Rene Girard is a celebrated thinker (les immortals) who has left behind a legacy that continues to grow each day. As the man who discovered mimetic theory, he unveiled to us the true nature of man, that not only explains why conflict is inevitable, but why sacrifice and scapegoating is a universal form of human behavior. If you’re still not impressed, then let me add one final detail, he claims to have found the secret of life itself, the only antidote against violence that was revealed to us approximately 2000 years ago in ancient Jerusalem.
What did Girard discover exactly? Mimetic Theory, in short.
And to keep things short, I will only outline the basics of his idea.
Human beings are hyper imitative creatures, the most imitative animal that exists. As recent discoveries have shown, we even have mirror neurons, and imitation begins at infancy, well before any kind of social indoctrination begins. But not only do we imitate, the way monkeys do, we imitate each other’s intentions or desires. Modern experiments have shown that human babies, when observing an adult perform an action erroneously such as slipping right before placing a ball inside a bucket, will not make the same mistake as the adult but will actually try to accomplish the goal that they infer the adult is trying to accomplish. The baby will try to place that ball inside the bucket.
In contrast, animals are incapable of mimicking intention, they simply copy the behavior itself. In this case, an animal would not throw the ball into the bucket, but would slip, just as the human adult did.
Further, human beings don’t desire things out of thin air, they borrow their desires from models, the way babies emulate the desires of adults. In other words, they desire the desire of their model. And as is often the case, such a desire is directed towards an object that is scarce in quantity, which inevitably leads to conflict.
This conundrum is solved by ritualistic sacrifice.
Let me explain.
Before the beginning of civilization, when early humans competed for scarce resources; they battled each other to death. This occurred countless times. But one day, by total chance, the first instance of language developed: the first sign. What was this sign?
According to Girard, this was the scapegoat who brought peace to the community. So, imagine some weak character who no one likes is thrown in the center of the battle, and the rage and aggression of the community is directed towards this individual. After they kill him, there is a moment of peace, and thus, total destruction is averted. This sign or symbol is the scapegoat mechanism, and it is the basis of all religions, which essentially pay homage to this sacred symbol.
Why is it the scapegoat sacred? Because it brings peace, of course. But wait, there’s more. Girard then continues and tells us that Christianity was the first religion that revealed the scapegoat mechanism. Remember, the scapegoat mechanism is very useful because it brings peace to the community and avoids bloodshed. But often, the price that is paid is the death of an innocent person.
Christ’s death on the cross revealed the error of the scapegoat mechanism by showing how it was possible for an innocent person to be wrongfully scapegoated. Previously, it was always assumed by the community that the person who got scapegoated deserved it. Otherwise, why would such an awful fate befall them?
But since Jesus was clearly devoid of sin and error, and was persecuted regardless, it became clear that scapegoating was not an innocent mechanism that cleansed the community of its deplorable individuals but was liable to wrongfully convicting the wrong person. This is a major deal. In that sense, Christianity is the first anti-religion since it unsanctified a previously holy act.
Now, we have some questions.
Why would God make such an important revelation so cryptic? If God cared for the well being of humanity, then why not uncover it in a way that was clearer? It took centuries of violence and wars and genocides and books and literature for a French literary critic to discover the secret that God revealed 2000 years ago.
It is much worse than that. The only people who may have heard of Girard are well educated and live in very prosperous conditions relative to the rest of the people on earth, and especially relative to the rest of the people in history. In that sense, only a minority will ever have the privilege of knowing the most important secret revealed to us by God Himself. But what about the rest of humanity, who live in total ignorance, and who continue to slaughter scapegoats ritualistically? What about the rest of the Christian population which number in the billions who think that Christianity is a sacrificial religion and see absolutely nothing wrong with the scapegoat concept.
Could we be so lucky that in our lifetime, this great secret has only been revealed to us, while all the others remain in the dark? And if so, why would God desire such a thing?
The Gnostics were an early Christian sect who were considered heretical by Proto-Orthodox Christians (Early Christians who later became known as Orthodox Christians). What did the Gnostics believe in? The world we live was created by an evil God, that the flesh is inherently evil, and that we are trapped spirits inside this evil flesh, inside this evil world. The moment of birth is a moment of imprisonment, and the moment of death is the moment of freedom. The Gnostics also believed that a very small number of humans are born with a light, and only they will experience Gnosis (the true knowledge of existence outlined above).
This brief and clumsy summary is quite similar to Girard’s argument. Basically, that we, students of Girard, are the lucky few endowed with that light that will endow us with the knowledge of the true nature of reality. And that this world is an evil place (Girard literally calls the scapegoat mechanism “Satan”).
If as, Girard says, Satan (scapegoat mechanism) has been revealed by Christ, why does scapegoating still exist? In other words, if God sent Christ to bring about this revelation, wouldn’t he have done a better job? Think of all the religious wars even within Christianity that have occurred, all because people disagreed about the true message of Christ. Worse, these people were not evil, they didn’t try to distort the message of Christ, they did their best to represent it faithfully, and yet they embodied Satan fully. What could be crueler than to try to emulate the divine and bring about the total opposite?
So, it’s not only problematic that the thing “revealed” is secretive and therefore gnostic and inaccessible to most people, but the very people who tried to do God’s bidding on earth were all wrong and confused, their eyes were totally closed to the truth.
The other issue is divine hiddenness. Why would God not make further interventions to confirm the true message of Christ in a way that was less disputable?