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215 C H A P T E R 1 1 Mimesis and Science: An Interview with René Girard The following interview is composed of material collected over the course of this book project, including a two-day interview conducted by Scott Garrels (S.G.) with René Girard (R.G.) at his home in Stanford, California, on July 18–19, 2008. Additional material was taken from presentations given by Girard at the project meetings at Stanford during 2007–2008, including questions that were asked of him at the time by several of the authors in this volume. For the sake of consistency, the single interviewer S.G. is used throughout. Part 1 The Mimetic Theory: An Overview THE HISTORY OF IMITATION S.G.: I want to begin by discussing your Mimetic Theory as a whole before asking you some questions about the recent empirical research. This volume is an attempt to build a bridge between the new sciences of imitation and your work on mimesis and violence, which is more relevant now than ever. 216 An Interview with René Girard R.G.: If my theory has convinced you of that, then I’ll take it as a sign of success, since many people have dismissed the notion of imitation from the very beginning. I remember the reaction to my first book, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel.1 I was told that I had written a very creative book, but that my use of imitation was like the proverbial hair in the bowl of soup. People asked: “What does it have to do with anything? Imitation is not interesting.” I always answered, “I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely fundamental to what I am saying.” S.G.: In the 1950s and ’60s imitation was not a very popular topic. R.G.: That’s true. Even so, I was surprised that my ideas did not catch on sooner. Perhaps researchers were prevented from going to them because they were too commonsensical. It is clear that all human relations are based on imitation. The worst, like the best of them. If someone does something kind to you, you do the same; you are compelled to do the same. If you don’t, something is wrong. Therefore, you imitate them. And if they start being mean to you or turning their back on you, you turn your back too. You manage to make it known to them that you understand how they feel about you and that you feel the same. This often means that you add a tiny bit of disagreeableness to the existing disagreeableness as you see it. However, this little something added is going to look to the other like an enormous provocation, like a declaration of war. From there, your relations are going to go from bad to worse. But whether you exchange compliments, greetings, insinuations, signs of indifference, meanness, bullets, atom bombs . . . it’s always imitation. Imitation is everywhere. It was addressed by the greatest of all philosophers , Plato. Aristotle, too, defined man as the most mimetic of all animals, which is a very profound definition and still of value today. And by the end of the nineteenth century, there was a period where imitation was supposed to explain everything. The nineteenth-century sociologist Gabriel Tarde wrote a book called The Laws of Imitation, which is still revived from time to time.2 So before our period, imitation was extremely fashionable. At the same time, the theoreticians took all the drama out of imitation. Tarde, for example, didn’t see the negative aspects of imitation. He didn’t see the rivalry. He didn’t see that imitation is the main source of violence in humans. By the twentieth century, imitation was rejected precisely because it did not incorporate these other aspects. It seemed too facile and could not account for the wide range of phenomena that many were attempting to explain. When you say “imitation,” everybody thinks of being sheep-like, gregarious, following people, and so forth. This is true in many instances, but what is also An Interview with René Girard 217 true is that imitation not only affects your gestures, your words, or your ideas; you also imitate desires. It’s surprising in a way that the observation is not more common. We desire something because others find it desirable. So things like friendship or discipleship are highly susceptible to conflict because they are based on openness to the other, to their desires in particular...

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