Girard Digest 1: Introduction
Mar. 6th, 2019 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinWhen I was in college, I was in the habit of doing my homework while listening to the CBC's evening programming, and grew especially to love the 9pm documentary slot, Ideas. Plenty to keep my brain fizzing while the pencil did its busy work! But then, one Monday night, up came something so demanding of my mental faculties that I literally had to lie down on the floor with my eyes closed to digest it at all – and yet it was so intriguing and exciting that I was desperate not to let it get away. That was my introduction to Réné Girard.
Girard developed a philosophy of sociology which synthesised mythology and religion, behavioural contagion, literature, psychology, and whatever else he could get his hands on, into a sort of Theory of Everything. The little bit I could grasp the first time through exploded my mind – it utterly changed the way I understood and approached humanity, and also my entire perspective on Christianity. It explained so much of the world as I knew it, and in the years since I have only seen it validated further. Sometimes it feels as though it's secret knowledge that unveils the hidden order behind the chaos in the world today.
Since about 2010 I have wanted to do a Lent series walking you through his ideas, so you can understand everything too, but springtime is always the busiest time for me and I keep putting it off. This year is no exception, but it's urgent now that this be understood, so I'm taking it on. When I committed to doing this I had forgotten that I'd be teaching for two weeks during Lent and at sea for one, so there won't be a post every day. I will try, though, to break it down into enough easily digestible tidbits that, by Easter, they will add up to a general understanding of the principles. When it's all put together, it's a fairly simple picture, but the individual puzzle pieces are so oddly shaped that they take a lot of work to fit into your head.
If you want to read ahead, I will be drawing mainly from the radio series and, to flesh that out a little, the book which prompted it, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. The latter looks small but is dense enough that it used to take me all of Lent to read; it is worth unpicking, though, so if you're intrigued by the ideas, do consider picking it up, because it goes into much greater detail.
Circumstance has landed me in the company of verified philosophers and theologians, so this enterprise feels rather hubristic ... but fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and I have been a great student of foolishness these last few years, so in I go. I hope you will follow along.
Chapter 2: Imitation
Girard developed a philosophy of sociology which synthesised mythology and religion, behavioural contagion, literature, psychology, and whatever else he could get his hands on, into a sort of Theory of Everything. The little bit I could grasp the first time through exploded my mind – it utterly changed the way I understood and approached humanity, and also my entire perspective on Christianity. It explained so much of the world as I knew it, and in the years since I have only seen it validated further. Sometimes it feels as though it's secret knowledge that unveils the hidden order behind the chaos in the world today.
Since about 2010 I have wanted to do a Lent series walking you through his ideas, so you can understand everything too, but springtime is always the busiest time for me and I keep putting it off. This year is no exception, but it's urgent now that this be understood, so I'm taking it on. When I committed to doing this I had forgotten that I'd be teaching for two weeks during Lent and at sea for one, so there won't be a post every day. I will try, though, to break it down into enough easily digestible tidbits that, by Easter, they will add up to a general understanding of the principles. When it's all put together, it's a fairly simple picture, but the individual puzzle pieces are so oddly shaped that they take a lot of work to fit into your head.
If you want to read ahead, I will be drawing mainly from the radio series and, to flesh that out a little, the book which prompted it, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. The latter looks small but is dense enough that it used to take me all of Lent to read; it is worth unpicking, though, so if you're intrigued by the ideas, do consider picking it up, because it goes into much greater detail.
Circumstance has landed me in the company of verified philosophers and theologians, so this enterprise feels rather hubristic ... but fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and I have been a great student of foolishness these last few years, so in I go. I hope you will follow along.
Chapter 2: Imitation
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Date: 2019-03-10 03:17 am (UTC)