“The original violence certainly did not bring into conflict two such neatly differentiated groups as those of the two uncles [a form of familial differentiation distinct from the patriarchal model, discussed earlier in the book]. It can be stated as a principle that violence precedes either the division of an original group into two exogamous moieties, or the association of two groups of strangers, gathered together to effect matrimonial exchanges. The original violence took place within a single, solitary group, which the mechanism of the surrogate victim compelled either to split in separate groups or to seek an association with other groups. Ritual violence invariably takes place between already constituted groups. Ritual violence is always less internal than the original violence. In assuming a mythico-ritual character, violence tends toward the exterior, and this tendency in turn assumes certain sacrificial characteristics; it conceals the site of the original violence, thereby shielding from this violence, and from the very knowledge of this violence, the elementary group whose very survival depends on the absolute triumph of peace. The ritual violence that accompanies the exchange of women serves a sacrificial purpose for each group. In sum, the groups agree never to be completely at peace, so that their members may find it easier to be at peace among themselves. We see here the principle behind all “foreign” wars: aggressive tendencies that are potentially fatal to the cohesion of the group are redirected from within the community to outside it. Inversely, there is reason to believe that the wars described as “foreign wars” in the mythic narratives were in fact formerly civil strifes. There are many tales that tell of two warring cities or nations, in principle independent of one another—Thebes and Argos, Rome and Alba, Hellas and Troy—whose conflicts bring to the surface so many elements pertaining directly to the sacrificial crisis and to its violent resolution that it is hard not to view these stories as mythic elaborations of this same crisis, presented in terms of a “fictive” foreign threat.” (emphasis added)
References to societal moieties, such as the one above, are rather rare in Girard’s corpus (at least to my knowledge; I know of some in Oedipus Unbound, there is another in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World). To me this is strange: given his preoccupation with how an original state of societal undifferentiation (essentially Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s state of nature) is necessarily overcome by an act of “original violence”, in order to produce peace needed for society’s survival, Girard seems rather nonspecific as to the patterns then emerging to shape peaceful coexistence, albeit temporarily. Of course he speaks about rituals in general, and can be very specific about certain particular rituals, tracing relentlessly as he does any sacrificial vestiges that might corroborate his “originary violence” hypothesis. But he seemingly fails to set his sights on elaborating possible scenarios, or looking for specific patterns of development afterword. Maybe that is what should be expected of someone who sees the original act of violence as absolutely random, contra such researchers as e.g. Christopher Boehm, who sees alpha males killed (or thieves, for that matter), not random victims, in semi-state-of-nature bands trying to maintain or restore a peaceful egalitarian equilibrium. (Nota bene, Boehm’s approving emphasis on societal equality is another factor that differentiates his view of early humanity from that of Girard.)
And yet a moiety-based society is as close as one gets to a twin-like situation on a societal basis – but moieties are supposed to effect peace in society, not to wreak havoc upon it that the appearance of twins is purported to cause! And not that tribes’ moieties are somehow kept from reciprocation: most of the time they are strictly exogamous, they exchange women, and engage in other reciprocal relations, but such whose violence may only be ritual. Plus Girard openly claims (in Oedipus Unbound) that moieties are essentially identical – just like twins. What separates them in terms of how they are perceived by society is that tribesmen believe that their two moieties are markedly different, and consequently also experience them as such; they resort to a series of ruses to make sure this perception holds (such as different totems adopted), whereas twins are viewed as really identical – and thus are condemned as bearers of rivalrous reciprocity.
Now moieties seem to be a widespread occurrence in primitive societies, if not having a universal incidence, a fact referred to e.g. by Emile Durkheim, an author well-known to Girard – in his book on Australian Aboriginals, but with references also to e.g. North American Indians (incidentally, in the book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, he calls them phratries). Phratries existed also in ancient Greece, Homer mentions them on several occasions. Why wouldn’t then Girard have devoted more attention to this phenomenon – given its uncanny similarity to twins, those fraught human doubles of primitive – and not so primitive – societies?
Surely humanity have differentiated widely ever since those early days. An important symbolic stage for political differentiation may be traced to Greece and Cleisthenes' reforms of 508 BC, when demes, subdivisions of land in Attica, were also established in Athens, and acquired particular significance: enrollment in the citizen-lists of a territorial deme became the requirement for citizenship, supplanting citizenship based on membership in a phratry, where oligarchy dominated. In most Western democracies there is now a plethora of parties to choose from, and causes to pledge allegiance to. But of late, with angry political polarization ever deepening, real choices seem to have dwindled instead, voting for parties that do not command large support to begin with increasingly seems a stupidity, or at least naivety. We are becoming reduced to two moieties (an excellent indication of that are the results regularly returned by most of those recently staged highly charged referendums) – but on this side of the intervening millennia (“twenty centuries of stony sleep”?) they do not seem able to effect peaceful societal coexistence for us. Might it be that democracy as a ritual is (about to be) finished? Its checks and balances are under siege in many places: the violence is increasingly threatening to become real instead of just ritual.
One might say: no, those would-be moieties are not what they on the face of it might seem to be to some – my (our) moiety is in fact very different from theirs, and it’s not just my (our) belief, a member might exclaim! And he would be right: we do not exchange women across moieties’ boundary lines (in fact any such exchange would be unthinkable these days), nay, we do not even marry across those lines anymore! And yet we are similar to the other moiety, but seemingly in one respect only: ill feeling toward those others. Yes, we have become “the worst… full of passionate intensity.” (In fact there is yet another important similar feature: postmodern moieties’ inner diversification in terms of their social stratification, both having their share of the wealthy/elites and the poor, not unlike that of moieties of old.) And yet as long as we stay approximately equally divided into our latter-day unstructured, haphazard moieties, as well as equally emotionally committed to our respective causes, we might inadvertently enjoy at least a modicum of one of the benefits experienced by people of yore that their well-defined moieties were able to effect, namely societal peace – though it be superficial and relative, if not in name only, more like deferred violence than anything else, one that psychologically does not feel peaceful at all, being constantly threatened as it overwhelmingly appears to be these days. Moreover, whereas ancient moieties were a waystation on humanity’s way upward via increasing differentiation, ours – if we may call them that – are but their decadent functional equivalent, ressentiment-filled humanity’s katechon-like bulwark against its possible final emotional undifferentiation into chaos and decline.
Back to Rene Girard: not having devoted more attention to the phenomenon of primitive tribes seemingly universally forming moieties, though it may have been their default bulwark against societal violence, something that was of paramount interest to him, he was also mostly unwilling to analyze through the lens of his theory the moiety-like character of contemporary political divisions – in fact he may not have seen them as such. A possible clue to this (non)development might be found in his theory: quite in line with it, Girard himself may have been oblivious to the similarity if not fundamental identity of those cross-cultural and over-millennia societal divisions, possibly because some of the effects they seemingly produce, while arguably again similar if nor identical (peace or deferral of violence, at least for the time being), intuitively should not be so, given the psychological and political climate of today. In fact in Oedipus Unbound this obscurity of moieties as (potentially) fostering both differentiation AND undifferentiation (viz. too explicit reciprocity, shading into conflict) is discussed in the context of primitive moieties. But one should realize that the same holds true in the present context, and also on both counts: obscurity and double fostering.
If the author of mimetic theory may have been oblivious to some signs and aspects of its unfolding, why should we fare any better? Well, maybe because our very survival as society depends on it. Unless we firmly realize where we’re at right now, and then spare no effort to switch from reciprocity of conflict to reciprocity of peace by way of tolerant differentiation, we’re doomed. Or at least ripe for a Second Coming in whatever shape or form, regardless of what it might entail.
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