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A Genealogy of Violence and Religion - Rene Girard in Dialogue (Paperback)
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A Genealogy of Violence and Religion - Rene Girard in Dialogue (Paperback)
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Why are religious rituals, symbols, and rhetoric so full of images
of blood, sacrifice, and death? Why does religious fervor so often
lead to Holy War, Crusade, and Jihad? No wonder many people assume
that religion tends to give rise to violence. But what if it were
the other way around? What if violence actually gave rise to
religion? So argued the French literary theorist and anthropologist
Rene Girard (1923-2015). Described as the Darwin of the human
sciences, he was elected to the French Academy in 2005 for his
seminal theories of sacred violence. Girard argued that religious
practices function to sublimate, regulate, and discharge human
violence in controlled rituals. Where does violence come from?
According to Girard, from the social nature of human desire itself.
We desire things only because others desire them, so desire is
inherently rivalrous, leading to violent conflict. But if a
scapegoat can be found, then this war of all against all turns into
a war of all against one. Social order, claimed Girard, stems from
the unity of a lynch mob. Religious rituals then serve to
commemorate the primordial murder of the scapegoat. What are we to
make of Girards provocative claims about human desire, violence,
scapegoat killings, and religion? Political philosopher James
Bernard Murphy presents here a series of sharp and witty dialogues
in which Girard attempts to defend his ideas against attacks by
rival theorists, among them, Sigmund Freud, William James, Simone
Weil, Elias Canetti and Joseph de Maistre. Whatever we might think
of his answers, Girard asks challenging, unsettling questions. In
these illuminating and lively exchanges, Girard squares off with
the titans of social theory.
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