Love Synesthesia & Holistic Mimesis. Reading St. Paul & Eric McLuhan

"The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law," writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:56. Yet Paul also writes in Romans 13:10 “…love is the fulfillment of the law.” Paul’s latter text might be seen as shedding liberating light on the puzzling dilemma of the former statements, especially for those who might be put off by them. So how long will man have to labor in thrall to sin and law – and (fear of) death? But does Paul propose a viable resolution? Maybe it is just another lifeless metaphoric formula apt to insinuate itself into fallen man’s mind without meaningfully reshaping the circuitry of the brain, plastic as it is? Under what conditions can it reflect harmony within man?

The formula is an invitation to recapturing the wholeness – though on a higher level of development – man lost in the process of individuation, which, as Rene Girard posits, actually is interdividuation, because man is so powerfully mimetic. This recapturing leads man from an unconscious “organic” mutual mimesis, through a warped, mostly one-sided mimesis effected by man’s mental faculties, where one can only try to sidestep it by acts of conscious imitation of a worthy religious model, and onto a grace-bestowed or regained wholeness lending itself to a holistic mimesis of love. For the Christian the latter is only possible by a putting on of the mind and body of Christ.

Now the law and love of the foregoing quotations might be interpreted as representing two different stages of man’s evolution, moral and otherwise. While sin (transgression) may be seen as representing the principle of change, retrograde change in this case. Change might be lethal, as Paul writes, unless it is effected in and through love. Now obviously change is inevitable and called for. So, what has it been for man? And what is it going to be? Sin – and death? Or, love – and life?

Man used to be mimetic as a “whole,” relying on his mirror neurons. The empathy-tending, care-concerned circuitry of his right brain balanced that of the blindly-grasping-yet-conformist, utility-preoccupied left brain. When as a social creature man became conscious (i.e., truly literate), he ceased being a “whole” to himself, just as others ceased being “wholes” to him. He immediately stood in need of a codex of law (duly “handed” to him in various cultures) to regulate his suddenly unruly, menacing-social-peace and disjointed behavior dictated by his now “literate,” and preponderant to boot, left hemisphere.

His mimesis could no more be that of a whole person. He was literate, he was conscious. So? He “chose” to deceive himself, not seeing that fragments of him, guided now only by some of his senses, and to varying degrees, were engaging in a kind of (predominantly left-brain) mimesis that was contrary to what he (and his law codex) officially stood for.   

With the rise of mass media, that disjointed left-brain, suddenly very powerful, mostly verbally-mediated mimesis opened him wide, and en masse, to the influence of theories and ideologies. The results turned out to be disastrous.

So where are we now? With the social media holding sway over us we are in yet another place, more “un-whole” and discarnate still, more disjointed and all over the place. Our mimetic behaviors do nor abate, but take on new forms, apparently now more broadly-based in our sensorium, though not necessarily truly holistic or more wholesome. Yet there is a new phenomenon abroad that we may refuse to pay heed to only at our peril. We are pulsating with desire for wholeness.

We are craving for the touch, that most basic sensory experience. Human touch, God’s touch. Many people are drawn to contemplation seeking (and some finding) God’s presence. How is this presence apprehended, if at all? Isn’t it a sense of touch of the divine, experienced directly (or only imagined or visualized, as the case maybe)? Our craving for contemplation is a craving for wholeness, while contemplation itself tends toward and has many of the marks of holistic mimesis.

Girard made (some of) us mimesis-literate (rather than truly “conscious;” that requires hard work.) Knowing the mechanism is never enough. But it is a start. And there is a solution, though a tough one. It is a mimetic act as it must be for man. We have to recapture wholeness, that is first of all we have to become truly incarnate again. Love must be a guiding principle and energy on the way to this-lifetime re-incarnation of ours, as well as the crown of glory striven for. Love guides change, nay, prompts it.

There is no other model/mediator for the Christian than the man Jesus, who is also the Word become flesh. To have any meaning whatsoever, our mimesis of Jesus has to be holistic, that is bodily first. What does that mean? We must follow in His footsteps when He tends the needy and the sick, the underprivileged and  the rejected. It is a physical act before it can become a spiritual one. Otherwise not only will it be false, but we will be forever disembodied somewhere is the stratosphere of our deceitful, falsely pious imagination. Not amounting even to true prayer. 

It is a gradual process. Before it can become holistically mimetic, it starts as a willful imitation of Jesus the man. He then may bestow on us the grace needed not only to truly follow Him in our incarnate daily pursuits, but also allowing us to start acquiring His mind. Gradually becoming of one mind with Him in a life quest patterned on and mirroring the spiritual ascent of lectio divina. Then one day, on the final rung of it, the mystical contemplation, we might be blessed by truly becoming one spirit with Him. Though this contemplation might be such as described by John of the Cross, pure-faith-based and nourishing our soul only darkly.

The advent of the gift of contemplation will signify that Jesus has led us in His grace from the place of hope that He, the incarnate Word, is, through the mystical locus of pure faith – unto the summit of love. The very love that enabled our quest in the first place. Or is it His quest for us?

God is Love and Love is God. It is life and creation as one. It takes this love for us humans to return to wholeness. Yet not a wholeness submerged in an ocean of the unconscious, as was the case at the beginning of man’s quest, though. Nor is it going to be a self-based identity relying mostly on man’s mental faculties. It must be an embodied wholeness of love, a love partaking of its source and yet fully incarnate in its human manifestation. Just as Jesus Christ forever is for us – and in us, as long as we are love’s living crucible.  

What follows is a vision worth meditating upon – as well as pursuing.

At this lofty stage man’s mimetic quality will also have spiraled upward full circle, reflective of man’s model/mediator. We shall then be conscious, but not self-conscious in the sense of being preoccupied with ourselves. Our whole sensorium – corporeal, intellectual and spiritual – will be involved in an ongoing mimesis. This will necessarily include the Buddhists-recognized sixth sense, that of the mind/consciousness, which actually consists of several modalities reflective of man’s biological and cultural evolution. The two hemispheres of the brain will again be in balance, allowing for an empathy-imbued mimesis, where covetousness and envy are short-circuited and thus held in check.

Each and every one of us creatures will at this stage be a whole forming a part of the Whole, a whole whose biologically- and culturally-evolved multilayer sense modalities will allow for an ever more perfect integration and bonding. Expressing this wholeness, our inner and outer senses will become mutually complementary.

Having interiorized  and actively living by Christ’s moral teachings of nonviolence, forgiveness and brotherly love our bodily being will be driven by an unquenchable, virtually palpable hope, reflecting and actively expressing bodily synesthesia. Reading the Scriptures and the Book of Nature, our faith-imbued mind will be one with that of Christ, participating in His truth and wisdom, constantly verging on if not engaged in and experiencing contemplation, that is unmediated mimetic knowing, tending toward  intellectual synesthesia. And then, God-willing, in one fell swoop or gradually emerging, all will be subsumed in spiritual synesthesia, that of love, handmaid of holistic mimesis, imbuing our whole being. Everything will be permeated by this life-creating and sustaining love, the ultimate good there is, the supreme bond of oneness of the Whole.

Why Did Girard Dismiss Buddhism?

A controversy has been raised again that Girard’s self-designated anthropology is a system of thought not deserving that appellation. As if to corroborate this claim it has been pointed out that it has not made as much as a mark in the field of anthropology proper.

Not being an anthropologist myself, I would nevertheless easily concede that Girard’s thought does not amount to a well-rounded anthropology. Yet I admire many of his insights and think that they have “changed my life,” but more for religious reasons than any others. Of course, his theory has many facets, and the basic mimetic aspect of it is in my opinion not only illuminating, nay, ground-breaking but also unimpeachable. But when this mimesis escalates to extremes, when scapegoats are created and condemned to ostensibly produce the “sacred” – that is, where the whole theory bears on anthropology the most  –  I do have my doubts. The main reason being that it is difficult if not impossible to find examples of this mechanism outside mythic settings in order to be able to establish how universal the scenario of an innocent scapegoat being declared guilty then becoming “sacred,” with peace ensuing, actually is. The most doubtful to me is the purported prevalence of the last step. The fact that, as Girard declared, the mechanism ceased operating following the Christian revelation does not help either. No production of the peace-bestowing sacred any more, while scapegoats’ supply seemingly remains undiminished, though they are now a different breed, many of them self-designated.

I do not have any doubts in the case of Jesus as seen through the Girardian lens, though. That particular case, as standing in total contradistinction to the regular resolution of scapegoating AS POSITED by Girard, gives an incredible intellectual as well as moral boost and guidance to the Christian. It has the potential to transform those who come under its (or rather His, the innocent self-sacrificing victim’s) spell.

But the scapegoating scenario as such in Girard’s thought emerges from his reading of myth and various scriptures, and is descried by him in “secular” literature as well, as the completion of the mimetic cycle. Now obviously Girard could have only read so much, and picked this piece of literature as opposed to that. And his choices are telling as well as being reflected in his theory.

One important choice or rather omission is his dismissal of Buddhism – with its take on and proposed solution to the MIMETIC CYCLE. I put it in capital letters to underscore that classical Buddhism, in its voluminous literature, scriptural and otherwise, actually saw and dealt with the very problem that was of preeminent interest for Girard. Yet he chose to disregard it, even though at the end of his life he investigated sacrifice in Hinduism, and Buddhism obviously had been an anti-sacrificial response to that religion or rather slew of religions. For an anthropology staking its claim to importance based on the role of sacrifice it should certainly be worthwhile to investigate Buddhism both in terms of its religious content, as well as its societal and cultural expressions. It becomes even more indicated if one bears in mind that many Buddhists have been claiming all along that their religion is actually a psychology.  

Buddhism’s main preoccupation is actually with mimesis of desire, it could be construed as largely a psychology of defusing the mimetic cycle. How could then have it been ignored by Girard? Was he, as he has been charged, myopic in seeing only things Western as worth investigating? Or was it that he did not like the proposed solutions? I am convinced that it is the latter. Actually he did say precisely that stating that Buddhism amounted to nihilism. Still it is a great pity that it must have been that he chose to ignore it rather than investigate.

What follows is an outline of Buddhism as religion/psychology seen through the lens of those above-mentioned preeminent Girardian topics. Then I move on to a very brief outline of Buddhist history and culture to ground that religion-psychology in context, also worthy of anthropological inquiry.

Buddhism’s solution to the heart-rending mimesis of desire, which is fully acknowledged there as the most disruptive human quality, is not transcendental (or innermost) mimesis of Christ – as Girard came to propose, which insight is obviously rejected by non-Christian Girardian (they of course have the right to do so, the thought is able to stand its ground even absent this insight) – but by pointing to the possibility of doing away with mimesis altogether. That Girard would not acknowledge – or even investigate.

Now how man can escape this seemingly ineluctable predicament of imitating someone else’s desire, escalating in due course, and through well defined, inevitable stages,  to a crisis that might end up in violence? According to Buddhism two initial insights are crucial: (1) desire always produces suffering, (2) to avoid this suffering one has to realize that – as everything is impermanent, including man himself, and one’s suffering and the desire that caused it in the first place  – one does not really, or substantially, exist.

But that is only a concept and as such cannot possibly be meaningful to a desire-ridden man. How can it become relevant to man? Through a process of gaining experiential knowledge of it. How is it accomplished? Through a thorough grounding in insight meditation.

Many religion experts will admit that initial beliefs largely determine what is later confirmed by religious practices, including such as meditation/contemplation. And so it is with Buddhist practice. People are initially drawn to its tenets wanting to solve their life problems, and are able to come out of practice with stronger, experiential grounding in them. The same is true of Christianity or any other religion, unless something out of the ordinary happens to shake the initial belief system. Or, especially these days, getting weary not seeing the DESIRED results fast enough, they find something seemingly more attractive in the spiritual marketplace.

I think that the differing perceptions of suffering are crucial in a comparative analysis of the two religions. Christianity is sometimes in a caricature fashion portrayed as extolling suffering. Normally suffering is considered there as being part and parcel of human life and as such should not be avoided at all cost. But that is precisely what classical Buddhism is advocating. Moreover, and more important as well, it sees this task as feasible.

Remember now the two approaches: classical Buddhism – doing away with desire (and thus also with mimesis of desire); Christianity (according to Girard, but also to many saints and mystics; vide Thomas a Kempis’ Imitatio Christi) –  positive, or transcendental (or innermost) mimesis of Christ; the latter seemingly replete with unavoidable suffering.

But why the latter would have to be so? Because man falters along the way? Yes, but preeminently because he is delusional about himself, not (immediately) seeing that instead of following Christ he is actually puffing up his self or ego. This “exalted” self is of course taken to be false, but that is a weak consolation to a faltering man, charged with the task of constant spiritual discernment if he is to have any chance of salvation.  Man is in a double bind: desire as such has its own dynamic where it easily loses its initial goal of imitating Christ, and gets diverted to competing with and envying fellow men pursuing the same goal – if not to other, overtly sinful, pursuits.  

Can man, as classical Buddhism posits, do entirely away with desire, as opposed to appetite, and thus also with mimesis, if we assume Girard’s view of desire being entirely mimetic? Even only if and when eagerly pursuing meditative practices ostensibly designed to accomplish that? Let us see what state-of-the-art neuroscience has to say on that.

Obviously no neuroscientific study has addressed precisely this problem. Yet many studies have tangentially touched upon it, to the extent that it is at least possible to somehow reflect on, rather than fully investigate, the subject.  

What needs to be addressed first of all is whether the concept of mimesis can be construed as bearing only on desire. On the one hand, that is where Girard’s thought seems to limit itself. On the other, neuroscience posits that mirror neurons, which are operational if not indispensable in any mimesis, are also involved in the mechanism of empathy. And that is where Buddhism seems to have been compelled to step back from positing a fully quality-less self, that is no-self, as man’s proximate goal striven for in meditation – by exhorting him to cultivate empathy-based loving-kindness in that same meditation where one is supposed to be gaining insight into one’s impermanent, immaterial “no-self.”

How can this be made consistent? Is there practically possible a “pure,” essentially atomistic, Buddhist approach? Certainly neuroscience might be of help, allowing any concept of “self” to be fleshed out if not corroborated or refuted. What immediately becomes evident is that equipped with evolution-evolved mirror neurons, interdividual man cannot help being social, even in his striving to avoid seemingly negative evolution-built-in mechanisms.

Now on top of the layers of the brain evolved earlier in evolution – the reptilian, then the limbic or emotional brain – there is the cerebrum where most mirror neurons seem to be located, apparently in both the left and right hemisphere of the brain. When triggered they in turn link with and activate other neurons and systems, many of them located in those older parts of the brain. And that may result in atavistic behavior that moral man would not necessarily be proud of.

I assume here that in not so distant a future neuroscience will be able to flesh out the bicamerality of the human brain. And so while referring to existing studies, I allow myself now to speculate based on this assumption. What follows then is my take on what plausibly happens in the two approaches: the Buddhist and  non-Buddhist, including the Christian Christ-mimesis.

There are studies (referred to by, e.g., Daniel Siegel and Iain McGilchrist) that indicate that the phenomenon of empathy involves mostly mirror neurons located in the right brain, which is long known as holistic and creative, as opposed to the left brain’s analytic as well as routine-enabling function. It is thus entirely plausible that when the initial empathy “degenerates” into or is cross-wired with desire to imitate one’s fellow man what is involved then is predominately left brain’s mirror neurons. This cross-wiring must become even more pronounced with mimesis of, as Girard posits, envy-based desire devolving into rivalry and especially when it becomes violent. Parts of the "older" brain fired then are not the ones that would be fired with pure empathy.

One thing seemingly being successfully dealt with when one gets involved headlong in the mimetic cycle is the problem of suffering. Any nascent experience of suffering can here be apparently overcome through a stronger involvement in the cycle – more adrenaline flowing, a clearly set goal of pursuit. No need to look at suffering at this initial stage. A logical reflection that it might come later as an unfortunate result of this involvement is pushed aside by an expectation of attaining to the goal, or made entirely impossible in that hyped-up state.

Suffering aside, on the mimetic rollercoaster one is able all the more easily to employ resources of the left hemisphere – its verbalizing and justifying function, in the absence of empathy. Which amounts to total blindness, not only emotional: one actually does not see one’s fellow man; instead it is a construct without a face and lacking proportions or any human qualities, gradually yet more and more quickly becoming reduced to the status of pure obstacle. Envy has given way to resentment, then to hatred. Scapegoating is possible given conducive social conditions.

Seemingly nothing new here. Yet the reflection or, partly, speculation as to the role of the respective hemispheres and mirror neurons is truly shedding new light. On top on any scientific explanation it is also able to provide a new approach based on meaningful METAPHOR.

Now in a religious or spiritual approach to self-transformation any such metaphor might be very helpful and for some people outright crucial, as reinforcing beliefs held initially. Nay, transporting one onto a higher spiritual plane, one consistent with those beliefs yet much richer and more meaningful.

And so classical Buddhism-advocated insight meditation that is expected to gain insight (or reinforce the held belief, as many postulate) into man’s basic impermanence and substantial nonexistence, is nevertheless expected to be supplemented by an attitude of loving-kindness toward everybody and everything that comes within man’s purview during that meditation, and, indeed, beyond it.  While it might at first seem illogical, it makes sense based on contemporary knowledge of the brain, because it fosters right-brain holistic approach to oneself and all else, as indicated above. Otherwise the meditator would open himself to the  instigations of his left brain and would easily fall prey to a sinister mimetic cycle of desire. 

So what could be a response in those terms of contemplative Christians advocating imitatio Christi? And, on the other hand, is it not essentially and practically love that is being stressed by the Buddhists, those proverbial nihilists, as put down not only by Girard, but also by St. John Paul II, among many other Christian heavy-weights? Is not God in (or, of) Christianity – love?

As unfortunate as those pronouncements are, we should nevertheless see and appreciate what imitatio Christi imbuing Christian contemplation implies in those same terms applied to Buddhist insight meditation.

On the one hand, the contemplative is reaching for an abundance beyond compare, so any danger of the spiritual process devolving into a vicious scarcity-fed mimetic cycle is nullified, or at least reduced to a minimum. (That might happen when imitation instead of focusing on Christ, is centered on the teacher or guide; the same danger lurks for guru-imitating Buddhists, though.)

On the other hand, the only way to actually imitate Christ in contemplation is quickly found out to consist in emptying oneself of any “self” one may have constructed as a vehicle of contemplation, or virtuous living, for that matter. In undergoing Christ-like kenosis spurred on only by love of and for Christ, which two facets are in due course intuited as  the same thing, the love that must of necessity embrace one’s fellow humans, including one’s enemies, as well as the whole universe.

In my opinion it is helpful to hold in one’s quest for Christian contemplation onto the guiding metaphor of no-self, which actually is “shorthand” for “kenosis unto nothing but Christ in place of self.” And just as Christ’s kenosis is for eternity imbued with forgiveness and love, so is one to hope will in due course be the case with one’s contemplation; the whole transformative process duly grounded in faith.  

Is it all that different from Buddhist insight-loving-kindness meditation? Allowed by brain plasticity, in both cases the mimetic cross-wiring has to be undone so that man can be emptied of his many a time culturally reinforced at least if not acquired mimetic mechanisms. Man is actually shorn of self in the process. Any guiding metaphor of self in this approach other than no-self would just be standing in the way of nearing this ever elusive target. By the way, the respective belief systems remain, resulting in the outcome being described in differing terms. But that must not be viewed as a real obstacle to mutual understanding, respect and kindness.

Now, what about Girard? Why did he choose not to delve into this seemingly illuminative approach and insights to problems he investigated? Only distaste for the apparent nihilism? He actually alluded at least once that he himself was “very mimetic,” so he may have not wanted to investigate an approach apparently denying any utility to mimesis instead of trying to transform it.

Yet had he done so, he would have found that Buddhist approach not only can be viewed as having started with an “innocent self-sacrificing scapegoat” to reveal the scapegoat mechanism for what it was, but also was arguably much less productive of scapegoats during its more than slightly longer history, as compared to Christianity.

That “innocent self-sacrificing scapegoat” was (is) man sacrificing his “self” instead of pumping it up to the point of creating mimetic rivalry and conflict resulting in violence and the scapegoat, as has been the case with the Christian and now post-Christian world. Such sacrifice is actually hardly more than metaphoric or psychological. Stressing and employing non-sacrificial and nonviolent means of pursuing peace has always been of utmost significance. And those monks who chose to protest against injustice or “imperialist” incursion by self-immolation made sure that it was nonviolent to anybody else, while also trying to maintain equanimity of mind and heart that would shield them from any resentment or hatred they might be feeling toward their perceived oppressors (Vietnam), while public peace meditation gatherings manage to  rally tens of thousands of people in the public square (Thailand). Buddhism has always been totally anti-sacrificial, to the point that some purists had insisted on refraining from cooking due to its alleged association with sacrifice. And if Buddhism is considered other-worldly or “atomistic,” one had better look again: beggar-monk communities are willingly supported by communities at large, while in turn receiving spiritual advice and guidance from the monks (Sri Lanka, Thailand).

Now Buddhism as a political force came into being with Ashoka, a III century BCE Indian emperor who converted to that religion having waged a bloody war of conquest, crushed by the inflicted suffering. While spreading Buddhism and its dharma he subsequently managed to introduce peace  and rule of law as well as social and even animal welfare programs (he banned Vedic animal sacrifices) to his unified empire. He  had many pillars erected across his empire, inscribed with his edicts meant also to spread Buddhist dharma, with alphabetic writing being spread as well and Buddhist culture being solidified.  

Buddhism in India fell on hard times especially in the wake of Islamic conquests as well as resurging Hinduism, and virtually disappeared there by the XI century CE (though some pockets survived much longer.) Yet not before it had spread to many adjacent and far away countries which, leavened by its message, managed to evolve rich Buddhist cultures of their own that managed to survive if not thrive as opposed to in its cradle. And a revival Buddhist movement in India started in the mid-1950s springing from a perception that Buddhism was the only way for the Untouchables to escape their systemic scapegoating and to gain equality.

Today many Buddhist countries experience certain phenomena seemingly not in keeping with their religious traditions. Colonialism has been blamed by some commentators as having put its sinister stamp on them, while others ascribe their apparent lack of vitality and social malaise precisely to Buddhism itself. It is true that in some countries the situation looks (or just recently looked) rather bleak: Sri Lanka is still licking wounds following a devastating civil war between the Buddhist Sinhalese and Hinduist Tamils, while some Myanmar Buddhist monks are reported to be leading the persecution of that country’s Rohingya Moslem minority.  

Those facts and examples, which I gleaned mostly from countries of Theravada Buddhism (i.e., deriving from and based on its classical variety), are of course of interest to historians, political scientists and religion comparatists but might or even should be also to anthropologists, and especially so to those of a Girardian bent. When combined with the seeming relevance and importance of Buddhist religion and psychology to Girardian thought, Buddhism in all its aspects makes all the more powerful a case for the need to be investigated from a mimetic theory perspective. There might be significant insights gained also for comparative social sciences when results of studies focusing on a long-time ostensible societal devaluation, if not advocated suppression, of mimetic desire are in. 

Jesus' Paradigm Shift in Man's Moral Foundations

The late Rene Girard saw humanity’s moral progress in its gradual abandonment of its age-old violent sacrifice systems with their victim scapegoats. He traced it back to parts of the Hebrew Bible, and in Jesus he saw the pinnacle of this development, for it is only in Him that this undercurrent becomes conscious of itself. Another reason for Jesus being crucial to this development is obviously the subsequent spread of His message, which Girard as a Christian ascribed to the work of the Holy Spirit.

On the human level this spreading moral revolution has taken on forms that are clearly discernable. And yet Jesus’ paramount message of “loving one’s neighbor as oneself” and the even more radical one of “loving one another as I [Jesus] have loved you” seem to cut across some of humanity’s  evolution-hardwired moral foundations. Jonathan Haidt, following on the research of other psychologists and anthropologists,  has long been arguing that evolution equipped us with a set of 5 (or 6, in a recent formulation of his theory) moral foundations falling into 3 main ethical categories.  They are care, fairness and liberty (ethic of autonomy), loyalty and authority (ethic of community), and sanctity (ethic of divinity). It has been corroborated by fieldwork that most of the world’s population base their moral judgments on all of these moral foundations, while progressive or liberal elites in the West ground their morality on just 2 or 3 foundations, all of them falling into just 1 ethical category, that of autonomy.

Since most Christians, including many among those who subscribe to progressive ways of thinking, consider human moral predispositions as being “evolution-based” or “natural,” these facts should give them pause. They also should let progressives better understand the moral stance of those endowed with this broader range of moral sensitivities. Moral – not immoral! Yet liberals of all kinds, including most liberal Christians, do not seem to see it that way. Neither is the other side willing to see the progressive stance as a logical implementation of Jesus’ message.

Especially in a societal setting, acting out of a reduced set of moral foundations might many a time place one in a moral conundrum, as there is no natural balance between society- and individual- oriented imperatives. But there is an easy way out resorted to most of the time: self-righteous position of moral superiority over those seeing a particular moral dilemma differently. And the other side then reacts similarly based not only on their divergent moral judgments, but also reacting to the  perceived hatred and demonization directed at them.

Yet a case can also be made, as to an extent has been, that since the broader foundations and categories produce moral attitudes standing in opposition to one another, adopting a reduced yet coherent subset of such foundations might represent or amount to moral progress. I am interested in such a case grounded on pronouncements of Jesus. What is more interesting is that Jesus seemed to set about dismantling some of the foundations, especially sanctity  (understood as avoiding pollution), but also authority (of the religious elites) standing in the way of more prominence being accorded to the foundations He seemed to cherish the most, namely those of care (or no harm) and fairness. One might see this stance as invitation to a moral transcendence of oneself as defined by humanity’s moral evolution, as invitation to universal love.

I will limit myself to basing my case for universal love on my reading of Jesus’ message. Universal love is much more than responding to what one perceives as harm done to one’s neighbor while at the same time being resentful (if not outright hateful) of those who do not see this situation the way one does. And it is obviously also much more difficult. I think it requires tolerance, a virtue that has fallen by the wayside on both sides of the moral spectrum. Seeing the position of the other side as morally-based could certainly help. It does not follow that we must necessarily agree with the other’s position. Yet if we see it as essentially immoral, we are on the way to hatred and demonization of our opponents. And that is certainly not in line with what Jesus taught.

The famous Jesus’ “love-thy-neighbor” pronouncements are well understood by all Christians, as well as non-Christians, their not being adhered to notwithstanding. What is important for this exposition is that they are necessarily shared by those Christians who subscribe to both the narrower and the broader set of moral foundations. The situation gets complicated only when there arises a perception that they are standing in the way of moral imperatives based on some of the other foundations, the ones cherished by the conservatives. What if those “neighbors” of ours do not share, and do not want to share, our traditions, culture, religion?  What if they seem not to even want to be loyal to our society? The latter suspicion might become then a self-fulfilling prophecy, when someone viewed as incapable of loyalty is acting the role out of resentment.

Jesus made His clearest case for universality of neighborly love in His parable of the Good Samaritan, told in response to the question “who is my neighbor?” Having related the story He actually reverses the question, asking, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?,”  and then says, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” There is more to this reply that initially meets the eye. It is an alien belonging to a despised group that turns out to be the one showing mercy, the only “neighbor” in the story. For Jesus’ listeners this fact is supposed to undermine their conventional notions of their compatriots’ moral integrity vs lack of it in all the others.

The other famous Jesus’ parable on caring, brotherly love is the one told in Matthew 25, the “I was a stranger, and you invited [did not invite] Me in” parable. This one in turn is the most compelling in its exhortation to care for the least fortunate: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” For the Christian there cannot be more compelling a case for loving all of one’s fellow men than realizing that Jesus fully identified with the least ones on this earth of ours.

Girard and many others claim that these pronouncements of Jesus are the true source and the true code of Western morality at its descriptive (and mostly theoretical rather than practical) best, rounding out the best they can the revelation of the (innocent) scapegoat mechanism, which revelation makes it futile. They have laid solid foundations first and foremost of the care (or no-harm) imperative in the human soul, as they have also for any culture claiming to be Christian, and in the unprecedented manner and revelatory context, as was clearly demonstrated by Girard. It should also be underscored that this imperative is truly normative, that is evolutionary-based, as evidenced by the unease experienced on hurting others or even observing their being hurt; while relying on mirror neurons for its full range of expression, it more strongly correlates with brain activity involving evolutionarily deeper, “pre-mimetic,” parts of our brain than those sentiments reflecting man’s other moral foundations, with the single exception of that of sanctity/purity.

Today though the ongoing Western moral revolution is spearheaded by post-Christians who are taking their cues not directly from Jesus anymore but are picking and choosing from, or being driven by, as the case may be, the legacy foundations, or, rather the ruins thereof.  The dignity culture, built – many a time without realizing that – on Christian moral tenets is being supplanted by what has been named victimhood culture. Some such development has been foreseen by Girard, who nevertheless considers it moral aberration, or rather – as a logical one, though unwanted, and yet hopefully not unavoidable – an ominous sign of the beginning of descent into apocalypse. His analysis of Matthew 24 as describing an apocalypse at our own hands, rather than one inflicted by God, draws on perspicuous understanding of the recent developments in Western society and culture; to be duly replicated by the world at large, it being but a West-oriented global village.

It is not easy to navigate the moral landscape of our times. The victimhood culture is drawing on the imperative of the universality of care (as discussed above as regards the proverb of the Samaritan aiding a wounded one). But if we are not mitigated at the same time by admonitions having to do with not judging others (e.g., the speck in your brother’s eye proverb), or loving one’s enemies (discussed later), resentment is certain to get the better of us. And our acting out the care imperative will just be a caricature of itself, for, often not realizing that, we will be upping the ante in a game of scapegoating.

There is no doubt anymore that scapegoating is violence. Second-generation scapegoating, the scapegoating of scapegoaters (not necessarily our own), seems even more insidious than that of the previous generation, for it is rarely noticed even by those who are sensitive to and thus can detect cases of scapegoating in other situations. The reason is that it is extremely difficult to see oneself as the one doing the scapegoating. It seems to be engaged in more often by the progressives because it is inextricably tied to the moral foundation of fairness/justice. Acting on this imperative in a violent manner, which also includes being driven by resentment and/or hatred, cannot but become an act of scapegoating. A conservative acting on this imperative, which call for him/her, by the way, would certainly be understood differently, would many a time be mitigated by his/her other imperatives, like loyalty to the country/nation. But apart from fairness/justice the liberal has only care. And s/he would do well to fall back on this foundation, as this might prevent her/him  from violently fighting for her/his brand of justice. Violent status-quo, even if ostensibly bearing a semblance of peace, can only be truly remedied by nonviolent methods of conflict solving. The myth of redemptive violence is just that, a myth. Violence puts nothing aright, and these days even less so, as scapegoating stopped bestowing a peaceful respite on a mob of scapegoaters. Today there will always be several angry scapegoating mobs violently, that is hatefully, competing with one another. No chance anymore for the formation of an apparently peaceful or at least peaceable community, even if created by the blood/expulsion/suffering of a scapegoat. Not any more, and so much the better for it.

Fairness, the second moral foundation of Jonathan Haidt, is truly a problematic one, especially if it is viewed in conjunction with or mostly through the bigger lens of justice. It is apparently shared by both the progressives and the conservatives. Yet both groupings differ diametrically in their understanding of it. What is one side’s justice many a time is the other side’s injustice. Suffice it to recall here polemics of the advocates of “egalitarian” positions, and those affirming “equal opportunities.” Even Jesus’ position on justice-related  issues did not escape being questioned while He lived on earth, or anachronistically criticized by later commentators.  Some of the Sermon on the Mount passages are often cited as examples of a seemingly cowardly renunciation of any striving for justice: the famous “do not resist evil,… turn the other check,… let him have the shirt also,… go with him the second mile” themes. Yet, as Walter Wink so convincingly showed in his last books, these words, on the contrary, are a summons to nonviolent resistance to evil, not at all to virtual complicity in it by forgoing resistance. Such a stance requires actually much more courage and wisdom (as exemplified by the martyr Mahatma Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela upon ascending to power) than adrenaline-driven rage that seems to be the normal mode of pursuing justice in our time. Jesus unequivocally renounced that, knowing that there is but one small step from that to an evil no lesser than the one that the justice advocate is fighting against. That evil is scapegoating, the violence of its outward forms and/or inherent in the motivation underlying it.

If fairness/justice as a moral foundation tends to be problematic – and very difficult to pursue in a way that is not self-defeating – care seems only difficult, sometimes exceedingly difficult. But it is well worth pursuing. It is the one foundation that cannot – for any reason – be given up, if one is to stay moral, and not just occupy the moral high ground, as is often the case with “seasoned” justice fighters. It is also evidently the one foundation that Jesus’ earthly life evinces preeminently. This is the truest embodiment of Jesus’ ethic, ethic of uncompromising love, inclusive of one’s enemies. And for a man whom such neighborly love makes incomparably free at heart, it also logically embraces nonviolent-only resistance to evil and nonviolent-only pursuit of justice.

As far as the moral foundation of liberty is concerned, it goes without saying that Jesus would fully embrace it and it must be considered as basic for Him. Yet, as with fairness-justice, there are shades of liberty that seemingly stand in almost total contradistinction to one another. Jesus certainly was an advocate of positive freedom, and opposed to seeing liberty as just a libertarian-type negative freedom from whatever it might be, oppression, slavery, excessive taxation, etc. He urged us to use our inherent freedom to pursue our true humanity, which necessarily includes charity-based morality, and which is solidarity-based. Now such a brand of liberty obviously can only be seen as standing at the junction of the ethic of autonomy and that of community.

Jesus’ position on loyalty was a nuanced one, and certainly not one to be emulated if one were to ask any local zealot of His time. His brand of true loyalty seems to have been rather narrow but authentic: it was community-focused, or communitarian, and based on solidarity. And it was active. Had He lived in our times, He wouldn’t have moved, like most “lip-service” paying liberals, to the suburbs, away from the underprivileged, i.e., the people who they ostensibly care about. No, He would have stayed with His community, just like our contemporary Little Brothers (and Sisters) of Jesus do, modeling their lives on His. So, He was loyal par excellence, but to those He was in contact with (obviously this could be anybody, no one was denied access), not to the “idea” – of a nation, of a temple tradition – as cherished by the scapegoating elites and used by them to control their fellow countrymen. His loyalty, or respect for His nation’s traditions and laws was actually something out of the ordinary, if not revolutionary. He set about subverting those traditions as to their literal meaning and instead delved into an unexplored before richness of the hidden spirit of those traditions. He was vehemently criticized for that and accused of being a subversive, a rebel – certainly not a loyal member of society. Yet His loyalty was authentic and much deeper, to boot, but not to those in a position to pass judgment on His brand of it. Instead, it was to the Ultimate Lawgiver, on the one hand, and to those exploited by those quick to pass judgment, stemming, as it must have been, from  their uniformed understanding, certainly not imbued with charity, of a tradition ostensibly shared by the whole nation, on the other hand. I am afraid, judging from the above description, that Jesus’ loyalty measurement from a contemporary conservative perspective would come out horrible.

Jesus’ stance on authority is well evident from His relations with the Pharisees and religious scribes. When speaking of those critical of His position on loyalty to traditions, reference was obviously made to the formal authorities of the Jewish nation, the chief priests of the temple, the religious hierarchy collaborating with the Roman Empire, the scribes, even the sect of Pharisees. It is clear that there was no unquestioning endorsement of their authority on the part of Jesus, quite the contrary, for His certainly was not a position of acknowledging anybody’s authority just because that person/group was holding a  formal position of power/influence in society. In other words, His example is certainly not one of acting from the authority foundation on the model that conservatives of any time would.

Now fear and revulsion or disgust cast a long shadow on morally legitimate sentiments of care for the integrity and tradition of one’s community. Consequently Jesus set about dismantling the sense of sanctity understood as it was in His times in negative terms as pollution avoidance, which position is the easiest springboard to scapegoating among the foundations. There is no denying that this dismantling was truly an outright attack wherever He went on the mentality of advocates of sanctity understood as pollution avoidance. It was accompanied by a wholesale paradigm shift, whereby sin was defined in metaphorical terms as debt, as a transgression against both love and sense of justice, and not as being contaminated. Jesus never tired of inviting to His fellowship those who were stigmatized as impure or polluted or “unclean” in the eyes of society, based on their profession (tax-collectors) or behavior (sinners), or anything else. He even went so far as to touch and heal people considered polluted based on an instinctual fear of contagion (lepers, or those possessed by an “unclean” spirit; generally those bearing victim marks and consequently truly victimized). A Pharisees’ attack on His disciples for their eating with “unclean” hands occasioned the full formulation of His position on what is clean and what is unclean. And it obviously went totally against the grain with them, just as it does with many latter-day conservatives, though their “pollutants” might be different.  It is worth adducing His words here: “…whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated... That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” This statement followed His accusation leveled at the Pharisees (so concerned with His disciples’ impure hands) of failing to be charitable or even fair to their parents. In effect Jesus was saying to them: the old paradigm of scapegoating based on perceived non-cleansable pollution or indelible victim marks must be done away with and replaced with a new one based on transgressors’ redemption informed with sentiments of caring and justice; and love. In trying to follow Him we may as well start by doing away once and for all with all the pollution-based metaphors for lack of sanctity. Or, for that matter, in the employ of denying humanity to those “unclean,” as is more common nowadays.

It has been shown in neuroscientific studies that pollution avoidance highly correlates with brain activity in deep regions of our brain, those that were shaped early on in our biological evolution, rather than in more malleable regions reflective of later sociocultural evolution, or emerging from our brain neural networks’ whole-system organization when interacting with the world. And yet Jesus wants us to transcend these apparently hard-wired activity patterns, to move into the realm of a love capable of embracing those from whom we would cringe in disgust if we let our old brain dictate our behavior. Some people are not ready to concur, their disagreement being based on their reading of holy books or on mindboggling (to them) proliferation of wholly new categories of those demanding that they be considered pollution-free. For others it is easier said than done, sometimes they cannot help it no matter how hard they are trying. Consequently those who have managed to transcend those hard-wired inhibitions must not indulge in scapegoating those who have not, for this if not for any other reason. Otherwise they might in fact be worse than those whom they would be targeting. This would certainly be the case with those aware of these mechanisms and still engaging in second-generation scapegoating.

My argument here has been that the morality Jesus advocated and practiced when abiding on this earth of ours should be understood as a paradigm shift described in terms of throwing in bold relief some of man’s natural moral foundations while others are reinterpreted and/or made to recede into the background. Yet basing one’s judgments and behavior on a reduced set of moral foundations coincident with those highlighted by Jesus does not make this human moral agent morally superior. It is not a game of proving one’s superiority. Rather it is about humility. Such humility as would allow man to see his/her fellow human beings through Christ’s eyes in order to be able to love them as Christ does. To love all of humanity: oneself, one’s brothers and sisters, neighbors, and even enemies. So that Christ’s love spreading through us as its agents might be universal and thus complete. 

One Christian's Girardian Meditation on the Paris Tragedy

Dom Thomas Keating, founder of a contemporary Christian contemplative movement, is wont to say that God’s first language is silence and everything else is but poor translation. How I wish we all remembered that when desperately trying to hear His message among the garbled voices of man-created idols purportedly speaking  to us from the pages of sacred books, demanding from us first and foremost (this is their trademark) absolute obedience and loyalty. Or, for that matter, from “sacred” nationalist propaganda circulars showing no mercy to those disloyal and of impure blood, or from “sacred” revolutionary manifestos consigning those doubting or espousing the wrong ideas and, again, those disloyal, to the guillotines of all times, or from...

Yet when we stop drowning ourselves with those pseudo-divine self-hallucinated utterances, in the ensuing utter silence, we are all the more forcefully driven by our primal appetite for meaning and purpose. And as our “conscious” selves are groping for ways to quench this thirst in order to regain their bearings, we apparently have no alternative but to turn to others to have this emptiness filled out. We are, as Rene Girard says (prophetic present tense!), interdividuals. And though I claim with many others that this primal desire (or drive or appetite) is not discovered or created only in an encounter with an other, the manner it is going to be satisfied certainly is.

We are blessed with the body of knowledge Girard has imparted to us, also because it creates a space of freedom for and within us. When applied with meditative mindfulness, it gives us a choice whom to follow and whose promptings to avoid, though many a time it is easier said than done. We very easily undifferentiate from an initial disagreement, often over differences in our sacred books or their meaning, but also when interpreted as apparently showing an intolerable lack of respect, into the unanimity of mutual resentment or hatred. This leads us into verbal or physical violence, or that consisting in exclusion or expulsion; or killing.

Yet Girard not only has revealed this mechanism for us, but also himself pointed to the One whose imitation, nay, mimesis is valid and worthwhile. It is Jesus Christ whose witness and revelation of God actually let him stumble on it and formulate his theory. Christ’s voice continues to speak to us across the intervening centuries, many a time distorted by those who claim to be His followers, yet again made crystal clear (at least to us Girardians) through Rene Girard’s prophetic exposition. May it be given wings of the Spirit just as it was undeniably the case with the underlying Jesus’ revelatory message of nonviolent self-sacrificing love spreading far and wide and unstoppably despite initial cruel persecution.

Then knowing all of that, and if we feel inclined so, let us support one another through mutual mediation of Christ-centered mimesis. He is the only true model, and innermost mediator as well, for He is Truth incarnate, all other truths are but mere reflections. Many a time did He withdraw into the desert to commune with God. May we then one and all be interdividually led by Him in a contemplative hush of our “inner room,” the private desert of our hearts, into the source of Silence, into the-seen-of-none God whose appellation in His words is Abba or Father. To encounter Beauty to which to abandon ourselves upon the silent loving touch of Abba’s Presence.

Surely there are apocalyptic tones in Jesus’ message, pointed to also by Girard in contexts resembling that of today as we are teetering on the verge of an apocalypse at our own hands. Yet this is in Christ-modeled-and-mediated communities of contemplative prayer that we must address today’s despair and pursue our task of reconfirming our commitment to Christ’s message. So that we may courageously face the apparent absurdity of our continuing hope as we pray that the grief may be assuaged and that those aggrieved may be able to forgive in due course. So that we all may know how to stand firm for peace and dignity and mutual respect, and not succumb to undifferentiation of mutual hatred. So that we may witness our unfailing hope that love shall prevail yet.   

The Metaphor of No-Self in Contemplation

What is the “true self” of contemplation, or its subject, according to claims of many experienced contemplatives? Is it not simply God, or for the Christian (as assumed throughout this text), the Trinity or Jesus Christ, indwelling within the contemplative’s heart, as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and some others would have it? Such a self is actually “no-self,” a “self” that is not ours. (Contemporary mystic Bernadette Roberts resorts to this term when she relates her experience of moving beyond the unitive state.) Or is it Christ plus some intersubjective yet seemingly worthy accretions, or maybe “spiritual” leftovers, making this rather spurious whole a plausible subject of the “love thy neighbor as thyself” Old and New Testament injunction? Or maybe we are actually just grasping for guiding metaphors able to direct us to and along two distinct stages of the contemplative path, the former being (one of) the last, the latter, some early one?

But if there is anything intersubjective in the “true self” construct, how then can it be universally “true?” Well, if Rene Girard is right it actually cannot be “true” in that sense, and on more counts than just its being intersubjective. It is about how this intersubjectivity is constituted, and apparently cultivated, instead of being let go in a final swoop toward “no-self,” when all the accretions are melted away and there is nothing but Christ left at the center. Center of what? Of the desire and love constitutive of the energy that is “no-self.” Its center is anchored nowhere, so that when actuated this desirous love can be the “love [of] one another, just as I [Christ] have loved you.” Only then is there no mutual borrowing of the other mortal’s  earthbound desires in an intersubjective game of building interdividuality (a Girardian term) rather than what the world is wont to call individuality, be it “true” or “false.” 

Is this “final swoop” purely grace-bestowed, or is it somehow also mediated by our apprehension of our goal, by the shape of our deepest intentions and drives? Despite the espoused abhorrence on the part of  mystics such as Thomas Merton of even discussing the contents of pure contemplation in positive, rationalizing terms, on claims that it is entirely apophatic, unavoidably this is what is happening. Moreover, if Girard is right it is reasonable. If mimesis is such an overpowering constitutive human experience, then the content of contemplation (at least of the denied by some “acquired” variety, if not of the infused one) should certainly evince our contemplative path’s initial beliefs as embodied in our purest intentions, not only in our rather mixed broader motivations. They would certainly account for the direction of our spiritual path. Also, the stronger the mimesis (e.g., of the guide or teacher), the more fervent and competitive our pursuit of the spiritual goal tends to be, while external mediation of a saintly figure might make for a more balanced, faithful and patient quest. Not surprisingly then there have been in-depth analytical studies performed (e.g., Daniel Brown, 1986) that have proven that the contents of our faith, or initial beliefs and perspectives, are mapped onto the contents of the contemplative’s illuminative state, while the pathway leading there is more or less similar across various mystical traditions and largely independent of both.

On the way to contemplation there might be practiced various forms of meditation, some of them worthy rungs on the ladder of our spiritual journey. As structured practices, much more strongly than those purely contemplative, they are liable to reveal what we are really made of. Whether our “spiritual” path is about ourselves or about God, what our true intention actually is. Let us take a look at popular forms of breathing meditation. One might be visualizing inhaling light and love, then while exhaling, spewing sin and suffering, thus testifying to caring only about oneself, be it the rarified true self presently undergoing purification, or any other variety. Such practice is actually egotistic while professing to be about readying oneself to be “true” and truly loving. Yet for the latter to be true, meditation would have to be done in reverse order: inhaling sin and suffering of humankind, having Christ in one’s heart forgive and transmute them, then exhaling loving-kindness and love to and for the sake of the very humankind whose sin and suffering one has inhaled and asked Christ to transform. Neither would mindfulness of things coming within one’s purview do, even if anchored in breathing to secure the present moment, if it were not imbued with loving-kindness, with Christ-like attitude.   

What is then this call, long heard but rarely made good upon, to imitation of Christ? And again: who is to heed it? The true or inner or higher self, or rather Christ Himself at last encountered when the Christian has stripped himself bare of a self, true or false? True self – or no self? But aren’t they both really just metaphors whose referent is the same? Or are these metaphors trying to capture different states of consciousness, thus making the distinction valid if not necessary? I strongly feel that if one is really set on imitating Christ only, then paradoxically the metaphor of “no-self” should be the starting point, the springboard to contemplation. Then the hoped-for-final-curve of contemplation, with its very destination point looming ahead in mystery, would have a better chance – as the study quoted above indicates, but also intuitively – of approximating or reflecting or even actually “being” the indwelling Christ, this “no-self” of one’s own. This metaphor, when imbuing also one’s active life, would go a long way to contributing to one’s true imitation of Christ in deed, attitude and, potentially, character rather than in words only.

To see why this should be so, let us compare the dynamics of envy and regular jealousy. The former is obviously not driven by our appetites that make themselves known regardless of the existence of a model mediating our desire, as jealousy is when it starts to fight the other who is getting ahead of us to a common appetite-begotten goal.  Envy is different, much more insidious: we did not know that we had a need or desire until we had encountered it in the other. Then and only then is this desire created and becomes truly ours. But with a close human model it tends to gain undue energy and to be wholly internalized so as to collapse sooner or later into desire of the model’s being, which development is almost always accompanied by resentment if not outright hatred. That obviously is tantamount to also entirely losing sight of the initial desire.

Yet desire as such certainly exists, our consciousness is desire-primed. In what sense can it then be real, or true? If you strip yourself bare, unto no-self – not just true inner self – in grace-bestowed infused contemplation, and desire, now experienced as pure yearning, still exists, it has certainly proven itself real. Moreover, it has shown itself then as the truly supreme desire of man. It actually has all the qualities of primal appetite. It has no need of a human mediator but Christ, man and God, the only mediator whose abundance is able to quench mimetic envy. It is not outside you, neither is it inside you, for there is no self anymore. It is Christ imbuing this no-self (and everything pure and naked) that is the fount of this desire. You are this desire inasmuch as you have become Christ-like. Inasmuch as you have bared yourself unto the emptiness of the utter unreality and transitoriness of anything but love that Christ is. This desire actuating you that you found out you have been all along is the love permeating the universe, the love that has created and is constantly creating it anew. Your all-embracing heart has now become one with that of the universe.

Contemplation in order to be fruitful needs to be complemented in action done in freedom, humility and purity of heart. Here the issue of “true self” versus “no-self” is again thrown into sharp relief. Who is the doer? The metaphor of “true self” is the guiding light for the old-law injunction of “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” while metaphorical “no-self,” or rather, in a Christian setting, “Christ in place of self,” is the principle operative in Christ’s new commandment, “that you love one another, just as I [Christ] have loved you.” Just as the new commandment has transcended the old, so has “no-self” transcended the “true self.” The tenth commandment seems the hardest, always operative in us contrariwise, no matter how hard one tries to make ineffective one’s covetousness of things belonging to (or of desires or even the being of) one’s neighbor. The “true self” in action, even more than in contemplation, is always a false self, inasmuch as its “love of oneself” is actually always driven, nay, mimetically constituted by the “loves” or desires of others. And thus so is one’s self, regardless of whether it is considered true or false. “No-self” as guiding light is a veritable blessing, metaphorical rather than experiential though it must be for most of us on most occasions.

Yet it is only total depletion of the self, to the point of its disappearance in the emptiness of no-self, where “one [may] lay down his life for his friends,” as stated by Jesus in His exposition of what his new commandment entails, that enables one to truly follow Him. To have Him as the only model and mediator of the only mimesis that befits His followers. The apex of the mimetic triangle is then at the same time in God’s transcendent realm and coincident with the divine spark of our hearts, whose center is where love actuates us to be at any given moment, and whose perimeter is as large or as small as this love requires. Also, the logic of scarcity that governs mimesis of a finite human model will have been then replaced by that of abundance. An Abundance beyond compare that is God’s all-forgiving love, fully reflective of Christ. He is our only worthy model, whose imitation, while never fully attained to on earth, is being pursued and at the same time “being undergone” by no self of our own but by Christ Himself in our self’s stead, in and through His “perfect love [that] casts out fear,” including that of death of self-identity or self as such in a Christ-like kenosis, in order to be that love that He is. 

From Sparagmos to Agape Feast

Eric Gans in his highly insightful book, The Girardian Origins of Generative Anthropology, critiquing the thought of Rene Girard, says that what is missing there is any insight whatever into the content of sacrifice other than (expelled) violence, especially into its alimentary content and function. In actuality, according to Gans, what is missing is any description or inference as to what follows the “emissary murder” (as he calls the scapegoat’s sacrifice, somewhat in line with the French original) other than cessation of violence or resentments (or, rather, deferral thereof) and the ensuing, if temporary, peace. He avers that there is much more to such a moment and the respite that follows in its wake, regardless of whether it is the originary murder that “created” humanity out of its preceding prehuman state – through the creation of the first sign that in due course would become human language (Gans thought’s forte) – or any subsequent similar event.

Regarding this evident omission as a deficiency in need of correction, Gans sketches summarily in various places of the book scenarios of human exchange (economic, cultural, etc.) enabled by and engaged in during this respite. He touches also in this context, albeit briefly, on the Crucifixion of Jesus, which is obviously of special interest for the Christian. Not intending to question the centrality for Girard’s thought of this event, its exposition in it being decisive as to whether it actually stands or falls, Gans is also ready to acknowledge that the ultimate meaning of this event for Girard is Christ’s exhortation to universal love of one another. Yet, according to Gans’ reading of Girard, it actually is, and must be, posited merely as a call directed only to people as individuals, and, on Girardian grounds, for good reason: the ever-present risk of violent mimetic contagion, even in communities ostensibly pursuing nothing but and guided by universal love. Gans adds another reason, namely lack of any reference there whatsoever to signs or symbols, including those capable by virtue of their content of mediating this love. Thus love’s potential for community creation and communal action is never explored there and entirely missed. One might add that this is in total contradistinction to the various religious symbols and community-building rituals that Christianity has actually created.  

Now obviously in most forms of Christianity there exists today in ritual, even sacramental form a sharing (symbolic to some, mysteriously real to others) of the alimentary remains of the central Christian sacrifice. This is of course the Eucharist which, it is worth noting, was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper as a memorial ritual in advance of His foundational once-and-for-all violence-revealing self-sacrifice. Yet Girard, a devout Catholic, has not written explicitly on the Eucharist, let alone analyze this central ritual’s symbolic meaning or assign to it any importance over and above a commemorative one. Apparently Christ’s mysterious presence in the Eucharist is purely a matter of faith to him and as such is not to be discussed in texts developing his anthropological hypotheses, which position obviously must be respected. He never passes over the threshold of theology proper. Yet this refusal is also evidently in line with his unwillingness to discuss sacrificial events’ alimentary function.  

It seems that any bloody sacrifice is so abhorrent to Girard that he cannot rationally bring himself to attaching any positive value to distribution for nourishment of any such sacrificial remains.  And the Eucharist is obviously celebrated in remembrance of Jesus’ bloody Passion. Girard struggled with this central Christian event. For example he has been adamant in denying its expiatory function, which position is shared by many Christians. He has also insisted that a gradually growing realization, first among various Roman empire’s subject peoples (and certainly by divine intercession, i.e., that of the Holy Spirit), that Jesus was an innocent victim (or, as later amended by Girard himself, an innocent self-sacrificing victim) of a scapegoating murder, openly and with determination claiming his innocence all along, testifies that His Crucifixion was not yet another sacrifice creating in its wake the “sacred,” that is, expulsion/ diversion/ deferral of violence.

But it is this very understanding, when coming to fruition, that was bringing in its wake various symbols, rituals and sacraments, including the exact sacramental formulation and meaning of the Eucharist. Consequently, Girard's anthropology, Christian as it is, would certainly benefit from assigning value to symbols and rituals meant to imbue both individual and communal action, and preeminently so to those connected with the Passion and, consequently, the Eucharist. This need for an enriched symbolic meaning becomes especially evident or even glaring now, as Christ’s call to universal love is coming to us across the intervening centuries of being ignored, misrepresented, corrupted or rejected outright. This call is certainly now becoming ever more urgent, yet ever less understood by many regular Church-goers, as this love is more and more widely taken to necessarily embrace broader and broader categories of up-until-now marginalized human beings that earlier versions of Christianity were satisfied to leave precisely there, on the margins, if not express or even foster prejudice against them.

So how are Christians acting on this call actually supposed to measure up to the task? Their need of focusing and grounding is certainly well served by Christ-centered contemplation, discussed in another post. But they would be equally well served if they realized, with their compatriots sharing the growing clarity of this overarching insight into love’s necessary universality and the concomitant rejection of any vestige of violence, that some additional – new or rediscovered – forms of community-creating/ sustaining action reinforced by meaningful ritual might also be of help. Such as would be able to counteract and hopefully dispel for them the well-entrenched and exceedingly pervasive myth of redemptive violence, a myth actually having its own insidious if often unrevealed rituals propagated by the media and politics.

Now there is historical evidence (e.g., several Scriptural passages and documents from the era as well as frescos from Rome's catacombs) from the times of the early, cruelly persecuted, Church of the existence of customs  that were of help in sustaining (or maybe even helping enlarge if not create) peaceful communities of ready-for-martyrdom believers. I am referring to agape feasts, or communal love-feasts. Many early Christians, certainly guided by the Holy Spirit, seem to have had wisdom enough to take their cue from Jesus’ example and exhortation to commemorate His Last Supper and create customs, if not rituals, based on this central event. It is true that there probably never was a uniform practice or form of agape feast, as well as that it was not universally known across the Christian world. But where they did exist, agape feasts seem to have been at least at some times and in some locations very closely connected to the sharing of the Eucharistic elements.

The custom unfortunately has long since fallen into desuetude, for various reasons, the Church becoming preeminently a this-worldly institution being probably the most important (signs of its imminent demise started to appear in force shortly after the Church became established.) But now that the Church is rife with confusion tearing it apart, it might be ripe for reintroduction of this custom/ ritual on a meaningful scale. And although it is worth remembering that one of the classes of marginalized fellow human beings are the destitute who could use this nourishment for their sustenance if not for sheer survival, I am not talking here about soup kitchens, even if staffed by church volunteers. The whole idea of the communal love-feast is that its participants should be all the members of a community, and in equal capacity, i.e., qua participants. That we truly encounter one another around the agape table.

By sharing in agape feasts with our fellow humans we would also be testifying to the true symbolic meaning of the Eucharist, this commemoration of the ultimate act of self-giving, that is to love. Eric Gans’ “aborted gesture of appropriation,” this sign that bestows meaning by deferring violence, made use of before one and all can peaceably engage in a sparagmos, or equal tearing-apart of sacrificial meat, all of that spurred by the appetites and mimetic desires of a whole crowd consisting of all the participants, would be superseded (and expressed) by the common transcendent desire of the agape sharers, the desire capable of forming a permanent peaceful community. And why? For this desire can be satisfied without fail in all those sharing (from) an Abundance beyond compare, sharing (from) the ever self-sacrificing God that is Love, sharing a Love that is God. We would be thus creating, and later sustaining and strengthening, communities of love witnessing to what true love of one another is about. And there is none other reason for that but the fact that the source of this transcendent desire of ours, namely Jesus Christ, has finally – across the centuries and lifetimes, over the infinite or infinitesimal spaces – become our innermost mediator, His Presence finally established in the hearts of us all who are heeding His call. 

Girard, McLuhan & Need for Contemplation

Modern man needs a deep anchor within oneself in order not to be entirely at the mercy of mimetic desires running amok. More specifically, we need contemplation that would at the minimum desensitize us somehow to the whirl of negative mimesis that is our portion, or, more positively, that would give us a sense of presence of a model of positive mimesis. Obviously for Christians this model would be the model, namely Jesus Christ, our transcendent or vertical and at the same time innermost mediator, present in our heart. Innermost mediation is nothing but the imitation of Christ, which is our way to conversion.

Rene Girard as literary critic has scrutinized some of the greatest European novels as conversion narratives, leading their mired in mimetic rivalries protagonists to love and humility, the paramount values of the Christian tradition. But are we condemned with them to arrive at true conversion only at the end of the line, thus essentially not having to worry about how to make it stick during our earthly existence? Well, Christianity has always had to offer a means to ground conversion, namely the way of contemplation. To give ourselves a chance to make our conversion stick we need to resort to contemplative prayer on a daily basis.

But positively mimetic Christian contemplation? What kind of oxymoron is that? Regardless of what the ultimate mystical experience consists in, the whole question actually boils down to whether there is any sensual mediation and residue thereof in a state of contemplation. And if there is any, whether that residue could then imbue our life beyond periods of formal contemplation.

The issue, on the one hand, is taken to the limits by the Buddhists who claim that (what the West is wont to call) contemplation in its uttermost degree is actually pure awareness. Awareness of what?  Of the basic emptiness or transitoriness of existence. (Some Buddhists call it, paradoxically, fullness, while still others, “suchness.”) To be able to credibly claim that they posit a sixth sense, that of consciousness/mind. It is asserted that in a state of pure awareness, mediated as it is by this sixth sense, there is no input as such experienced from any of the five regular senses, or it has to be fully transcended through seeing into its "unreality." The insight that is being gained into this true nature of things is embedded in the mind. Part of it is also the realization that one's mind has always been one with the Universal Mind. (Currently this sixth sense is also rendered as "heart," in recognition that the underlying Buddhist term carries much broader connotations.) This is supposed to go hand in hand with total extinguishment of desire, so at one stroke one obtains a foothold in a state where there is no basis whatsoever for any mimesis, Girardian or otherwise. This experience is then supposed to pervade one’s waking state or regular existence: one should be “mindful” of this basic emptiness at all times. Consequently Girard calls Buddhism nihilistic.

As far as Christian contemplation is concerned, on the other hand, usually no claim is made that there is no residue of any sense input in such a state. Dom Thomas Keating, co-formulator of centering prayer, says that contemplation may arise from a sacred word, breath, glance, or from the spiritual sense of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching, depending mostly on one’s physical makeup but also on one’s cultivated form of spirituality. One of the favorite images of/metaphors for Christian contemplation is “sense of presence.” What or who is present? For contemplatives such as Teresa of Avila and many others it is Jesus Christ. And with regular practice one might arrive at an enduring sense of presence that is then able to imbue the waking state of the contemplative and thus become the foundation of mimesis and mimetic desire. With Jesus as model/mediator this innermost mimesis, and desire, is entirely positive.

What does deep anchoring in a Christian contemplative state actually mean in terms of spiritualized sensation? Is this sense of contemplative presence more “tactile” rather than mediated by other senses, as the name approximating it might suggest? Firstly, a distinction must be drawn between how one arrives at contemplation, on the one hand, and what is that person’s contemplation like, on the other. The former is much more easily qualifiable than the latter. But since there is expected to be some connection or continuity between the two, we might be able to make assumptions of the one based on the characteristics of the other.

Prerequisites for attaining to a contemplative state include immersing oneself in silence (the most important sensory requirement) and in darkness (for example by means of closing one’s eyes). The other senses are normally not mentioned because it goes without saying that they are to be shut out. With the mind it is different. First of all it is considered as problem by many contemplative traditions, meaning that the overflowing content of consciousness is acknowledged as something to be necessarily dealt with in one way or another. Whence it comes? If it is experienced through the agency of regular senses (e.g., a pang of pain mediated by the tactile sense), in principle there is no problem. But what if it comes of itself, seemingly not mediated by any regular sense (e.g., fearful rumination that might follow the initial pain sensory input)? One is supposed then to simply observe that material using the faculty (or one’s sixth sense) of pure awareness, while simply  letting go of it.

In a traditional Christian setting one often arrives at a contemplative state via meditation which in actuality may consist in listening “internally” to a mentally repeated phrase like “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” or simply, “Jesus.” Although to attain to contemplation one has to leave aside or transcend this mantra, yet for many meditators-cum-contemplatives it may linger even into what would be regarded as a legitimate contemplative state. It is then this person’s contemplative “sound of silence,” and as such may accompany his/her sense of divine Presence; whereas any lingering vision, including that of a deity, should have been abandoned much earlier. Incidentally, for many Eastern Orthodox Christians these “sounds of silence” are expected to accompany the meditator also during his/her “waking” hours for one to be judged truly spiritually advanced (vide the classic book The Way of a Pilgrim.)

So in Christian contemplation it is both the tactile (a rather nondescript yet palpable sense of presence) and (many a time) the auditory that are acknowledged, while the visual is dismissed (in the sense of a distinct vision: ecstasy is not what contemplation is about; some people though experience bathing in pure light.)

The above characterization of contemplation, or more broadly, of our spiritual path that relies on contemplative prayer, takes on special significance for our regular life when we allow ourselves to call on analyses of Marshall McLuhan, the preeminent scholarly commentator on the media and their impact on humans. Why can it be important and significant? Because his thought goes a long way towards accounting for change in man effected by technology (especially the media) and the burden it creates for the human senses and mind. We can still use his vision, formulated several decades ago, to understand many otherwise meaningless or obscure phenomena pervasive in media-dominated Western society, as well as predict what is coming our way. 

His “global village” is now finally taking shape with the overwhelming advent of the digital media (which make use of all the preceding media as the digital’s many “backgrounds,” or “grounds,” as he calls them, rather than "figures," as those media are not themselves objects of attention.) They allow each and every one of us to “produce” ourselves in as many various ways and forms as we want to see us portrayed (through photos, films, manifestos, music, whole life stories, etc.), and then – thanks to the media’s  another most significant mode, that of interactivity, offering the possibility of making it all available to any and all, for the first time in history – to sell this “product” of ours (we as product!) to the whole planet, if that’s what our desirous yet vacuous imagination wants, or to a tailor-made circle of targets. And duly receive in return the same from those to whom we are digitally peddling our stuff. Which in turn makes us reciprocate with more (and, hopefully, better) of the same, and the digitally mediated whirl of mimetic rivalry is getting more and more involving and powerful. Our mimetic rivals obviously are in the same boat just trying as we are to stay afloat, all of us leading a double vicarious life of self-deception.

Nothing of the sort would be possible were it not for the all-pervasive all-interconnecting digital media. Now McLuhan posited that the media in general speed up our evolution by actually being “extensions” of the human sensory apparatus, of the central nervous system that includes the brain itself. Our mind is then seen as a culturally and historically evolved form of sensation. (Are we not close to Buddhist thought here?) And precisely on account of this effect McLuhan made a claim that the media are themselves the message. They imperceptibly “massage” users and are in a way more important than their content. He went on to say that users are the real content of the media because the media shape them in accordance with their logic. And while he missed and never focused on the role of mimetic desire in man, including, and preeminently so, as mediated by the “implosive” mass media of our time that he investigated, his theory nevertheless continues to be of help also with regard to understanding which senses come to play bigger and bigger role with each ascendant mass medium, and what it means for human consciousness and the overarching sense of self, the very self that Rene Girard has shown so convincingly to be ineluctably mimetic.

It goes without saying that the impact of the media on man is not only beneficent, as the above description of negative mimesis clearly illustrates. While being fully aware of that, McLuhan nevertheless also claimed that “under electronic conditions” the Christian concept of the mystical body of Christ with all men as its members becomes technologically a fact. Somehow in line with this notion tactility is believed to be the primary sense for the digital media, with the visually-based media forming one of its “grounds.” This subsumption of vision under tactility may be leading us ultimately towards a more "hands on" approach to life, since McLuhan regarded sound and touch as affording a more intuitive and realistic though subjective grasp of the universe, and certainly less illusory than vision with its apparent yet misleading “objectivity.” 

If the above holds true, our mimetic nature is being evolutionarily enhanced, and at the same time overwhelmed, by the digital mass media of today. It is obvious then that man is in urgent need for true spiritual grounding and anchoring in order to thrive or even survive. Christian contemplation must become a crucial part of man’s spiritual pilgrimage aiming as it does at returning to harmony with oneself (or, these days, with one’s unhinged self) by means of getting back in touch (tactile Presence!) with the divine, while maintaining a listening receptivity to God’s word. The universe we intuitively grasp then is anchored within our hearts, and from that vantage point we are better able to see negative mimetic desires for what they are. We just might be able to substitute for them those consistent with the promptings of our positive model/mediator and to see our neighbor and the whole universe through the eyes of compassion and mercy, through His eyes. To free ourselves from enslavement to mimetic rivalry so that we could live in the freedom of the only positive mimetic desire there is, in the freedom of loving mimesis, in imitatio Christi.