Interdividual as a Gestalt

Why are  our takeaways from Rene Girard’s mimetic theory on many occasions seemingly so diametrically different? And does it have to be that way? In a world of competing narratives, is there a way of apprehending the whole, without necessarily having to predict or work out any final outcome in dialectic-like fashion? In his last works Girard apparently, though with some reserve, points to such a possibility, yet Girardians seem on the whole to disregard it. That includes Christians among us. The reason might be that gaining such apprehension would have to go hand in hand with, it is feared, an excessively demanding way of living.

With only tentative status in mimetic theory, and probably never meant to have any other, this solution is called “innermost mediation,” that of Christ. Able to reconcile rather than just reciprocate, capable of giving us the peace of what Girard calls “good transcendence” in the face of rampant internal mediation, it also affords a corresponding perceptual faculty that enables seeing from the perspective of  Pascal’s “exact point,” from the true place of charity within us. A charity that sees life with its capacity for transformation. And though it is about much more than just seeing or understanding, to get a sense of what is involved with regard to holistic perception we might find it worthwhile to avail ourselves of insights that Gestalt theory could provide. I will turn to it later.

Calling ourselves Girardians implies that we have acquired a body of knowledge that we appreciate, and a specific terminology we use. But when Girard ventures into areas and times that bear on us directly just as we interact with one another, we tend to fall back on our preexisting ideas and values, such as our reading of Girard has not been able to change.  On the contrary, it seems to us that mimetic theory only managed to bolster all of our cherished attitudes. That it has given us new tools to all the more adroitly defend our positions, to be able to show how pusillanimous if not plain stupid or evil are those of our rivals. In fact, appreciating what role competition plays in man seems to have imparted a zest to it in our eyes, thus allowing us to better compete with one another rather than sensitizing us to the dangers of it.

Nowhere is it better evident than when Girard speaks of two modern totalitarianisms, one being an updated version of what normally is associated with the term, the kind that in effect repudiates the Christian concern for victims; the other – called super-Christianity, epitomized by political correctness – being a stance where seemingly the only value left is the care of the victim, official Christianity actually seen as oppressive and victim-producing. Not entering into a thorough debate on the above, suffice it to state that the former, even when watered down and shading into the middle via its “patriotic” versions, is still redolent of the sacred and its attendant violence perpetrated IN THE NAME AND FOR THE SAKE OF THE COLLECTIVE, often unashamedly so. The latter, while priding itself on having expulsed violence altogether, unwittingly employs softer, “civilized” versions of it to make sure that the very violence it ostensibly shuns does not rear its ugly head, meanwhile spreading victimhood culture, all of that apparently FOR THE SAKE OF THE INDIVIDUAL, his rights and freedoms.

It should be clear to any reader of Girard that he has not sided with either of those alternatives. Can thus adherents of either in good faith call themselves Girardians? But can man NOT be on either side of the divide? Even if that is what Girard was apparently trying to do himself, whilst, in his last works, explicitly showing us the dangers of mimetic contagion escalating to extremes? Even knowing that failing to see the whole situation for what it really is and taking sides, thus succumbing to the contagion, would amount to fueling its flames?

Now being in the middle of the fray obviously makes seeing the danger and heeding his warning virtually impossible. But even stepping out of it will not make it much easier, a realization backed up by Gestalt psychology’s principles of visual perception. Even when we see two distinct objects, yet such as we sense that cannot exist without each other, we can only see one of them as figure, the other then being vaguely perceived as its mere ground. We can switch, especially when instructed and directed to do so, but even knowing that the two figures coexist in the picture, we will not be able to make them out at the same time. Only sequential perception is possible. This being so, we attempt to all the more clearly differentiate between figure and ground in order to avoid or minimize perceptual confusion. But by thus giving free rein to left-brain focused attention, we waive attempts to gain a comprehensive awareness or intuition of the whole.

The above is a useful description or metaphor of our societal predicament: instead of seeing the whole “Girardian” picture, we see as figure that which we perceive as relatively smaller and better defined, which most often happens to be us and our embattled position in need of defense – against the less defined, if not amorphous, but larger and thus threatening background, although a reverse seeing and classification is also possible. We also tend to paint everything in black and white, again applying the gestalt principle of contrast between figure and ground. All of that goes to underscore that if we stop defending our position, defending ourselves, that is, we will be swamped by the expanding morass that is this threatening, attacking background (and of course if it’s we who attack it’s only because it’s the best defense). Lacking our valiant effort, our “moral majority” will immediately become a demoralized minority, possibly in danger of being violently scapegoated. Signs of this happening are writ large, are burned into our minds.

Ours is a complex gestalt configuration. Not only we apparently cannot exist without each other, but, moreover, there is an ambiguity in the “we,” as it is “they” that seem to constitute us, corresponding to the ambiguity of the figure-ground relationship of the gestalt. And consequently, Girard’s description of our modern, post-Christian situation can also be seen as ambiguous, in the sense that it could be interpreted as supporting either side. Of course that ambiguity can be done away with rather easily, but many a time only temporarily: in a flash of insight throwing in bold relief our understanding, suddenly retrieved from the “Girardian” gestalt, that ostensibly supports one side only, one that happens to be ours. It has been done in the past, is being done, and will be done in the future. It should thus be incumbent upon us to recognize that movement within while striving to see the big picture.

In our modern world, when compensating for this ambiguity, instead of all of us ganging up on a single scapegoat, we paradoxically tend to accord to our rivals, both on the individual and the societal level, a symmetrical status with that of ours. Fed by doubt as much as by a spirit of mimetic competition, we tend to split into groupings of almost equal number or strength. Thus our gestalt configuration becomes symmetrical, regular, “logical,” and thus that much easier to perceive AS A WHOLE. If we do not avail ourselves of this opportunity on most occasions, it is because we almost never adopt a point of view that would enable it, mired as we are in the mimetic fray. And on the individual level this internally-mediated rivalry whose object is the being of the other, is accompanied by a split within ourselves, again down the middle. In our life’s hall of mirrors there is a constant tug of war born of reflecting the other. That is the whole that we are as mimetic in(ter)dividuals.

If mimetic theory does not support either side of the contemporary mimetic rivalry, it does provide a grammar with which to describe the human predicament. It paints a holistic picture. With a sage like Rene Girard it could not have been otherwise, that is what makes him a thinker of stature. He knew that he would have destroyed the magnificent edifice of his anthropology had he done otherwise. His effort at a dialectical solution was tentative at best if there was one, exhorting to imitate Christ rather than capping his theory with Jesus’ innermost mediation as paradigmatic for man’s survival, one necessarily predicated on a forgiveness that would enable man to maintain Christ-like innocence when victimized. An innocence grounded in His charitable seeing. But Girard has managed to sensitize us to the mechanism that underlies the never-ending gestalt that we are as societies and individuals – that of the mimetic pattern of successive otherization and undifferentiation. That is a prerequisite enabling us to freeze-frame this flowing gestalt if we really wanted.

Being sensitized, acquiring a truly comprehensive point of view, also makes for being able to flip between the figure and the ground of our gestalt, in their changing capacity. The most creative gestalt configurations are the easily reversible ones, those with figure-ground boundaries blurred and their sizes and “densities” nearly equal. And instead of seeing and fearing an approaching undifferentiation, it is much more fruitful to see in them an inbuilt creative ambiguity. Such as is also characteristic of mimetic theory’s open-ended description of the human fate.

Ambiguity is evident, for one, in the realization that we are INTERDIVIDUALS, with our boundaries blurred because in fact they are constituted by the other, or rather by our perception of the other. Our mimetically-mediated relationships are ambiguous, meaning that the figure that one part of us currently is could the next minute be the ground, and vice-versa, as we mirror each other and experience the constant tension of mediated desires that rise and subside seemingly equally on both sides of whatever divide we perceive at the moment. That which makes us human beings also makes us unable to exist as humans in isolation, without one another – and yet we are more than the sum of its codependent parts. The seeming chaos that modern society is, in fact is a kind of order. If we but apprehended that, we would know that we are the ultimate Gestalt. We are God’s good creation.