To Ask: Have you, JMG, or anyone else here, ever grappled with Rene Girard's theory of memetic contagion and its leading to scapegoating and violence?
Briefly, Girard believed that folks mostly want what they see their neighbors wanting/having, but since your neighbor has it, you now see your neighbor as a rival. This works both ways, so your neighbor sees you wanting what he wants/has, and sees you as a rival, and wants the thing all the more, since you wanting it proves its worth wanting. Girard believes that this leads to ever increasing rivalry and violence that can only be resolved (temporarily) by blaming some scapegoat group and doing violence to them. He claimed that Christianity (and to a lesser degree, Judaism) uniquely solved this by offering a religious myth that short-circuited this cycle (you don't need any more scapegoats, because Jesus is the ultimate scapegoat).
It's an interesting theory that seems to have some explanatory power, but when he loses me when he gets to "and Christianity is the only religion that has solved this." That being said, I don't yet have particularly good counter-arguments. I'd welcome any thoughts from either JMG or the commentariat, either for or against his moral theory.
As always, thanks very much to JMG and everyone else here for all that you do.
To any who will have them, I put forth my blessings and best wishes, Jeff
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branchandroot
Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion
Date: 2023-06-26 04:08 am (UTC)For any who marked it, I hope you had a lovely Summer Solstice. For everyone in the Northern hemisphere, I hope you're finding fun ways to stay cool.
To Share: After reading a blog post about how the costs of shipping in space would affect a sci-fi setting, I got to thinking about what the costs of shipping mean for our own world: https://jpowellrussell.com/#how_the_cost_of_freight_has_shaped_the_world
To Ask: Have you, JMG, or anyone else here, ever grappled with Rene Girard's theory of memetic contagion and its leading to scapegoating and violence?
Briefly, Girard believed that folks mostly want what they see their neighbors wanting/having, but since your neighbor has it, you now see your neighbor as a rival. This works both ways, so your neighbor sees you wanting what he wants/has, and sees you as a rival, and wants the thing all the more, since you wanting it proves its worth wanting. Girard believes that this leads to ever increasing rivalry and violence that can only be resolved (temporarily) by blaming some scapegoat group and doing violence to them. He claimed that Christianity (and to a lesser degree, Judaism) uniquely solved this by offering a religious myth that short-circuited this cycle (you don't need any more scapegoats, because Jesus is the ultimate scapegoat).
It's an interesting theory that seems to have some explanatory power, but when he loses me when he gets to "and Christianity is the only religion that has solved this." That being said, I don't yet have particularly good counter-arguments. I'd welcome any thoughts from either JMG or the commentariat, either for or against his moral theory.
As always, thanks very much to JMG and everyone else here for all that you do.
To any who will have them, I put forth my blessings and best wishes,
Jeff