Man’s Mimesis and Liberal Capitalism: Handmaids of Global Moral Change

Why is it that Western liberal moral attitudes are spreading virtually unchecked in some societies while so many people in others are scandalized by them, despite the fact that all those societies are seemingly being affected by similar globalization processes? Does it have to do with those societies’ relative closeness or distance vis-à-vis those of the West?

As always it is also worthwhile to ask in this context, or once again realize, what is the ultimate source of the moral message now associated with liberal capitalism. 

I am convinced that trying to integrate Jonathan Haidt's insights concerning man’s moral foundations into a Girardian mimetic framework is a worthwhile exercise. As has been aptly noticed, the insights of Girard and Haidt can supplement, and perhaps also correct, each other in important ways, offering a fuller picture when brought into dialogue with each other than either does on its own.

Consequently, I am also persuaded that those interplaying insights could be applied equally fruitfully now that Haidt is charting new territories, ones that from a different angle have been covered by Girard, if only incidentally (but more fully by some of his followers): man’s moral foundations with liberal capitalism as a global moral trend-setter, on the one hand, and man’s mimetic endowment as a volatile global dynamic, on the other. Scrutinizing how changes in the former might be influenced by the latter certainly promises to be rewarding.

First a few broad strokes on the situation in the West, the springboard for both theories.

Man’s moral foundations in a post-Christian world… My take on it, following the general approach of Girard and many others, is that the role of Jesus in setting in motion a process of revolutionary change starting in His homeland was fundamental. The spreading of His message, gradual and halting as it has been, is normally ascribed by Christians to supernatural causes. But the obvious truth is that only now – in a post-Christian world – are some of those changes coming to fruition, arguably with the help of liberal capitalism.

Now Jesus’ strongest concern was for the victims and the underprivileged. And so two millennia ago He set about virtually subverting those moral foundations that could not be brought in line with this paramount concern of His, especially that of the sanctity understood as pollution-avoidance, while also redefining the others [I covered that here: http://walterwilkans.blogspot.com/2015/11/jesus-paradigm-shift-in-mans-moral.html ]. But this process of cultural change is also bearing bitter fruit these days, as exemplified by the growth of victimhood culture, which apparently represents a perversion of the Christian message, including in the way it handles the issue of justice.

But why is it that some people in the West still espouse values grounded on a broader set of moral foundations, arguably thus obfuscating the primacy of victim-care, while others, seemingly including most victim advocates, apparently on a truncated one, but one where justice often is understood in an idiosyncratic if not self-serving fashion? Among many possible explanations there is one based on how capitalist liberal modernity is embraced by that system’s haves, while being rejected by its have-nots. While that might seem very simplistic, those (relative) haves and the have-nots are often taken to be mindsets given to ressentiment, which disposition not necessarily or not fully is reflective of reality.  

Mimetic theory could actually supplement the above. Let me just point to the obvious fact that Western societies currently are in a state of permanent internal mediation, with a constant threat of it breaking into scapegoating and eventually violence. The democratic electoral system actually contributes – at least for the time being – to this state being permanent, while at the same to disabling its potentially violent consequences. Just look at how many election returns are close to 50/50: voters on both sides get entrenched in their positions, while violent intergroup scapegoating on a large scale is made virtually impossible. And once you join a mimetic crowd on either side you tend to stay with it for the duration, thus reinforcing also in the process those moral preferences of yours that went into the making of your political choice.

Now in a globalizing world increasingly, and more and more rapidly, embracing some at least aspects of modern capitalism, there are indications of some of the same processes at work in places and in peoples far away from the West – and not so far away.

Those closer to home, especially in the Moslem world do not seem to be taking too well to liberal capitalism’s apparent concern for victims, though their populations certainly have considerable pockets of wealth and leisure associated in the West with such attitudes. Why?

Mimetic theory comes in handy: they are the West’s mimetic twins, en bloc, as a society. Both cultures are mutually locked in an internal mediation that does often these days actually erupt into violence. This type of mimetic reciprocity obviously largely prevents the Moslems’ acting as individuals open to what, good or bad, modern capitalism has to offer. And that seemingly includes victim care. The status of the woman is a case in point: blanket defense of their cultural/religious positions entails being closed to pertinent moral argumentation or sensitivity. And obviously the moral foundations of the regular Moslem cannot but be a solid full set, yet such where especially justice and care differ considerably from their Western equivalents, while liberty is brought into the service of the community. 

But globalization is spreading apace, capable of undermining, if not undoing, some of their shared attitudes. Social media’s role cannot be  overestimated. Yet, the more and the deeper the inroads of modernity, the more intense the internal mediation – and the more violence: such is one largely unintended, and ultimately sinister, result of social media’s presence in the Moslem world. From the perspective of the defenders of tradition, both self-appointed and official, this is how the modicum of modern capitalist attitudes they allowed and the Western technologies they failed to fully control at home, are all coming home to roost. Consequently, those attitudes must be eradicated, and technologies pressed exclusively into their own service, or at least brought under control, also at their source in the West. The insidious model/obstacle has to be eliminated. Thus the jihad brought on by an internal mediation with the West that has escalated to extremes is seen as a justifiable defensive stance. While the West in a knee-jerk fashion duly responds with the “defense of democracy” posture or involvement on the ground. Globalization enveloping mimetic doubles!

The same apparent set of outer circumstances, including a history of being subjected to Western colonialism and/or exploitation and/or war, does not result today in the same attitudes in such Far Eastern countries as China, but also Korea, Japan and others; and, astonishingly to some, Vietnam. There is good reason for that: they do not seem to see or experience the Westerners, and consequently Westerners them, as their mimetic doubles. It obviously has to do with their “native” religions and cultures being fundamentally so different from that of the West (as opposed to the latter and Islam). Probably also with the geographic distance, and, some would argue, also with the relative lesser genetic proximity. All of that makes them relatively much more secure about their identity when facing the West, and certainly much less threatened in that respect as compared to Islamic culture. The result is that their undeniably mimetic approach to the West (and vice versa) is one of external mediation, not internal. This allows their societies’ acting vis-à-vis the West in a diversified way, reflective of their members’ individual status in society (not in the largely en bloc fashion characteristic of the Moslem world, which tends to mask internal divisions).

The importance of the vilified globalization for the intersocietal distribution of liberal capitalist attitudes, including victim care, needs to be emphasized in this context. The Far East seems to be in love with globalization, benefitting from it considerably as a whole, and seemingly glossing over its sinister consequences, for the time being at least. But the latter is starting to change to some extent, the environment now seen by some as “victim” too.

Now the growing sensitivity to the fate of victims can plausibly be ascribed to Far Eastern beneficiaries of globalization taking their mimetic cues from their well-to-do Western counterparts, both groups actually living in a global village enabled by the media that capitalism developed and made available, with the rapidly growing role of social media. Oddly to some, but predictably for others, their sense of justice seems to be taking on the self-serving quality of many liberal Westerners, and that in a social environment that is much harsher economically than that in the West. 

Whereas, in a seeming cultural reversal, among the denizens of the post-Christian West there are considerable populations lacking this “victim” sensitivity or outrightly intolerant of its aims and the underlying moral message, which lack of sensitivity in the Far East they share mostly with their less-well-to-do equivalents.

This situation actually throws in bold relief another facet of globalization – and human mimesis, for that matter – that of the apparent affinity of people on analogous rungs of their respective societies. Accusations on the part of defenders of traditions, of disloyalty leading to intrasocietal disintegration and atomization of their societies thus seem justifiable. Yet modern man – busy caring for his/her choice victims, as s/he is – couldn’t care less, if s/he understands them at all. S/he is a free (wo)man, a free moral agent, after all. 

And that in turn makes it all the more easy for global corporations to conduct their global operations on a global scale – manifesting a third aspect of globalization, the most hated one. Man’s mimetic desire – at its most potent, volatile and fragile, but still largely nonviolent, or with violence well-hidden – may finally be seen here for what it naturally is or at least can be: a force of globalization. Globalization feeding on mimetic desire and working with it hand in hand – on both sides of the consumer/purveyor divide.

A few final thoughts:

Is it really justifiable to see the above, as many critics of globalization do, as a case of brinksmanship placing us all squarely but one small (mis)step away from apocalypse (not to mention the inherent rampant injustices of that process)? 

To be able to answer the first part of this question in the negative with justified assurance or hope the third Girardian mediation, the innermost mediation, would have to be introduced on a meaningful scale. In the (post-)Christian world it can only be centered on Christ, as Rene Girard made it clear. But the Far East with its rich antinomic spiritual concepts such as wu-wei, is certainly capable of providing solid foundations for its own brand or equivalent of innermost mediation. Kenosis seems to be implicit in wu-wei, just as it is pivotal in the case of true Christ-centered innermost mediation, boding well at least for man’s potential to get a handle on his mimetic desire – both East and West. But will there be enough humans mediating others into vast and peaceful expanses of their own souls for them to find there the source of their own innermost mediation – before we all self-destruct? 

In the Far East the issue is still moot, as manifested also by counterproductive calls in China to reject "Western values" and to re-embrace instead the traditional Confucian ones. Such calls can only lead that civilization into an internal mediation with the West that seemingly so far has largely been avoided. The West would then duly follow suit. (Yet Japan’s post-second-world-war history clearly demonstrates that such a development is not predetermined). 

But the issue is moot also in the West – and it would be so even in the absence of any mimetic twins closer home that are making moving in the right direction all the more difficult. The West is seemingly closer to the brink also as a result of its own internal mimetic processes, as aptly described by Girard, resulting in a situation where delusion and blindness reign.  

Could it be though that the West’s and the East’s mutual mirroring of each other at the level of external mediation that we are witnessing actually is contributing to our survival as a species at this arguably late and inherently dangerous stage of man’s development? 

We on both sides should be wary of espying ourselves in the mimetic mirror, instead of our partners in that largely mutually beneficial and nurturing mimesis, with its rather clearly differentiated yet dynamically adjusting roles, including economic ones. Before too long we would see in that mirror certain features we would be anxious about, such as resentment or hatred, and then would project them onto our newly created mimetic twins. We know it pretty well from elsewhere.

But we must not let apocalypse loom all the lager on the horizon. In this mimesis-driven globalizing world of interdividuals let us mutually keep respectful distance. If it required falling back on Christ-centered innermost mediation or, respectively, on the practice of wu-wei, so much the better for all of us if we would heed that call.