Transcript of Girard Lecture III | Mimetic Rivalry and Girard's Theodicy

0. Introduction

David Perell: Among the many benefits of studying Girard’s work is exposing how our modern, theoretical understanding of human nature is flawed. But what’s the problem with that? Aren’t these just theories?

The problem is that when we misunderstand human nature, we build political structures for the kinds of people we wish existed and not the kinds of people who actually do. It’s like flying an airplane with a manual for driving trucks.

The dominant, modern framework, which we think of man is homo-economicus – as rational, utility-maximizing agents. But Girard shows us that this understanding is terribly limited. Reason is quite weak and most of us aren’t driven by utility – we desire glory, prestige, social belonging, and fame. We’re motivated by pride, envy, and rivalry.

Girard tampers our hopes, and teaches us what to expect from a world filled not by rational, utility-maximizing agents – but by spirited social animals.

In this lecture, you’re about to enter a social world that will be both barely recognizable to the modern eye but also, I bet, undeniably familiar to your personal experience.

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Johnathan Bi: In the previous lecture, we’ve covered four important topics that are foundational to Girard’s psychology. First, mimesis, it’s the core capacity and tendency for us to imitate others. It’s what makes us social creatures. Second, it’s mimetic desire – desire that is borrowed from others. Mimetic desire always has two components. There’s a desire to experience, physical desire, and a desire to be, what Girard called metaphysical desire. Third, then, this metaphysical desire is striving for a fullness of being – to be real, to be persistent, and to be self-sufficient. It tries to accomplish this goal by searching for models that seem to possess this fullness in being and desiring the objects that they too desire. This is called mediation. Last, but certainly not least, metaphysical desire is malleable, powerful, deceitful, and ungovernable by reason. It leads us on one wild goose chase after another and is nothing other than the root of all sin.

In this lecture then, we are going to continue building off of this foundation, to round out the psychological picture that Girard is trying to paint.

First, we’re going to flesh out our understanding of mediation. Not only can mediation happen unidirectionally, but bidirectionally amongst equals. This is what we are going to discuss on our section on mimetic rivalry, which will reveal itself to be the motor of violence throughout human history.

The second thing we’re going to discuss today is that not only can mediation draw us closer to those whom we admire, it can also push us further apart from those whom we resent. This negative force, if you will, is also a subset of mimetic behavior and shows the extent to which we are social creatures. Even our radical pursuits for independence, going away from a group, a carving of one’s own path, render us, in some sense, more socially dependent.

Last but not least, with this full picture of mediation in view, we will continue to further develop this idea of original sin. Far from rescuing or baptizing the human condition from the uncharitable picture from last lecture, these new ways of mediation inject even more forms of necessary pathologies into the human experience. These depravities are going to be so pervasive, likely, and yes, in many cases unavoidable, that what Girard is doing is more exhaustive, it’s more systematic, and with a stronger modal status than moral psychology. He’s presenting us with nothing less than a theodicy – an exhaustive explanation on the origins of evil.

So let us begin with our first move of expanding our understanding of mediation by interrogating the concept and consequences of mimetic rivalry.