rene girard
-
Consumerism, or Consumption, of Self
I still think about an encounter I once had with Rosie, a young woman who appeared at my door in the middle of the night. What stayed with me was not merely the strangeness of the situation, but the unmediated quality of it. There was no audience, no profile, no performance, no curated identity. There… Continue reading
-
Love and Christian Nationalism
I am not a Christian nationalist. But neither am I comfortable with the reflex to sneer at those who are. That reflex reveals something troubling about our age: we no longer know how to disagree without attempting to destroy. The word “debate” increasingly feels like a ritual of denunciation. The goal is not persuasion, but… Continue reading
-
Authenticity, Scapegoating, and Peace
To practically everybody, peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their mimetic desires for comfort and pleasure. Continue reading
-
Mimetic Desire and the Battle for Authenticity
“Our desires make us imitate and compete with others, but what we ultimately seek is recognition and approval from them.” Rene Girard I used to teach a course called The Architecture of Human Identity. I was very interested in the fact that by knowing who we are, we take some authorship in who we become. Certain people believe… Continue reading