A Tribute to René Girard on his 70th birthday

A Tribute to René Girard on his 70th birthday It isfitting that thefirst issue ofContagion should be dedicated to René Girard on his 70th birthday (12/25/93). He is the inspirationfor the Colloquium on Violence and Religion in which the ideafor thejournalfirst took shape and the originator ofthe idea that metaphysical desire is contagious. Indeed, one should emphasize his thought at the beginning ofthejournal lest a reader think that it is a medicalpublication in epidemiology. Contagion is a property ofmimetic desire especially in its metaphysical stage, and this is afinding not ofmedical science but ofliterary criticism and anthropology. Contagion is, therefore, an interdisciplinaryjournal devoted to cultural studies chiefly because Girard inspired it by his profound andfar-reaching reflection and analysis, and technical terms like mimetic and metaphysical desire, which originate in this reflection and analysis, require explanation. Girard's thought has two significant moments, mimetic desire and the surrogate victim. Theformer causes the problem that the latter solves. The problem is the problem ofviolence caused by thefact that desire imitates desire and thus inevitably enters into a rivalry ofdesires, and the latter solves it by causing rival desires to coalesce in a unanimity ofviolence against a single victim who is surrogatefor allpotential victims. Thus the victim gives the group the unanimity necessaryfor culture and generates the category ofthe sacred with its sub-categories ofprohibition, ritual, and myth. "Mimetic" used before desire indicates the imitative and inevitably rivalrous nature ofdesire, and "metaphysical " indicates that the competition is not simplyfor some external good butforpersonal significance understood as substantial being, which we all assume the other to possess. Metaphysical desire is an instance ofthe Augustinian confession, "Thou hast made usfor Thyselfand our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. " It is the nemesis ofa deviated transcendence. When human desire deviatesfrom its true divine end a metaphysical void opens in us. That void drives us to seekfulfillmentfrom our fellow human beings, whom we mistakenly believe to possess the ontologicalfullness that we lack. Thus wefall into a war ofdesire for empty prestige and hollow pre-eminence. Some ofus have called this double insight a theory but Girard resists such grandiosity. For him it is simply common sense. It is obvious that we imitate each other's desires and that this leads to rivalry, and it is equally obvious that the unity ofgroups is threatened by rivalry until the membersfind a unifyingforce, and that historically, ethnographically, andpsychologically the unifying force has usually been the scapegoat. Ifone simply pays attention one can observe thesefactors at work in the human world. They are the plague ofmetaphysical desire. Furthermore, this knowledge ofthe plague is not new but has been available in the religious wisdom ofthe racefor millennia, especially in great literatures, and most especially in the Bible. We have always known, more or less clearly, more or less willingly, that the race is afflicted with a contagion ofdesire. But this knowledge is resisted. Attempts to uncover the generative, mimetic, scapegoating mechanism at work in religions, political or academic institutions are met with incredulity, indignation, and scorn. Girard's common sense is controversial. Girard is a Christian thinker. He is an expert in the etiology of original sin, reminiscent ofgreatpredecessors like Pascal, recalling the classical period when Jansenius was aforce and Port Royal a presence. His reflections on Satan and the scandal in the gospels are theologically ofthe utmost importance, and his deployment ofmimetic theoryfor biblical interpretation is giving new theological life to a discipline that is in many respects paradoxically anti-theological. He is, however, no Jansenist, as his close association with the Jesuits ofInnsbruck might have attested in another time. Now such association proves only that he is an important theological thinker. The common sense ofhis epistemology and his robust confidence in the capacity ofhuman reason are the substantive proofofhis membership in the mainstream of Catholic thought. For this reason he is unacceptable to deconstructive postmodernism , considered old-fashioned, or worse, a theological apologist. He, in return, takes the deconstructionistposition Xl seriously, engaging creatively with the work ofHeidegger, whom he considers one ofthefew philosophers to have seen through the veil thatphilosophy draws over violence, and Derrida, whose understanding oforigins is close to Girard's beliefthat a...