Rene Girard: 20 quotes about violence
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December 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of René Girard, a French philosopher and cultural scientist who explored the imitative nature of human desires and the violence that underlies human culture. For the anniversary, we re-read his main works in order to understand what place violence occupied and still occupies in people’s lives.
1
The threat that looms over us from atomic bombs and industrial pollution is but a manifestation of a law that primitive people only half comprehend, but which they consider real, while we consider it a fantasy. Whoever plays with violence will eventually become its toy.
“Violence and the Sacred”
2
People don’t want to admit that both sides have the same “reasons” – in other words, that there is no reason for violence.
“Violence and the Sacred”
3
Tragedy is the balance of scales, but not of justice, but of violence.
“Violence and the Sacred”
4
Man is incapable of looking directly at the senseless nakedness of his own violence without risking surrender to that violence.
“Violence and the Sacred”
5
Intolerance can ultimately prove as destructive as tolerance. When violence becomes apparent, some give in to it willingly and even enthusiastically; others resist its growth – but often it is they who lead it to triumph.
“Violence and the Sacred”
6
Man has never recognized his violence, or at least not fully, and the very possibility of human societies as such is apparently based on this non-recognition.
“Violence and the Sacred”
7
People succeed in getting rid of their violence insofar as the process of deliverance appears to them not as their own action, but as an absolute imperative, an order from God, whose demands are as terrible as they are petty.
“Violence and the Sacred”
8
The ostentatious display of respect for the sacrifices of our ancestors often masks the desire to justify ourselves at their expense. Sons repeat the crimes of their fathers precisely because they believe in their moral superiority over them.
“I see Satan falling like lightning”
9
The thirst for violence, once it awakens, leads to certain physiological changes that prepare a person for a fight. This disposition to violence lasts for a certain time. It cannot be considered a simple reflex that stops as soon as the stimulus ends.
“Violence and the Sacred”
10
The thirst for violence is more difficult to calm than to unleash, especially under normal social conditions.
“Violence and the Sacred”
eleven
The persecutors are convinced of the validity of their violence; They consider themselves the arbiters of justice, so they need guilty victims.
“Scapegoat”
12
Evil exists. Evil is an all-negating deal with hatred, which so many zealously adhere to in order to trample each other.
“The Lies of Romanticism and the Truth of the Novel”
13
The reason for the existence of some prohibitions is obvious. There is no culture that does not prohibit acts of violence within communities. Therefore, all actions that would give rise to violence are prohibited, even those forms of rivalry and competition that are often accepted and even welcomed in our society.
“Things Hidden Since the Creation of the World”
14
In primitive societies violence is never understood in the sense in which we understand it. For us, violence has a certain conceptual independence, a specificity about which primitive societies have not the slightest idea. We see first of all an individual act.
“Things Hidden Since the Creation of the World”
15
The chain reaction of revenge appears as a paroxysm and the perfect expression of mimesis. It brings people to a monotonous repetition of the same murder. It turns them into doubles.
“Things Hidden Since the Creation of the World”
16
People think that to escape from violence it is enough for them to renounce any initiative of violence, but since no one ever thinks that he is the initiator of violence, and since all violence is mimetic in nature and ends, or thinks that it ends, with the first act of violence that sends him to starting point, then this refusal is only an appearance and cannot change anything radically.
“Things Hidden Since the Creation of the World”
17
Violence always perceives itself as a legitimate punishment. Therefore, this right to punishment and even what in many cases looks like a legal defense must be given up.
“Things Hidden Since the Creation of the World”
18
Contrary to what we constantly hear around us, the persecutors are possessed by hatred not of difference, but of its inexpressible opposite, of indifference.
“Scapegoat”
19
All origin myths boil down to the killing of a mythical creature by other mythical creatures. This murder is understood as the establishment of a cultural order.
“Violence and the Sacred”
20
The Gospels speak of the same event as the myths; they speak of the founding murder at the center of all mythology.
“Scapegoat”
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