Introduction
During the aeons of violence
They fan the flames of compassion
Leading sentient beings
To flourish on grounds of peace.
In the middle of great battles
They bring balance to the forces
For Bodhisattvas of great strength
Reconcile in victory.
— The Vimalakirti Sutra
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the spectre of apocalypse has faded from the public imagination. What is surprising, then, about reading René Girard, is his repeated insistence that the end is still nigh. An even more puzzling surprise awaits the careful reader – hidden uneasily alongside this anticipation of apocalypse, is a restrained but nonetheless fundamental affirmation of modernity that can easily be missed between Girard’s dense lines on violence:
Our world is both the worst it has ever been, and the best. It is said that more victims are killed, but we also have to admit that more are saved than ever before. Everything is increasing … some of which are marvelous and others dreadful.[1]
Girard’s modernity is characterized by these ambivalent extremes. On one hand, we show unprecedented love for each other and have achieved unparalleled prosperity through innovation. On the other, violence, armed with increasingly powerful means, has become uncontrollable and unpredictable.[2] What explains this unnatural coupling is a single psychological source that Girard takes to be responsible for both developments: mimesis, our fundamental capacity to imitate. Further disrupting hopes for a simple solution, it is largely the same set of social conditions – developed throughout history, reaching their height in modernity – that channel mimesis towards both love and violence.
The aim of this project is to cut through this Gordian knot of modernity braided equally by strands of the good – love and innovation – as well as the bad – apocalyptic violence – to present a theoretical framework that informs praxis. To untangle the positive and negative effects of mimesis, I will reconstruct and defend Girard’s psychological account of mimesis (Part One) and its influence on history (Part Two). At the end of Part Two, I will reconstruct Girard’s prescriptive solution (Chapter 6. Mimetic Eschatology) and criticize it for being unsatisfactory. Part Three aims to resolve the ills of mimesis in a more satisfying fashion by appealing to Buddhist resources from the Mahayana tradition.[3] By putting Girard into dialogue with various Buddhist scholars, I hope to uncover phenomenological resources that can steer us away from violence towards love and innovation.
The resources I hope to develop are individualistic in nature – they are prescribed for a singular individual, on how he himself may renounce violence, cultivate love, and accelerate innovation in the existing social world. This methodological choice seems, prima facie, at odds with my stated goal – apocalypse is social and not individual, after all. Furthermore, this choice invites a powerful critique from, whom we can call, communitarians in both western and Buddhist traditions: an individual’s liberation from pathologies, if not impossible, is extremely limited without a fundamental transformation of society. This critique is made all the more potent by the fact that Girardian theory always has, as its unit of analysis, not the individual but the collective or, at least, the pair. Despite the legitimacy of this concern, I believe this individualistic exploration, while far from being the last word on this topic, is a necessary first step for two philosophical reasons.
First, my argumentation will eventually pinpoint the source of our mimetic troubles to an innate phenomenological mistake that all humans make regardless of culture. The problem is going to be – as a rough and however unsatisfying first pass – that we all naturally treat and expect phenomena to be other than what they are and, as a result, become compulsive in destructive ways when they don’t conform to our mistaken assumptions. Certainly, different social conditions may accelerate or limit the severity of this phenomenological mistake and, therefore, its consequences. But, drawing from Buddhist resources, I will nonetheless insist that this is an innate error that we are naturally wired to commit unless we subject ourselves to specific meditative practice. That is to say, at the root of these social perversions are phenomenological errors – errors that are greatly shaped by social conditions, but whose effective treatment and full resolution must be explicit, individualistic, and meditative nonetheless. Transformation on the social-level alone will no more alleviate our mimetic perversions than putting fresh band-aids on a cancer patient.
If the first philosophical reason I have just outlined is that social change is not sufficient, then the second is that it is not necessary. The meditative prescriptions I will outline should in theory – but certainly not without immense difficulty in practice – be achievable by committed individuals regardless of their macro social conditions. This is especially true if these individuals have control over their micro social conditions – for example, if they can move into a monastery. But, even if one is immersed in the least ideal of social conditions, one should still be able to – with great difficulty, we must add – alleviate the ills of mimesis in so far as they have resolved their phenomenological error. The classic Buddhist metaphor of a lotus flower undefiled by the muddy pond from which it rose is apt here. The hope is that these individuals – liberated fully, or even partially, from the trappings of mimesis – will be at a better vantage point, epistemically and motivationally, to engender more harmonious social conditions. Behind this methodological divergence, then, is a deeper, substantive disagreement with the communitarians about the origins of our social pathologies. What appear to be inevitable social dependencies – such as recognition – I will show to be a byproduct of individuals’ phenomenological errors. What is required, then, is an individualistic transformation. This does not mean that the transformation in question relieves the individual from his obligations to others – in fact, this change is none other than a radically compassionate mode of existence that sees others as, in some sense, part of oneself. By “individualistic” I only mean that, contra the communitarians, this change can be fully initiated and completed by the individual even in the least hospitable of social situations. Girard’s pathologies, which seem to be social in nature, can be resolved purely on the individual level regardless of the surrounding social conditions even if these conditions can greatly accelerate or thwart one’s progress. That is to say, the harmonious subjective disposition that marks the end of Girardian pathologies is not necessarily dependent on, even if it is greatly influenced by, any objective configuration of the social world.
I concede to the communitarians that this project – to uncover the antidotes to apocalypse – is incomplete without an accompanying discussion of supporting social conditions. Girard himself makes it very clear that what is required to herald the Kingdom of God and thwart Apocalypse isn’t just a few enlightened individuals but the universal renunciation of violence and the development of love. Without this social investigation, at best, the prescriptions outlined here are antidotes for how one may remain virtuous in the face of the imminent destruction of the world – a painkiller for apocalypse but not a cure. This is why I suggested, in the preface, that it is necessary to take the individualistic investigations in this manuscript to the social level (possibly, through Hegel) for me to truly complete Girard. With that said, I maintain that this individualistic, meditative methodology is the right first step because of the agency of individuals even in our existing, imperfect social world (the second point) and the necessity of meditative practice even in an idealized, perfect social world (the first point). Furthermore, given that Girard attributes the pathologies of man primarily to constants within the human condition and not any social structure (such as capitalism), a proper social investigation into our ills can only proceed with the core psychological mechanisms in view. The latter ought precede, methodologically, the former.
Beyond these two philosophical reasons, there is a practical reason animating this entire work in general and my individualistic methodology in particular. Buddhist and mimetic theory have been the most influential personal guides in orienting my own life. The initial impetus to begin this theoretical project was a desire to understand how these modalities could be squared in the life of a single individual. I wrote this project, then, for myself: to expose the shape of evil in thought as to avoid is in action and to chart a course to liberation on paper so that it may be attained more swiftly in practice. However, that is not to say that this project is written only for myself – it aims to develop a general, systematic prescription to Girardian pathologies. And, make no mistake, the two philosophical reasons listed above are not just mere excuses for me to pursue a self-indulgent project. Nor is the relationship between the philosophical and practical merely accidental: that I just happen to be pursuing such a path in my own life and just happen to also hold these individualistic assumptions about our seemingly social pathologies. No, the relationship is complementary: it was through my practical struggles that the silhouette of this philosophical strategy emerged and, in turn, it was under the guide of this strategy that I advanced practically. This individualistic, contemplative strategy is tested by the hammer of experience on the anvil of lived reality and so this practical motive should only be seen as grounding and not perverting the philosophical ones. Buddhism, in practice, showed itself a direct and effective antidote to Girard’s social pathologies.
I will make one more remark about my methodology. While the dominant motive of this project is to resolve the problems internal within Girard in a general, systematic way, the way I have done so makes it such that it can be read in three different ways.
First, Part One and Part Two are a systematic reconstruction of Girard’s system. My reconstruction in these sections isn’t ‘Buddhist’ in any meaningful sense, so it can be treated as an attempt at a faithful and internal reconstruction. I suggest that these first two parts, when read alone, constitute a theodicy – a project aiming to explain human evil and engender reconciliation with the world. This may seem puzzling given that Girard anticipates inevitable apocalypse, and his psychology exposes the pathological nature of human subjects. Indeed, the type of reconciliation I have in mind is not Hegelian – to show that the world, in its essence, is already hospitable to us – which engenders an attitude of affirmation.[4] It is not Rousseauian – to show that, even if our world is not a hospitable one now, there is nothing in the essence of human nature that precludes such a world from existing – which engenders hope and an impetus for action.[5] Girard reconciles us, in a very limited sense, by showing that evil is the constitutive condition of human organization and will only be more powerful as history progresses – there is very little that we can do. If seeing the world as fundamentally good engenders affirmation and viewing it as potentially good engenders hope, then depicting the world as irrevocably evil engenders tranquility. It is a, however limited, species of reconciliation because we can look at the world and think: “This is just the way the world is.” Framed positively, such a view frees us from the taxing obligations to better the world. This limited sense of freedom legitimizes a tranquil retreat – a tending to one’s own garden – which Girard will turn to as the only possible normative solution. Of course, by this project’s end, I hope to have robbed the reader of this tranquility by showing that our situation is not as hopeless as Girard makes it seem and, as a result, instill a Rousseauian hope.
Second, taken as a whole, this project is an attempt at establishing an interfaith dialogue to render key concepts of Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity intelligible to each other. While Girard’s reading of Christianity is controversial, the synergies that I uncover through Girard will hopefully be insightful even for more conventional strands of Christian thought. I hope to show that the core teachings of Buddhism offer a unique, phenomenological explanation for mimetic pathologies. And, because of this, it is also able to prescribe systematic, reliable, and reproducible techniques to tame it. Many of these techniques are available to all faiths and fill the space of normative solutions where Girard has remained depressingly silent. The first central thesis is that Buddhist phenomenology completes Girard’s Christian social theory. The converse is also true: in Girard, this project points to a possible outline of a Buddhist social theory. I hope to show Girard to be a Christian social thinker that is primarily dealing with the societal manifestations of a foundational concept in Buddhism: Dukkha, commonly translated as ‘suffering.’ Girard’s Christianity deserves Buddhist attention because, I will argue, the psychological force behind mimesis is none other than Dukkha. Therefore, Girard’s Christian social theory which revolves around mimesis is, at the same time, a social theory grounded on Dukkha. Girard draws out the social and political implications of Dukkha by elucidating the interpersonal mechanisms by which Dukkha is caused, perpetuated, and released. Another way to put this point is that Girard informs the Buddhist who wishes to remain engaged with society of the social logic and interpersonal origins of Dukkha that should be addressed alongside the phenomenological. The second central thesis, then, is that Girard’s Christian social theory completes Buddhist phenomenology.
If I am successful, I will have established a strong equivalence between the foundational concepts of Mahayana Buddhism and Girard’s Christianity. An unintended consequence of this equivalence, however, is that it invalidates one of the central claims of Girard’s system! As a rough first pass, Girard’s main argument for the truth of Christianity is its uniqueness – that it alone understands and reveals the mechanisms and consequences of our mimetic natures. Of course, if my argument is convincing, I will show that Buddhism also has – as its core focus and not just a tangential interest – an understanding of our mimetic natures that, in the phenomenological realm at least, prove even more profound than that of Girard’s Christianity. If Christianity were to lose its status as the unique – and, therefore, according to Girard, the “true” – religion, so much of Girard’s conclusions that are grounded on Christianity will also fall – the certainty of linear time, the inevitability of apocalypse, the impossibility and undesirability of reactionary activity, etc. I will not further investigate the havoc caused to Girard’s system by this move, for this is not the point of my work. But I felt it necessary to highlight that my completion of Girard is, in some sense, also an attack on one of his most fundamental conclusions.
Last but not least, this project can be read as a practical guide. To the leader, this project is a guidebook to understanding the irrational, mimetic behavior of groups.[6] It equips her with a psychological framework to think about collective solutions. [7] And to the individual who wishes to remain engaged in society but recognizes the clear personal costs – of, say, wielding power, desiring, or being the object of desire – this project maps out the pervasive and devastating consequences of mimetic pathologies as well as reliable solutions to tame it. Above all, it prescribes a personal remedy against the common ills of mimesis, chief among them: violence, vanity, masochism, bipolarity, and delusion.
But first, a prescription of the cure must proceed through a diagnosis of the condition.
Footnotes
[1] Girard, Battling, 131.
[2] As I will address in Chapter 3, it is less so the reality of violence now that Girard is concerned about but the increasingly unpredictable and reciprocal nature of violence which can easily trend towards extremes.
[3] Because this project aims to begin an interfaith dialogue between Mahayana Buddhism and Girard, I have tried, whenever possible, to draw upon resources generally accepted by all the different schools within the Mahayana tradition. I am fully aware of how fraught the term “Buddhist” is in trying to capture such a wide array of diverse perspectives. But I will nonetheless use this generalization to build this initial bridge in hopes that the specific sectarian synergies and tensions will be fleshed out in later works.
[4] See Neuhouser, Hegel.
[5] See Neuohuser, Rousseau.
[6] Group here should be understood liberally. From romantic pairs to international relations, I will soon show how a similar mimetic logic underlies interpersonal relationship across varying scales.
[7] The aim of this project is to uncover psychological antidotes for an individual to be freed from the trappings of mimesis. It is collective only in the sense that, in so far as individuals within a group have adopted these antidotes individually, will the group be spared from collective ills. This project is individualistic in nature. It asks: what can the individual do to escape the trappings of mimesis. Therefore, it is necessary and lays the groundwork for a fully-formed collective solution, but is in no way sufficient. For example, while I do detail the necessary psychological transformations to escape the trappings of mimesis, I do not give any suggestions on what types of institutions and organizations are best in bringing them about.
Table of Contents
Part I: The Psychology of Spirit
Chapter 2: Acquisitive Mimesis
Chapter 3: The Rescuer of Spirit
Part II: A History of Violence
Chapter 4: Mimetic Anthropology
Chapter 6: Mimetic Eschatology
PART III: Antidotes to Apocalypse
Chapter 7: Renouncing Violence