Girard's
fundamental ideas, which he developed throughout his career and provided the
foundation for his thinking, were that desire is mimetic (i.e., all of our desires are borrowed from other people); that all
conflict originates in mimetic desire(mimetic rivalry); that the scapegoat
mechanism is the origin of
sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence
that can come from mimetic rivalry; and that the Bible reveals these ideas and
denounces the scapegoat mechanism. (Wikipedia)
Evolution of Desire: A Life of René
Girard (Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture), by Cynthia L. Haven, Michigan
State University Press, 2018
René Girard
(1923–2015) was one of the leading thinkers of our era—a provocative sage who
bypassed prevailing orthodoxies to offer a bold, sweeping vision of human
nature, human history, and human destiny. His oeuvre, offering a “mimetic
theory” of cultural origins and human behavior, inspired such writers as Milan
Kundera and J. M. Coetzee, and earned him a place among the forty “immortals”
of the Académie Française. Too often, however, his work is considered only
within various academic specializations. This first-ever biographical study
takes a wider view. Cynthia L. Haven traces the evolution of Girard’s thought
in parallel with his life and times. She recounts his formative years in France
and his arrival in a country torn by racial division, and reveals his insights
into the collective delusions of our technological world and the changing
nature of warfare. Drawing on interviews with Girard and his colleagues, Evolution of
Desire: A Life of René Girard provides an
essential introduction to one of the twentieth century’s most controversial and
original minds. (amazon)
