Charles Taylor’s near-classic essay (first published in 1992) “The Politics of Recognition” actually focused on contemporary demands of equal recognition, as in, ”Democracy has ushered in a politics of equal recognition,…” a problem obviously fraught with rivalry. It gets further confounded with the introduction of the term “identity,” as in demanding equal recognition of one’s identity in relation to others’ identities, for “identity” actually points in two opposite directions: towards the “identical,” as well as towards the “individual,” as in everyone’s (or every group's) individual, different or even diverse (as well as supposedly authentic) identities. “You can have diversity within a shared sense of identity. And if you don’t have that shared sense of identity, it’s going to be very divisive,” warns Jonathan Haidt in another of his recent talks.
The apt title of Ralph Shain’s essay (from 2008) specifically asks, “Is Recognition a Zero-Sum Game?,” which he himself doesn’t really answer, but many thinkers, including Francis Fukuyama, do answer it in the affirmative, considering meaningful recognition as always being relative or hierarchical and relational. Also, stressing “equal recognition” results in other descriptions, reflective of social polarization, gaining significance, such as differentiation-undifferentiation, or the Haidtian centrifugal-centripetal. We’re smack-dab in the middle of a world of rivalrous mimesis. I would argue that zero-sum and scarcity vs positive sum and abundance is a particularly apt descriptive pair here, parallel to the Christian creative and abundant living vs destructive and rivalrous living, which in turn parallels (Christian) conversion and lack thereof.
Zero-sum here is illuminating also because it points to at least two additional issues:
1. one’s authentic identity is quickly perceived as – at the most – identical in terms of received recognition, whereas, despite that ostensibly being demanded all along, in the heat of mimetic recognition rivalry what is really fought for is getting the upper hand for one’s identity. [And that would have to come at the expense of the rival(s).]
2. the lingering suspicion, in fact one of the crucial reasons for outbreaks of rivalry, that the granting of equal recognition is either insincere, forced (whereas it should be voluntary and forthcoming), or an outright sham, not providing anything of real value to the demanding party. That – in other words – the stronger party doesn’t want to share their recognition “resources.”
Which last point returns us to power politics, and of course struggle for power is most liable to become zero-sum, if it does not belong to the zero-sum domain par excellence. If so, despite a changing social and cultural milieu, with honor cultures giving way in the West to a dignity culture, with its universalist principle of recognizing everyone’s equal dignity, the ostensible struggle for equal recognition cannot but continue.
But is it really about equal recognition? And why should it be if for the mimetically desirous man it feels like a zero-sum game? Certainly equal recognition of each individual or group unique identity – our current game – feels like one (whereas that of universal equal dignity arguably need not: whether grounded in man's autonomy and reason or in religious beliefs, it relies relatively less on, or even tends to deemphasize, reciprocity). Contributing to loss of a shared sense of identity, aided and abetted by man’s rivalry-prone mimetic endowment, it has brought on a victimhood culture, which I would not characterize even as paying lip service to equal recognition. Whether out of a sense of outraged powerlessness or driven by a sense of urgency and a spirit of rivalry, various societal underdogs seemingly decided, for all practical purposes, that they will not be fooled by equality mumbo-jumbo. In venues like American universities the arsenal of those anti-establishment warriors or latter-day revolutionaries has been aptly described by Jonathan Haidt. But as he points out, the fight currently fought on many “victim” fronts is in the process of converging to become intersectional, taking into account and exploiting interactions of discriminatory effects, (aiming at) producing a final and perfect polarization of all societal underdogs, as they perceive themselves, united against those perceived by them as presently wielding power.
What will happen if at that stage, which is still shaping up, the protagonists – we as divided, with none staying on the sidelines! – are roughly evenly matched? The latter is true already, as indubitably borne out by a slew of recent elections, but “victimhood recognition” conflicts are still raging on many distinct planes, and not everybody yet seemingly has succumbed to the virulence of those many mimetic contagions. Bugle calls to “intersectional” communion have not yet met with resounding undifferentiating success, but there are harbingers of that on the horizon, as alluded to by Haidt. Will the "victimizers" oblige and respond in kind? Still Haidt is actually rather optimistic concerning American academe, though not necessarily the other venues, where he seems to be hedging his bets. So, "be alarmed, but do not despair." The fine-tuned machinery of liberal democracy is showing considerable wear and tear, and is seemingly about to come apart even as its denizen mechanics are coming apart at the seams – and yet it just might be able to withstand the age of outrage, just as it did so many prior threats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe6-QSnQTdg
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Painting Oneself Into Zero-Sum Mimesis: Not an Acquisitiveness- But Rather “Recognition”-Driven Process of Undifferentiation
The titular “undifferentiation” needs to be seen against an existing or (re)introduced differentiation. Girard claims that out of an undifferentiation-produced disorder and mayhem there (re)appears a degree of order, historically by means of sacrifice, then (fortified-by-myth) ritual, initially as part of a religion, then law, which eventually (or hopefully) becomes secularized and forms a judicial system. It should be obvious though that this dialectical societal process can actually be entered at any time and at any point of what seems a virtual continuum of opposites of a changeable and unstable equilibrium. Today, moreover, in a civilization ostensibly built around the idea of equality, it is rather differentiation, one that seems to, insidiously or openly and forcefully, assert or reintroduce itself, or at least is seen as operative in the world around us, that arguably is the major trigger for subsequent violent undifferentiating mimesis. Today this differentiation, or rather the difference advanced by it, always demands equal recognition and respect, at least where such a demand stands a chance of being attended to, as is the case in the West. And Girard of course knows pretty well that differentiation may be as violent as the undifferentiation, when claiming for example that Nietzsche was entranced with violent differentiation.
Whether differentiation- or undifferentiation-driven, the resulting mimetic process may push us back into a zero-sum, or Malthusian-like, world of conflict that is unresolvable by means other than expropriation of the Other – of whatever the object matter of the conflict might be. However, it should be obvious that more often than not this matter today does not belong to the “real object” category, despite what Girard was wont to say in his last works:
“…humans oppose one another over real objects. It is the desire to acquire, much more than the desire for recognition, that quickly degenerates into what I call metaphysical desire, whereby the subject seeks to acquire the being of his or her model. At such times, I want ‘to be what the other becomes when he possesses this or that object.’ How does it happen? In a much more concrete and violent manner than the ‘desire for recognition.’”… “The fight to the death is thus much more than a simple desire for recognition.” (from Battling to the End)
Now as far as “real objects” are concerned we are still living today in a world that is growing, as we have been for quite a while now. While we still might vie for them as it was a matter of life and death, instead of settling for their substitutions (that is what mimetic rivalry is all about), it is only in the realm of emotionally-colored “virtual objects,” such as recognition, respect, honor, etc., or – preeminently so for Girard – the Other’s being, but here appearing specifically as bearer of and one capable of bestowing or withholding those aforementioned qualities, that we reenter a Malthusian-like world of scarcity that today seems more unbearable than it has ever been. It is also well on its way to becoming deadlier than ever.
“The ultimate meaning of desire is death…” That’s how the concluding chapter of Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel begins. Yet “a simple renunciation of desire I don't think is Christian; it's more Buddhist,” says the author in an interview with Rebecca Adams in November 1992, ["Violence, Difference, Sacrifice: A Conversation with René Girard" in Religion and Literature 25, no. 2 ( 1993): 9-33.] Yet one is left to wonder whether Girard believes it is ultimately impossible to renounce desire and thus it is better to forgo even attempting such futile exercises, or he doesn’t want us to be unchristian. Similarly tolerance seems to be frowned upon for all practical purposes.
To avoid this death, the death of spirit if not physical death, Girard advocates conversion, which consists in imitation of a worthy model. The call to this type of imitation sounds clearly in his essay, published originally as "How Can Satan Cast out Satan?": “Mimetic desire is good, it is even very good, the best thing in the world, since it is the only road to the true God.” But then a note of caution: “But it is the same as human freedom, and it is also the road to Satan... When mimetic rivalry is triggered, the two competing desires ceaselessly reinforce each other and violence is likely to erupt. But mimetic rivalry is not satanic to begin with, it is not sinful per se, it is only a permanent occasion of sin.”
The crucial thing is that there are two principles operative in mimetic desire, that of Jesus Christ, a creative one, leading to abundant living, and that of Satan, a rivalrous and destructive one, leading to scarcity for all: “Both Jesus and Satan are teachers of imitation and imitators themselves, imitators of God the Father. This means that human beings always imitate God, either through Jesus or through Satan. They seek God indirectly through the human models they imitate… What is the difference between the mimetic desire of Jesus and the mimetic desire of Satan? The difference is that Satan imitates God in a spirit of rivalry. Jesus imitates God in a spirit of childlike and innocent obedience and this is what he advises us to do as well. Since there is no acquisitive desire in God, the docile imitation of God cannot generate rivalry.”
So after all not always does desire amount to death. Yet desire, invariably mimetic, remains potentially sinister throughout Girard’s oeuvre, as that part of human spiritual endowment which is in constant danger of degenerating into deadly forms, of spurring rivalrous, then conflictual and ultimately violent mimesis. In view of this the compiler of The Girardian Reader (1996), James G. Williams, was right when characterizing, in the glossary to the book, one preeminently virulent form of desire in the following way:
"Metaphysical Desire. As mimetic or interdividual beings we associate being or reality with In struggles with the model-rival, and particularly when the subject seems to come to a dead-end against the model-obstacle, it becomes apparent from a mimetic analysis that the subject wants the being of the model-mediator. This is the source of fascination, hypnosis, idolatry, the 'double', and possession. The experience of the double occurs when the model-obstacle as overpowering other is so internalized that the subject does not experience a distinction of self and the model-mediator. The extreme alternatives are suicide or murder of the model-obstacle. Other possibilities are schizophrenia, escape into a new identity, and liberation through the release experienced in love and forgiveness. This latter is the work of a good or conversionary mimesis." (the emphasis is mine.)
Thus if “The ultimate meaning of desire is death,” it is actually “grasped” by murder – or suicide, in a veritable spirit of undifferentiation! A 2002 WHO World Report on Violence and Health, quoted in Girard’s Evolution and Conversion. Dialogues on the Origins of Culture, says that in 80 different countries half of violent deaths were caused by suicide, while the majority of homicides were committed within the family (which strongly indicates their mimetic causes).
But what tends to be the scene against which such deadly sentiments are aroused in interacting interdividuals? Certainly not such where both participants (or both sides, in a group setting) could be expected to benefit from their interaction. Is it not assumed here that only one of the participants, or sides, would be able to benefit from this interaction that all of a sudden becomes rivalry? That would certainly be the case if the interaction was a zero-sum game. And it seems that this is what the mimetic horizon appears to be on emotional level to those remaining under its spell, albeit many a time un-self-consciously.
Un-self-consciously… being ignorant about one’s state, unable to even attempt to be rational or behave in such fashion, as an autonomous modern person would be expected to – though one’s every move might feel as an exercise of one’s autonomy. Guided by unchecked emotions, by a virulent affect not liable to be controlled or even recognized. Overwhelmed by a tide of intersubjectively- or, to be more precise, mimetically-generated unrestrainable emotions, and thus additionally irrational in the sense of not being able even to ascertain that one is participating in a zero-sum game. (The mimetic mechanism in general, just like the scapegoat mechanism, its violent outgrowth, is normally invisible to the regular man.) And that is crucial: mimesis of desire in a situation of abundance need not turn deadly, although it certainly may. But mimesis of desire in a zero-sum situation tends to be deadly by default.
It bears noting here that this distinction need not map one-to-one onto that between external and internal mediation. Neither does it coincide with yet another distinction introduced by Girard – already alluded to, one not as pivotal to his theory albeit much referred to in his later works, as well as engaged in a very partisan spirit, that between the desire for recognition and the desire to acquire real objects. The quote from Battling to the End, “The fight to the death is thus much more than a simple desire for recognition,” cited above, continues: ”… It is not a master-slave dialectic, but a merciless battle between twins.”
It is all fine in Hegelian terms, obviously referred to here to critique the philosopher’s frameworks, but nowadays the distinction is either spurious, terminological, or one of degree only. It has nothing to do with a “master-slave dialectic” anymore, the mimetic rivalry certainly is not about (gaining) the acknowledgement of one’s lordship. It misrecognizes the importance of emotions driven by a modern spirit of equality. It is attended paradoxically by the inability to stop framing, for all intents and purposes although un-self-consciously, the resulting all-consuming struggle in zero-sum terms – on account of an unstable and dysfunctional equilibrium created by the protagonists’ emotional entanglement. In this climate the winner takes all, if only for a moment. Both rivals are ever threatened by a downward spiral where the desire understood or initially framed as one for equal recognition (however it is understood, whether as that of everyone’s, universal equal dignity, or rather of each individual’s, group’s or culture’s unique identity), degenerates, ever suspicious of the Other’s intentions or real attitudes, into a desire to overpower and/or control one’s model-obstacle, that bearer of an elusive standing that the one feeling momentarily inferior wants to appropriate for oneself. The futility of that exercise, the inability to secure that state permanently, makes the protagonists monstrous doubles, mutually turning their respective twins into objects, and eventually seeking to appropriate them, or, as Girard puts it, to acquire their respective twins’ being. Again, in the other’s eyes they all of a sudden become possessed of superior if not sacred dignity, status, worth, claims to being in the moral right, etc., hardly “real objects” at all. This may be happening initially or potentially in a sequence, depending on the vicissitudes of their rivalry. Escalating to extremes all that can turn deadly, into murder or suicide.
Since the sought-for “recognition” remains relative, which also has to do with its being so elusive and transitory, in a modern world that persists as intolerant if not (officially) hierarchical anymore, this kind of “acquisition” clearly belongs in a zero-sum realm. It is driven by emotions and not rational considerations, as human interactions in zero-sum situations tend to turn irrational. Girard is clearly wrong in his assertions of the relatively benign implications of the desire for recognition as compared with purely acquisitiveness-based mimetic desire, as he defines both types, at least in their current manifestations. With identity politics and victim status used as tools to control one’s rival, it is the contemporary pursuit of recognition, (per thinkers like Fukuyama always a zero-sum game), rather than simple acquisitiveness which normally is not (or at least need not be), that is a model game of murder/suicide. Today “acquisition of another’s being” in a mimetic exchange may in fact more often than not be a final transmogrification or extreme intensification, in a climate of uncertainty and instability, of an initial (mutual) pursuit of equal recognition of one’s (respective) uniqueness. This actual stressing of difference may in fact lead to ultimate undifferentiation, when driven to the extreme limit of threatened annihilation. It is when it does not stop there, murder (or suicide) follows.
Examples used by Girard do not make a strong case for his proposed distinction. His statement, from Battling to the End: “There was no ‘desire for recognition’ between the Tutsis and Hutus, but a twin-like rivalry that went to extremes and degenerated into genocide. Take the Middle East, where the massacres of Sunnis and Shiites will only increase in the months and years to come. In this case also it cannot be said that one is seeking ‘recognition’ from the other: rather, each one wants to exterminate the other, which is very different,” is not convincing; especially the first illustration verges on disregard of history. Both of these historical developments can be traced back to a stage of differentiation. In the first case, it was aggravated by a colonial power, and eventually went beyond what in modern terms can be described, perhaps a bit anachronistically, as demand on the part of the aggrieved side for recognition of their (now outraged) dignity by their compatriots, into an ethnic-identity-driven struggle for redress and (reverse) domination, and eventually into genocide. The other rivalry started as an internecine feud among coreligionists over divergent claims to the legitimacy of succession as caliph to prophet Muhammad, and today is liable to violent eruptions out of a state of mutual enmity. In any case, very little seems to justify describing both rivalries in terms of acquisitive mimesis over “real objects” gone to extremes.
“Both Hegel and Nietzsche understood modern political democracy to be a secularized version of the Christian doctrine of the universal equality of human dignity. Hegel in particular saw developments in the material world such as the French Revolution and the emergence of the principle of equal recognition as the working out of the inner logic of human rationality.” (Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy)
In the past the actual acceptance of hierarchical structures in society was a bulwark against recognition-, respect- and honor-colored issues being a constant threat to those very structures, and thus to societal peace as well, on many possible, especially inter-hierarchical, planes of potential conflict. [To use a cliché by way of illustration: If the master used his “lord’s right,” or primae noctis privilege, that was not (allowed to be) considered an infringement of the husband’s honor, whereas obviously the same sexual act outside of marriage with equal-status participants would be just that.] That type of bulwark is gone now.
If a Malthusian world has now reappeared in the West it has done so in a new guise, against the modern backdrop of ostensible equality. And Hegel's concept of recognition may be instrumental in explaining its ascent, although not in ways the philosopher may have hoped for: in many of its current manifestations it introduces anything but rationality or freedom, especially when feeding much of today’s identity politics. Moreover, whereas in the past zero-sum descriptions could justifiably refer not only to emotionally-colored honor, respect or recognition issues but to economic ones as well, it is not the latter that are mostly in play now. A Mercedes Benz can as easily be had by a ressentiment-driven religious fanatic on a mission to avenge an imagined dishonor as by anyone in the West.
Since he asserted that the difference separating sacrifice as collective murder of a third party and sacrifice of self in order not to have any third victim killed cannot possibly be greater, Girard for a long time resisted applying the same term “sacrifice” to both events. When he eventually changed his mind, one might say that undifferentiation symbolically triumphed.
As noted in the opening paragraph, violent undifferentiating mimesis pushes us back into a zero-sum world of conflict seemingly unresolvable by means other than expropriation of the Other, possibly symbolically of the Other’s “being,” especially in a recognition-colored struggle or the like, but ultimately of that Other’s real life. Or – of one’s own life; but not necessarily the life of a suicide. Indeed, it may be that of a martyr sacrificing himself in the name of love. Yet an unfortunate fact becomes clear now: the only common denominator that apparently exists in such a zero-sum process of undifferentiation is violence. And it is only with Jesus Christ, and with Christ-like martyrs, those who absorb rather than inflicting violence, that it is able to undergo a transfiguration productive of new abundant life, not just violence-based order.
But then there is “…democratic, suicidal terrorism [that] would prevent any containment of war. Suicide attacks are from this point of view a monstrous inversion of primitive sacrifices: instead of killing victims to save others, terrorists kill themselves to kill others…” (from Battling to the End), arguably again driven by desire of recognition or respect. This type of violence, unlike “primitive” sacrificial violence that reintroduces peace as if despite itself, serves only to incite it to ever higher levels. Whether openly aiming to assert difference or demanding equal recognition of one’s uniqueness, whether religiously-colored or otherwise, it leads to nonexistence, making for an unintended triumph of ultimate undifferentiation.
If it really prevailed, an overwhelming mimetic contagion sweeping unchecked through humanity, undifferentiation would be victorious for good at long last – no new life would be able to sprout from such perverted martyrdom any more, or at least as long as humanity remained in its grip. The zero-sum world of our worst instincts and desires would have collapsed into a zero-world or void as far as mankind was concerned.
Yet in love and forgiveness we should be able to transcend the need to adhere to an illusion of (having to reinstate) difference that drives (self-)murderous frenzy. Instead of being identical in a hatred unto death, we can then be identical in love unto life, hopefully even unto eternal life. And this loving type of undifferentiation must be welcome by the Christian, as well as embraced, if need be, even unto a life-producing death, just like grain that needs to die in order to bear much fruit, to give new life. Just like Gandhi understood especially his final public fasts, always possibly unto death, meant to induce his fellow countrymen to stop their mutual slaughter, to give a life of mutual respect a chance.
It arguably should also be the attitude of the rational man, not unlike what Hegel posited, if only because any other inevitably tends to lead one into deadly forms of mimesis, at least in zero-sum situations.
But can loving mimesis of desire really disentangle us from zero-sum gridlocks, mimetic or otherwise, that inevitably turn violent or even deadly? We know that it not always succeeds; or, rather, it rarely does, if not for lack of trying: loving mimesis needs also to be humble and nonjudgmental in order not to degenerate into its opposite, and that is not at all easy. If so, should we not instead attempt other nonviolent approaches to human interactions, possibly as little mimetic as possible, that might be more successful? The requisites are the same: that they be creative and capable of producing abundant living in the process for both sides of the mimetic exchange.
It seems that the call to imitate Jesus or else risk falling for Satan leaves Girardians, if not Christians in general, with no less-mimetically-charged, or non-mimetic for that matter, middle ground to explore, such as tolerance, not to mention indifference or wholesale desire-renunciation on a Buddhist model. But what then to make of: “Give up a dispute when mimetic rivalry is taking over,” spoken by Girard in the interview concluding The Girardian Reader? Jesus never shied away or flinched from controversy with the Pharisees.
I have devoted my post, Jesus' Case for Tolerance in His Counsel of Perfection, (https://walterwilkans.blogspot.com/2017/02/jesus-case-for-tolerance-in-his-counsel_16.html), as well as large parts another one, The Ultimate Scandal of Withholding Forgiveness, (https://walterwilkans.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-ultimate-scandal-of-withholding.html), (where Matthew 18 is discussed, with its advocacy of shunning the unrepentant, following a lecture on scandal), where I refer to Jesus’ teaching that could be seen as showing practicable ways of avoiding conflictual mimesis when everything else fails, not far from the gist of Girard’s dictum. While some of this teaching might seem less lofty than “turning the other cheek,” or “loving one’s enemies,” it arguably takes account of human propensity to violence and instructs in ways of taking responsibility to stem it before it fully erupts.
One always needs to bear in mind though that, just like love as agape is about being ready to die – to suffer the ultimate renunciation of all rivalry-born desire, out of (mimetic) obedience to the source of love and life, true tolerance, such as is humble and not scandalized even by intolerance, in the end is about it, too. Thus, displaying a truly tolerant disposition means being able to break out of zero-sum traps that our mimetic endowment continuously sets for us to fall into, regardless of the cost.
In humanity’s mimetic world, in fact, genuine tolerance might be found to be agape’s essence, its hidden gem. Aiming a bit lower than its noble paragon, it is arguably able to practically achieve its purposes on a more sustainable basis than love is. That might be the reason for its coming, and having come in the past, under strident attacks, as an allegedly malevolent force in society, from so many quarters (Aristotle comes to mind here, with his “praise” of it as one of the last virtues of a dying society), whereas agape is dealt away by simply being paid lip service only.
Whether differentiation- or undifferentiation-driven, the resulting mimetic process may push us back into a zero-sum, or Malthusian-like, world of conflict that is unresolvable by means other than expropriation of the Other – of whatever the object matter of the conflict might be. However, it should be obvious that more often than not this matter today does not belong to the “real object” category, despite what Girard was wont to say in his last works:
“…humans oppose one another over real objects. It is the desire to acquire, much more than the desire for recognition, that quickly degenerates into what I call metaphysical desire, whereby the subject seeks to acquire the being of his or her model. At such times, I want ‘to be what the other becomes when he possesses this or that object.’ How does it happen? In a much more concrete and violent manner than the ‘desire for recognition.’”… “The fight to the death is thus much more than a simple desire for recognition.” (from Battling to the End)
Now as far as “real objects” are concerned we are still living today in a world that is growing, as we have been for quite a while now. While we still might vie for them as it was a matter of life and death, instead of settling for their substitutions (that is what mimetic rivalry is all about), it is only in the realm of emotionally-colored “virtual objects,” such as recognition, respect, honor, etc., or – preeminently so for Girard – the Other’s being, but here appearing specifically as bearer of and one capable of bestowing or withholding those aforementioned qualities, that we reenter a Malthusian-like world of scarcity that today seems more unbearable than it has ever been. It is also well on its way to becoming deadlier than ever.
xxx
“The ultimate meaning of desire is death…” That’s how the concluding chapter of Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel begins. Yet “a simple renunciation of desire I don't think is Christian; it's more Buddhist,” says the author in an interview with Rebecca Adams in November 1992, ["Violence, Difference, Sacrifice: A Conversation with René Girard" in Religion and Literature 25, no. 2 ( 1993): 9-33.] Yet one is left to wonder whether Girard believes it is ultimately impossible to renounce desire and thus it is better to forgo even attempting such futile exercises, or he doesn’t want us to be unchristian. Similarly tolerance seems to be frowned upon for all practical purposes.
To avoid this death, the death of spirit if not physical death, Girard advocates conversion, which consists in imitation of a worthy model. The call to this type of imitation sounds clearly in his essay, published originally as "How Can Satan Cast out Satan?": “Mimetic desire is good, it is even very good, the best thing in the world, since it is the only road to the true God.” But then a note of caution: “But it is the same as human freedom, and it is also the road to Satan... When mimetic rivalry is triggered, the two competing desires ceaselessly reinforce each other and violence is likely to erupt. But mimetic rivalry is not satanic to begin with, it is not sinful per se, it is only a permanent occasion of sin.”
The crucial thing is that there are two principles operative in mimetic desire, that of Jesus Christ, a creative one, leading to abundant living, and that of Satan, a rivalrous and destructive one, leading to scarcity for all: “Both Jesus and Satan are teachers of imitation and imitators themselves, imitators of God the Father. This means that human beings always imitate God, either through Jesus or through Satan. They seek God indirectly through the human models they imitate… What is the difference between the mimetic desire of Jesus and the mimetic desire of Satan? The difference is that Satan imitates God in a spirit of rivalry. Jesus imitates God in a spirit of childlike and innocent obedience and this is what he advises us to do as well. Since there is no acquisitive desire in God, the docile imitation of God cannot generate rivalry.”
xxx
So after all not always does desire amount to death. Yet desire, invariably mimetic, remains potentially sinister throughout Girard’s oeuvre, as that part of human spiritual endowment which is in constant danger of degenerating into deadly forms, of spurring rivalrous, then conflictual and ultimately violent mimesis. In view of this the compiler of The Girardian Reader (1996), James G. Williams, was right when characterizing, in the glossary to the book, one preeminently virulent form of desire in the following way:
"Metaphysical Desire. As mimetic or interdividual beings we associate being or reality with In struggles with the model-rival, and particularly when the subject seems to come to a dead-end against the model-obstacle, it becomes apparent from a mimetic analysis that the subject wants the being of the model-mediator. This is the source of fascination, hypnosis, idolatry, the 'double', and possession. The experience of the double occurs when the model-obstacle as overpowering other is so internalized that the subject does not experience a distinction of self and the model-mediator. The extreme alternatives are suicide or murder of the model-obstacle. Other possibilities are schizophrenia, escape into a new identity, and liberation through the release experienced in love and forgiveness. This latter is the work of a good or conversionary mimesis." (the emphasis is mine.)
Thus if “The ultimate meaning of desire is death,” it is actually “grasped” by murder – or suicide, in a veritable spirit of undifferentiation! A 2002 WHO World Report on Violence and Health, quoted in Girard’s Evolution and Conversion. Dialogues on the Origins of Culture, says that in 80 different countries half of violent deaths were caused by suicide, while the majority of homicides were committed within the family (which strongly indicates their mimetic causes).
xxx
But what tends to be the scene against which such deadly sentiments are aroused in interacting interdividuals? Certainly not such where both participants (or both sides, in a group setting) could be expected to benefit from their interaction. Is it not assumed here that only one of the participants, or sides, would be able to benefit from this interaction that all of a sudden becomes rivalry? That would certainly be the case if the interaction was a zero-sum game. And it seems that this is what the mimetic horizon appears to be on emotional level to those remaining under its spell, albeit many a time un-self-consciously.
Un-self-consciously… being ignorant about one’s state, unable to even attempt to be rational or behave in such fashion, as an autonomous modern person would be expected to – though one’s every move might feel as an exercise of one’s autonomy. Guided by unchecked emotions, by a virulent affect not liable to be controlled or even recognized. Overwhelmed by a tide of intersubjectively- or, to be more precise, mimetically-generated unrestrainable emotions, and thus additionally irrational in the sense of not being able even to ascertain that one is participating in a zero-sum game. (The mimetic mechanism in general, just like the scapegoat mechanism, its violent outgrowth, is normally invisible to the regular man.) And that is crucial: mimesis of desire in a situation of abundance need not turn deadly, although it certainly may. But mimesis of desire in a zero-sum situation tends to be deadly by default.
xxx
It bears noting here that this distinction need not map one-to-one onto that between external and internal mediation. Neither does it coincide with yet another distinction introduced by Girard – already alluded to, one not as pivotal to his theory albeit much referred to in his later works, as well as engaged in a very partisan spirit, that between the desire for recognition and the desire to acquire real objects. The quote from Battling to the End, “The fight to the death is thus much more than a simple desire for recognition,” cited above, continues: ”… It is not a master-slave dialectic, but a merciless battle between twins.”
It is all fine in Hegelian terms, obviously referred to here to critique the philosopher’s frameworks, but nowadays the distinction is either spurious, terminological, or one of degree only. It has nothing to do with a “master-slave dialectic” anymore, the mimetic rivalry certainly is not about (gaining) the acknowledgement of one’s lordship. It misrecognizes the importance of emotions driven by a modern spirit of equality. It is attended paradoxically by the inability to stop framing, for all intents and purposes although un-self-consciously, the resulting all-consuming struggle in zero-sum terms – on account of an unstable and dysfunctional equilibrium created by the protagonists’ emotional entanglement. In this climate the winner takes all, if only for a moment. Both rivals are ever threatened by a downward spiral where the desire understood or initially framed as one for equal recognition (however it is understood, whether as that of everyone’s, universal equal dignity, or rather of each individual’s, group’s or culture’s unique identity), degenerates, ever suspicious of the Other’s intentions or real attitudes, into a desire to overpower and/or control one’s model-obstacle, that bearer of an elusive standing that the one feeling momentarily inferior wants to appropriate for oneself. The futility of that exercise, the inability to secure that state permanently, makes the protagonists monstrous doubles, mutually turning their respective twins into objects, and eventually seeking to appropriate them, or, as Girard puts it, to acquire their respective twins’ being. Again, in the other’s eyes they all of a sudden become possessed of superior if not sacred dignity, status, worth, claims to being in the moral right, etc., hardly “real objects” at all. This may be happening initially or potentially in a sequence, depending on the vicissitudes of their rivalry. Escalating to extremes all that can turn deadly, into murder or suicide.
Since the sought-for “recognition” remains relative, which also has to do with its being so elusive and transitory, in a modern world that persists as intolerant if not (officially) hierarchical anymore, this kind of “acquisition” clearly belongs in a zero-sum realm. It is driven by emotions and not rational considerations, as human interactions in zero-sum situations tend to turn irrational. Girard is clearly wrong in his assertions of the relatively benign implications of the desire for recognition as compared with purely acquisitiveness-based mimetic desire, as he defines both types, at least in their current manifestations. With identity politics and victim status used as tools to control one’s rival, it is the contemporary pursuit of recognition, (per thinkers like Fukuyama always a zero-sum game), rather than simple acquisitiveness which normally is not (or at least need not be), that is a model game of murder/suicide. Today “acquisition of another’s being” in a mimetic exchange may in fact more often than not be a final transmogrification or extreme intensification, in a climate of uncertainty and instability, of an initial (mutual) pursuit of equal recognition of one’s (respective) uniqueness. This actual stressing of difference may in fact lead to ultimate undifferentiation, when driven to the extreme limit of threatened annihilation. It is when it does not stop there, murder (or suicide) follows.
Examples used by Girard do not make a strong case for his proposed distinction. His statement, from Battling to the End: “There was no ‘desire for recognition’ between the Tutsis and Hutus, but a twin-like rivalry that went to extremes and degenerated into genocide. Take the Middle East, where the massacres of Sunnis and Shiites will only increase in the months and years to come. In this case also it cannot be said that one is seeking ‘recognition’ from the other: rather, each one wants to exterminate the other, which is very different,” is not convincing; especially the first illustration verges on disregard of history. Both of these historical developments can be traced back to a stage of differentiation. In the first case, it was aggravated by a colonial power, and eventually went beyond what in modern terms can be described, perhaps a bit anachronistically, as demand on the part of the aggrieved side for recognition of their (now outraged) dignity by their compatriots, into an ethnic-identity-driven struggle for redress and (reverse) domination, and eventually into genocide. The other rivalry started as an internecine feud among coreligionists over divergent claims to the legitimacy of succession as caliph to prophet Muhammad, and today is liable to violent eruptions out of a state of mutual enmity. In any case, very little seems to justify describing both rivalries in terms of acquisitive mimesis over “real objects” gone to extremes.
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“Both Hegel and Nietzsche understood modern political democracy to be a secularized version of the Christian doctrine of the universal equality of human dignity. Hegel in particular saw developments in the material world such as the French Revolution and the emergence of the principle of equal recognition as the working out of the inner logic of human rationality.” (Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy)
In the past the actual acceptance of hierarchical structures in society was a bulwark against recognition-, respect- and honor-colored issues being a constant threat to those very structures, and thus to societal peace as well, on many possible, especially inter-hierarchical, planes of potential conflict. [To use a cliché by way of illustration: If the master used his “lord’s right,” or primae noctis privilege, that was not (allowed to be) considered an infringement of the husband’s honor, whereas obviously the same sexual act outside of marriage with equal-status participants would be just that.] That type of bulwark is gone now.
If a Malthusian world has now reappeared in the West it has done so in a new guise, against the modern backdrop of ostensible equality. And Hegel's concept of recognition may be instrumental in explaining its ascent, although not in ways the philosopher may have hoped for: in many of its current manifestations it introduces anything but rationality or freedom, especially when feeding much of today’s identity politics. Moreover, whereas in the past zero-sum descriptions could justifiably refer not only to emotionally-colored honor, respect or recognition issues but to economic ones as well, it is not the latter that are mostly in play now. A Mercedes Benz can as easily be had by a ressentiment-driven religious fanatic on a mission to avenge an imagined dishonor as by anyone in the West.
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Since he asserted that the difference separating sacrifice as collective murder of a third party and sacrifice of self in order not to have any third victim killed cannot possibly be greater, Girard for a long time resisted applying the same term “sacrifice” to both events. When he eventually changed his mind, one might say that undifferentiation symbolically triumphed.
As noted in the opening paragraph, violent undifferentiating mimesis pushes us back into a zero-sum world of conflict seemingly unresolvable by means other than expropriation of the Other, possibly symbolically of the Other’s “being,” especially in a recognition-colored struggle or the like, but ultimately of that Other’s real life. Or – of one’s own life; but not necessarily the life of a suicide. Indeed, it may be that of a martyr sacrificing himself in the name of love. Yet an unfortunate fact becomes clear now: the only common denominator that apparently exists in such a zero-sum process of undifferentiation is violence. And it is only with Jesus Christ, and with Christ-like martyrs, those who absorb rather than inflicting violence, that it is able to undergo a transfiguration productive of new abundant life, not just violence-based order.
But then there is “…democratic, suicidal terrorism [that] would prevent any containment of war. Suicide attacks are from this point of view a monstrous inversion of primitive sacrifices: instead of killing victims to save others, terrorists kill themselves to kill others…” (from Battling to the End), arguably again driven by desire of recognition or respect. This type of violence, unlike “primitive” sacrificial violence that reintroduces peace as if despite itself, serves only to incite it to ever higher levels. Whether openly aiming to assert difference or demanding equal recognition of one’s uniqueness, whether religiously-colored or otherwise, it leads to nonexistence, making for an unintended triumph of ultimate undifferentiation.
If it really prevailed, an overwhelming mimetic contagion sweeping unchecked through humanity, undifferentiation would be victorious for good at long last – no new life would be able to sprout from such perverted martyrdom any more, or at least as long as humanity remained in its grip. The zero-sum world of our worst instincts and desires would have collapsed into a zero-world or void as far as mankind was concerned.
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Yet in love and forgiveness we should be able to transcend the need to adhere to an illusion of (having to reinstate) difference that drives (self-)murderous frenzy. Instead of being identical in a hatred unto death, we can then be identical in love unto life, hopefully even unto eternal life. And this loving type of undifferentiation must be welcome by the Christian, as well as embraced, if need be, even unto a life-producing death, just like grain that needs to die in order to bear much fruit, to give new life. Just like Gandhi understood especially his final public fasts, always possibly unto death, meant to induce his fellow countrymen to stop their mutual slaughter, to give a life of mutual respect a chance.
It arguably should also be the attitude of the rational man, not unlike what Hegel posited, if only because any other inevitably tends to lead one into deadly forms of mimesis, at least in zero-sum situations.
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But can loving mimesis of desire really disentangle us from zero-sum gridlocks, mimetic or otherwise, that inevitably turn violent or even deadly? We know that it not always succeeds; or, rather, it rarely does, if not for lack of trying: loving mimesis needs also to be humble and nonjudgmental in order not to degenerate into its opposite, and that is not at all easy. If so, should we not instead attempt other nonviolent approaches to human interactions, possibly as little mimetic as possible, that might be more successful? The requisites are the same: that they be creative and capable of producing abundant living in the process for both sides of the mimetic exchange.
It seems that the call to imitate Jesus or else risk falling for Satan leaves Girardians, if not Christians in general, with no less-mimetically-charged, or non-mimetic for that matter, middle ground to explore, such as tolerance, not to mention indifference or wholesale desire-renunciation on a Buddhist model. But what then to make of: “Give up a dispute when mimetic rivalry is taking over,” spoken by Girard in the interview concluding The Girardian Reader? Jesus never shied away or flinched from controversy with the Pharisees.
I have devoted my post, Jesus' Case for Tolerance in His Counsel of Perfection, (https://walterwilkans.blogspot.com/2017/02/jesus-case-for-tolerance-in-his-counsel_16.html), as well as large parts another one, The Ultimate Scandal of Withholding Forgiveness, (https://walterwilkans.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-ultimate-scandal-of-withholding.html), (where Matthew 18 is discussed, with its advocacy of shunning the unrepentant, following a lecture on scandal), where I refer to Jesus’ teaching that could be seen as showing practicable ways of avoiding conflictual mimesis when everything else fails, not far from the gist of Girard’s dictum. While some of this teaching might seem less lofty than “turning the other cheek,” or “loving one’s enemies,” it arguably takes account of human propensity to violence and instructs in ways of taking responsibility to stem it before it fully erupts.
One always needs to bear in mind though that, just like love as agape is about being ready to die – to suffer the ultimate renunciation of all rivalry-born desire, out of (mimetic) obedience to the source of love and life, true tolerance, such as is humble and not scandalized even by intolerance, in the end is about it, too. Thus, displaying a truly tolerant disposition means being able to break out of zero-sum traps that our mimetic endowment continuously sets for us to fall into, regardless of the cost.
In humanity’s mimetic world, in fact, genuine tolerance might be found to be agape’s essence, its hidden gem. Aiming a bit lower than its noble paragon, it is arguably able to practically achieve its purposes on a more sustainable basis than love is. That might be the reason for its coming, and having come in the past, under strident attacks, as an allegedly malevolent force in society, from so many quarters (Aristotle comes to mind here, with his “praise” of it as one of the last virtues of a dying society), whereas agape is dealt away by simply being paid lip service only.
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