Mimetic Rivalry | René Girard's Mimetic Theory
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- In this lecture, we will finish painting the picture of Girardian psychology by understanding mimetic rivalry and negative mimesis. This picture will expose humans as fallen and certain psycho-social pathologies as inevitable: fetishization, alienation, bipolarity, masochism, oppression, and inequity. Girard’s psychology, then, is also a theodicy - an inquiry into the origins of evil. For Girard, evil is not contingent on poorly designed societies but an inevitable consequence of corrupt human nature. We will never escape these pathologies no matter how much social “progress” is made. Girard’s theodicy tampers our expectations of the world and inoculates us against a whole host of, what we can loosely call, critical theories. This is a critique of critique.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:26 Internal and External Mediation
00:10:50 Mimetic Rivalry
00:33:33 Doubles
00:35:24 False Differences
00:37:58 American Psycho
00:42:19 The Negative Phase of Mimesis
00:46:33 Conforming to Contrarianism
00:53:31 The Psycho-Social Pathologies of Man
00:55:51 Fetishization
00:56:39 Alienation
00:59:08 Bipolarity
01:01:01 Masochism
01:04:27 Oppression
01:07:56 Inequity
01:10:03 Hegel's Theodicy
01:13:22 Rousseau's Theodicy
01:15:40 Girard's Theodicy
01:20:14 A Critique of Critique
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Full transcript: johnathanbi.com/interpreting-girard-lecture-iii-transcript
I have now watched all lectures at least two times. First time to familiarize myself with the topic, and a second time to understand it. Now I am on my third watch in the hope that I will ingest the coding at root level. I know that we are separated by a multitude of factors, such as geography and so on, so I cannot thank you personally, but know that you are doing a man’s work. 🙏
Thanks for engaging with our work. If it's easier to engage with the transcripts directly, you can find them available: johnathanbi.com/lectures
This is brilliant I’m my opinion I’m just starting to watch and interested in your opinion. Glad to see people appreciate the great information and the amazing technology we take for granted 😊
Incredible. The critique of Marxism is first-rate. One can only imagine the confusion at the Frankfurt School and its modern incarnation in Critical Race Theory where complex and nuanced human dynamics are reduced to binaries of the oppressor and the oppressed, the powerful and the vulnerable, etc. If only we would understand the unconscious forces and impulses driving individual and collective neuroses. Beautiful video.
Glad you enjoyed it Chris!
Phenomenal series, really putting into words a lot I've come to realise through personal experience. Great production values too. The world needs more of this.
Gloomy externalised view of humankind, overstated
Do you have recommendations for other lectures?
That set is beautiful
thanks Danny, that's what we were going for :)
Fascinating stuff. Thank you for sharing your vast wealth of knowledge with us.
Amazing lecture. 01:18:09 Girard really just said "it is what it is" LMAO
Brilliant lecture, I appreciate you publishing these.
The discussion of mimetic envy reminds me of a poem by Jonathan swift - ‘Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift’. Here’s a few lines that capture the essence:
“This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought to base for human breast:
In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;…
We all behold with envious eyes
Our equal raised above our size.
Who would not at a crowded show
Stand high himself, keep others low?
I love my friend as well as you
But would not have him stop my view.”
It is a real delight to get such ideas in a way that is easy to grasp and at the same time being shaken by them at the core. Has a nice, pleasant setting as a background as well and that makes it very watchable as compared to most of the discussions that are done online. Well done. 😊
Thank you Gray!
Been waiting for this
Masterclass!
Great job again, Jonathan. Thank you for your lectures. I’ve not seen a young, eloquent, and well-kempt (both in thoughts and personal presentation) philosopher/scholar like you. I’ve been aware of Girad teaching but your takes on Girards is very inducing to me. My question to you: How would you make yourself even more unique compared to all Girard experts out there now? Would more writings on practical examples and analysis (like Freakonomics book) achieve this objective?
Thanks for the kind words. Nothing is planned in the pipeline beyond this lecture series on Girard. Busy building a company (I scripted most of this lectures series out as an undergrad when I had more time).
Great lecture
Thanks Rishi!
American psycho is also a comedy. A hilarious one. It’s almost a catharsis of mirth in opposition to mimetic desire. It needs to be mentioned, because although it absolutely references these key points, it does so satirically. I’m not sure if the presenters caught that, although I like to think no one could miss it.
This is one of the complexities that Girard just seems blind to. The potential for other outlets such as art that offer release instead of violence. He’s one of a trend of contemporary philosophers who are so brilliant at perceiving and discussing important patterns in the history of human behavior, while simultaneously being so stupid about applying their own theories to present and future human behavior that they raise questions about the neurology involved in their genius/fool paradox.
It’s interesting to note that this theory has mainly been seen by corporations and politicians and mainly for its value in manipulating us. As if they either missed, didn’t believe, or just didn’t care about the part where violence is an inevitable outcome of doing so. Makes it pretty clear they used it as a world war 3 building machine, and now that’s the part we are going to get to experience, having come in after the fun part of the intentionally implemented cycle.
just fabulous
Mindboggling insights
Great series thus far. Would not describe the pathologies (sin) as "human nature" because God's original design was for man to be perfect, and Jesus rectifies that. However, it is accurate to say most people live according to the temptations of sin and identify with it thereby allowing it to become their nature knowingly or unknowingly. This is why perversity exists.
Perhaps "fallen human nature" (the default state we are after being exiled from Eden) is more accurate.
Are you going to do more than just Girard. As I think you could really get a successful philosophy/academic channel going here. Your set up is great and you clearly know a lot about philosophy.
Maybe ... we'll see!
I will take my time to interpret this one.
Absolument Magistral!
Thanks Grand!
What the hell, this video is blinding me!! The host is so damn handsome. Such a distraction!!
When the host is as good as the discussion 🥵
Awesome
Tikkum Olam- healing the world with revolutionary utopianism
Add I understand Girard, he maintained that Christianity was the antidote to mimetic rivalry, etc. by taking Christ as one's mimetic model. You seem to omit this in your presentation. Any reason?
You are right that Christianity is central to Girard's work and the antidote to mimetic rivalry. That's why we have an entire 70-minute lecture dedicated to Girard's Christianity launching this weekend.
@@bi.johnathan O great, I look forward to that. Love the series btw.
@@martynwebber Thanks Martyn! Hope the rest don't disappoint.
@@bi.johnathan I'm sure it won't.
Yes, I think that was precisely Feuerbach’s point- Kanye’s T - though Marx was more concerned about his trainers
Johnathan with the super burn at 26:30 hahaha wish I had a respecticle physique
David needs to bulk up (in knowledge and in size).
@@bi.johnathan get out of here
Is the smart dress mimetic rivalry with Jordan Peterson?
Don't like the style, but the content is first class, I think. I am new to Girard so would be nice to hear what a more seasoned scholar has to say about Johnathan Bi
Not wearing smart dress will itself be a form of negative mimesis.
11:35 Where does love fit in?
I seriously can't tell if he is reading from a teleprompter off screen or not... something is very awkward about the eye contact and pretending its an unscripted conversation. great info regardless though
The muses whisper in my ears and I repeat what I hear word for word in real time.
@@bi.johnathanlooks like you’re jerking yourself to an edge then stopping then going again 3 inches at a time. Great content tho
It seems like a guy that really knows his subject matter and has shared it so many times he has it down. It’s like a comedian that does the same set every night because it kills…but it also has to seem fresh and thought up “on the spot” each night. Anyway, all that aside…this lecture kicks ass!!!
Better be full of wisdom than falsehood
Walker Percy: Lost in the Cosmos, chapter 9, The Envious Self:
You are standing by your paper-tube in Englewood reading the headlines. Your neighbor comes out to get his paper. You look at him sympathetically. You know he has been having severe chest pains and is facing coronary bypass surgery. But he is not acting like a cardiac patient this morning. Over he jogs in his sweat pants, all smiles. He has triple good news. His chest ailment turned out to be a hiatal hernia, not serious. He’s got a promotion and is moving to Greenwich, where he can keep his boat in the water rather than on a trailer. “Great, Charlie! I’m really happy for you.” Are you happy for him? (a) Yes. Unrelievedly good news. Surely it is good news all around that Charlie is alive and well and not dead or invalided. Surely, too, it is good for him and not bad for you if he also moves up in the world, buys a house in Greenwich where he can keep a 25-foot sloop moored in the Sound rather than a 12-foot Mayflower on a trailer in the garage in Englewood. (b) Putatively good news but-but what? But the trouble is, it is good news for Charlie, but you don’t feel so good. (CHECK ONE)
In the theodicy part, I don't see the point being fully made why, accord to G, evil is inherent to humans societies. Even if we grant that evil is caused and propelled by mimetic desire, and even if we grant that mimetic desire is a deeply rooted psycho-social phenomenon, wouldn't you have to make the case for the absolute and principle impossibility of it's transcendence - even by highly evolved humans potentially of the future too, in order to rule it out completely?
I'd argue that, yes, the problem is deep, but not in principal deeper than the probably unlimited potential for human spiritual development. In other words, what places mimetic desire principally outside the realm of transcendence? The reason why this is an essential question to ask is that apathetically tending your own garden and not even trying is pretty cynical unless it is with absolute certainty, the only and best response. Difficult to imagine and impossible must never be mistaken for one another, as apathy can cut off these potentially highly evolved humans from ever emerging, simply because their ancestors withdrew from the endeavor altogether and retreated into cynically tranquil retreat, right? Don't Girard fall victim to the end-of-history fallacy here?
In short, can our loss of confidence in our own potential moral future enlightenment, in itself, not become the epitome and determinant, of our own - not least if we manage migrate to the stars - tragic moral collapse? And do we, if this is indeed the case, not have a universal ethical responsibility, to never lose or give up on this confidence in our future capacity for good?
Hegel and the enslavement of the will. Again, a projection of guilt on to God for his own weakness and child out of wedlock!