current Technology ◽  
Philosophical Writing ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Prospective Parents

Robert Nozick, in what is surely one of the most intriguing and provocative footnotes in modern philosophical writing, referred in Anarchy, State and Utopia to the notion of a “genetic supermarket.” In keeping with the central arguments of that text, his suggestion was that choices about the genetic composition of future generations should, as far as possible, be left in the hands of private individuals, and should not be determined or restricted by the state. This free market in genetic screening would meet “the individual specifications (within certain moral limits) of prospective parents,” and would possess “the great virtue that it involves no centralized decision fixing the future human type(s).” In short, prospective parents would be allowed, to whatever extent was rendered possible by current technology, to choose the genetic traits of their future children.

scholarly journals Niedom. Przekraczenie idei domu rodzinnego w mieszkaniu migracyjnym

2014 ◽  
pp. 541-665
Author(s):  
Magdalena Łukasiuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Memory Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Historical Education ◽  
The Individual

How is the memory of the Holocaust and Auschwitz seen today among young Poles and Germans, is it different from that of the past? What are the differences in the memory space and education about the Holocaust between the two countries, and what do they have in common? The article is based on three pillars, and what served as foundations for them was a survey conducted with Polish and German youth in late April and May 2013, immediately after their visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first part concerns the individual and family memory of young people from Poland and Germany, who came to the Memorial and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau (MMA-B); there are also issues related to the intergenerational transmission of war fate of the relatives. The second pillar takes on teaching about the Holocaust at school and the evaluation of historical education from the student’s point of view. There are presented the opinions of many historians, teachers and educators struggling with the effects of the reform of history teaching. The third and most extensive part of the article presents the issues related to historical education in the memorial site and young people confronting their past experience, knowledge, notions with the authenticity of MMA-B. Fundamental questions has been raised about the sense of maintaining authenticity of the memorial site and the reason that makes the memory of the Holocaust such an important task for future generations.

scholarly journals On the aspectuality of the Individual-Level / Stage-Level dichotomy

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
María J. Arche
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Situation Aspect ◽  
The Individual

<p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Cambria';">This paper addresses how the contrast known as Individual-&shy;‐Level/Stage-&shy;‐Level (IL/SL) is implemented in the grammar. More specifically, the paper is a critical assessment of the view that the IL/SL distinction is an aspectual distinction. The empirical data I will be using to probe into the IL/SL dichotomy is the contrast between the copular verbs in Spanish </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Cambria'; font-style: italic;">ser/estar. </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Cambria';">I will argue that the Spanish copular contrast reflexes the IL/SL dichotomy and that this dichotomy cannot be reduced to an aspectual difference in the ways it has been proposed in previous literature. Concurring with other authors I will argue that IL/SL-&shy;‐ness ensues from a different syntactic composition, very likely from different heads of prepositional nature, which can be argued to carry aspectual value. Crucially, however, this aspectual heads do not seem to translate into differences at the level of viewpoint or situation aspect in any relevant sense, as has been proposed in the literature. </span></p>

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