1.     A concern for innocent victims in René Girard and Walter Benjamin -

○     what is mimesis and desire

○     The self is unstable, constantly changing. it is brought into existence by desire.

■     We imitate the desire of others

■     all our desires are borrowed from other people

■     conflict develops in memetic desires

○     Most of if not all of our desires could be traced back to this act of mimesis.

“We develop our desire through imitation of others”                                                                                                

1.     A concern for innocent victims in René Girard and Walter Benjamin -

Walter 

a.                 He looks at history in how people mute and minimize the voice of victims.

b.                  Conclude nicely with a couple of words about what you think about Girard and Benjamin. What do they miss and what you think of them?

1. Gerard on mimesis
2. triangular structure of desiring
3. what is the model
4. how model can a become a rival
5. Girard wants to say that violence is at the very heart of who we are as human beings
6. scapegoating is often channeled on to the innocent victim

i.                        How often that violence is being justified

1. Remember the vagabond in Ephasis, the bible covers this.  
2. Walter Benjamin
1. In his thesis on … he tries to give voice to victims?
2. Internal mediation fuels this

3. God is on the side of the innocent victims. Isaiah 58

1. The Bible attacks those who use sacrificial scapegoat methods.

2. Think of Cain and Abel.

11. Myth is used to cover the scapegoat and hide the reality of innocent oppression. Through the process of metaphysical mimesis the anger of opposing factions can be turned towards innocent victims.

 .                        Example: Jeremiah, Elijah, Jesus (Caiaphas comment)

1. Jesus, as sent from a loving non-violent father to expose and render ineffective the scapegoat mechanism. “It is better for one man to die than for a whole nation to perish.

2. The passion narrative, including non-retaliatory actions from Jesus and the resurrection, expose the truth of persecution.

3. What makes God’s people different is that through the Bible we interact with the history of God’s urging to cast aside false idols and those desires that would cause violence to ourselves or others. God’s people are thus set apart and made aware, as I opin, of the innocent being downtrodden around us. This allows us (Christians) to act freely in behalf of those oppressed as God would have us too.

    A concern for innocent victims in René Girard and Walter Benjamin -

Walter 

■     different types of mimesis 

●     Acquisitive is a desire for the/an object.

 ●     Metaphysicalis a desire for well-being, state, a nebulous thing.

○     Metaphysical example: Wanting what the other has. Satan wanted the status that Jesus had.

○     Even the perception of others about something the model has can create desires in the one looking to the model.

   A concern for innocent victims in René Girard and Walter Benjamin -

Walter 

Memetic Desire

●     The Mimesis model does not seem to hold up when it is true love that is the source instead of produce by a sense of jealousy. Mimetic Desire is made up of the acquisitive and the metaphysical.

○     We don't have to believe that this model is true in all cases.

○     We just realize that it is true in many cases today.

○     We are wicked people at heart. 

■     Different types of mediation

External 

●     External mediation = safe form of mimesis. When distinctions are too significant.

○     Someone that is the model is so far out of our league.

○     When my model is completely different than I am, which prevents resentment, etc.

When someone gets something that I do not get then they become a rivalry to 

Different types of mediation

Internal

●     when people are “too close to comfort”

○     hate and violence can develop in the person’s heart toward the model.

○     When I want something my peer has and I say, why should he have it and I can’t?  Lucifer wanting Jesus place thinking he was on his level and he was not.

○     Cain and Abel

■     Abel is a younger brother, which made it even stronger for Cain.

○     Joseph and his brothers

○     Disciples

●     The Channeling of violence onto a “third, “ an innocent (or perhaps not so innocent) scapegoat leads to social cohesion. Example: Herod and Pilate were enemies but cohesion was found through Jesus the scapegoat

●     Scapegoating process enables a community in crisis to recover or preserve its equilibrium.

■     mythology

○     myths cover the real reasons for why we do something

○     ‘Myth’ is derived from the same root as ‘mute’: myths perpetuate a silence about violent scapegoating.

●     mythos/aletheia (truth)

○     muting vs. uncovering

●     Main point = at the foundation of all human relations and endeavors is a volatile proclivity to violence

●     Several years after publishing Violence and the Sacred 1972 he turns to the Bible

●     His conviction:

○     a.  Biblical revelation runs in the opposite direction to myth as he has defined it

○     b.  God seeks to stop the mimetic contagion, and with it the cycles of revenge.

2. The Bible 

●     The Ten Commandments and especially the 10th commandment is the solution to the cycles of mimetic contagion.

○     the 10th commandment really protects us from violating the other 9 commandments.

○     If you break the coveting commandment, you open the door to break all the others.

3. The Bible

○     For Girard, the Bible is essentially the gradual unfolding of a non-violent God.

○     The Bible, by choosing the side of the victims, desacralizes violence.

Violence is exposed as being essentially a human phenomenon

God is on the side of the innocent victim, not of the persecutors; the Bible operates as a critique and condemnation of sacrificial scapegoating, not as an example of it.

“Passion of Jesus lends itself to a ‘dramatic’ interpretation, as Jesus allows a scapegoat crisis to be ‘acted out’, with himself at its center.

 vindication of God (who asserts Jesus’ righteousness by raising him from the dead) combine to expose the truth of the persecution

■     Benjamin

●     Developed the Theses on the Philosophy of History

●     Critiquing the state of emergency or exception

●     He writes about a drawing by Paul Klee - Angelus Novus

●     He gave a summary of this connection in class on 10/19/15

○     Girard is interested in methodology

■     he wants to explain away the deaths of innocent people

■     But the Bible defends innocent people.

○     Benjamin also silences the voice of innocent victims.