Class 20: Analyzing Culture and Social Change PDF

CLASS 20 / Part IV: Analyzing culture and social change Ø SUMMARY: Ø Analyzing culture and social change: Ø Rene Girard and mimetic anthropology: Ø 2nd pillar of mimetic theory Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic the...

CLASS 20 / Part IV: Analyzing culture and social change Ø SUMMARY: Ø Analyzing culture and social change: Ø Rene Girard and mimetic anthropology: Ø 2nd pillar of mimetic theory Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The scapegoat mechanism: Ø Desire can be frustrated and the triangles of desire can escalate in mimetic violence which takes the role of a foundational event Ø the origin of culture is traced back to a collective murder or expulsion of a victim, a sacrifice that in turn is signified positively as the founding act of this community. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The paradoxical nature of the scapegoat victim - it has a double function: Ø 1. the victim is identified as a source of all the evil that afflicts the community. Ø 2. once the crisis is overcome through the sacrifice of the victim, the victim is venerated as the source of all the good, cohesion, peace. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø However, how do we know this? How come we understand the scapegoating mechanism and the sacred function of the victim? Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The centrality of the Gospels as a text and as a civilizing force: Ø Girard argues that the Gospels are the most important and determinant single text in uncovering, deciphering, and analysing the mimetic mechanism. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The centrality of the Gospels as a text and as a civilizing force: Ø Girard reads the Bible not as a theology or a theory of God, but first and foremost as an anthropological theory of humanity whereas humanity is clearly mimetic. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The centrality of the Gospels as a text and as a civilizing force: Ø Myths / Mythology vs. Gospels: Ø the distinction is founded upon the different nature of interpretation of the original murder. Ø The disciples dissented from the majority opinion and diffused this message by ritually commemorating the innocence of the victim. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 2nd pillar of Girard’s mimetic theory Ø The centrality of the Gospels as a text and as a civilizing force: Ø Myths /Mythology vs. Gospels: Ø Telling the story from a victim’s perspective prevents a mythology from being established Ø In other words, whereas pagan rituals considered the sacred as an apology of violence, Christian sainthood relies upon the revelation that victims are innocent. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 1. mimetic theory shows that the origins of power and political order historically speaking lie in the scapegoating mechanism Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 2. mimetic theory contributes to our understanding of what is a social crisis, how it is formed – it explains in other words also international wars and conflicts: Ø social order vs. social crisis Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø social orders are so many ways of keeping under control the triangles of mimetic desire. Ø social crises: moments in which imitative desire spills completely out of control; mimetic rivalries are formed in which the rivals become mimetic doubles to each other, with each rival being a model-obstacle to be overcome. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 3. mimetic theory is a powerful critique of the understanding of contemporary politics / society: Ø a. methodological individualism in the sense of the autonomy of the individual is a central paradigm in social and political science: Ø individuality is predetermined by our preferences and desires, which are essentially ontologically stable Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø 3. mimetic theory is a powerful critique of the understanding of contemporary politics / society: Ø b. mimetic theory: Ø there is no authenticity, no individuality without prior models mediating our desires; Ø Becoming a person relies on the mobility of desire, i.e the space between individuals; who is your model? Ø All communication processes rely on forms of “interdividual psychology” Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø QUESTION: Can this explain how modern capitalism and modern democracy work? Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 4. mimetic theory provides a better understanding of globalisation processes Ø the immediacy of information facilitates practically limitless diffusion of images, imitation, and reciprocity. Ø This intense connectivity also reinforces the awareness of differences and otherness. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 4. mimetic theory provides a better understanding of globalisation processes Ø Yet, processes of differentiation are underpinned by a desire for similarity and sameness Ø reciprocity/communication processes at a global scale increases mimetic creativity but also diminishes protection against mimetic rivalry Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø 5. mimetic theory explains the new types of global conflicts based on narratives of victimhood Ø This is an effect of the secularization of Christianity Ø The status of victimhood can become sacred in the sense of an aspirational model of identity formation. Ø Competitions for victimhood have proliferated and become truly global. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø examples of conflicts based on narratives of victimhood: Ø 1. After 9/11: ‘we are all Americans’; after Paris attacks: „JE SUIS CHARLIE HEBDO“ Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø examples of conflicts based on narratives of victimhood: Ø 2. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: the mimetic spiral of vengeance is fed by the selfpresentations of the rivals as victims + defenders against aggression. Ø Inside perspective (difference) Ø outside perspective (mimetic doubles) Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Sketches of a Mimetic Anthropology of Society and Politics: Ø examples of conflicts based on narratives of victimhood: Ø 3. the escalation of global terrorism: antagonists legitimise their acts of violence and retaliation by their own position as a victim. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø The paradox of the modern world: the attention to the victim + the growing tendency to see oneself as the victim lead: Ø 1. modern world being deprived of sacrificial protection (protection of the victim + human sacrifices are rightly blamed) Ø 2. but is also more and more exposed to violence: no sacred mythology can be established Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars: Ø Argument: the polarity (conflict) in ‘lowintensity’ new wars is driven by selfrepresentations of collective victimhood mobilizing social emotions Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars: What does this mean? Ø social representations of collective victimhood—of one’s ethnic group, nation, culture, religion etc.— have been increasingly used to initiate and justify warlike acts. Ø What appears asymmetrical from the inside view— each rival has the impression that the other has attacked first (difference of actors)—is revealed as symmetrical from the outside view (doubles in a mimetic rivalry) Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars Ø Mechanism: Historical shift from suspicion towards trauma, to authenticity of trauma: victimhood becomes sacred Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars: Genealogies (sources) of sacred victimhood: Ø 1. Psychiatric and psychological definitions of trauma: dealing with survivors of accidents, victims of sexual abuse and torture (late 19th – late 20th century) Ø 2. Trauma neurosis: the collective process by which a society applies the status of victimhood to categories previously not thought as victims Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars: Genealogies (sources) of sacred victimhood: Ø 3. Moral factors: the mass slaughter in the two world wars shifted the moral centre of gravity in warfare from triumphant and heroic sacrifice to cultural traumas and victimhood. Class 20: Analyzing culture and social change Ø René Girard and the study of modernity – mimetic anthropology / mimetic theory: Ø Victims and new wars – Conclusion: Ø conflict narratives usually emphasize agency, intentions, individual identities Ø mimetic theory shows that competing sacred representations of victimhood have been a nonagentive, unconscious force of globalization. Ø Mimetic theory: the identity of conflict emerges from the mimetic contagion according to which selfattributed collective victimhood provides a moral right for the initiation of hostilities against others. CLASS 20 – Analyzing culture and social change Ø Bibliography: Ø René Girard and mimetic theory Ø Girard’s books (1961; 1972; 1982) – see class “19” Ø Harald Wydra (2008) “Towards a New Anthropological Paradigm: The Challenge of Mimetic Theory”, International Political Anthropology, 1(1):161-174. Ø Harald Wydra (2013) „Victims and new wars“, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26:1, 161-180