Mediation Matters
Longtime readers of this and previous iterations of this blog would know that one of my research interests is in the mimetic theory of Rene Girard. I have been to three conferences organised by the peak body on Girardian research, the Colloquium on Violence and Religion (of which I am a member), and have a co-authored chapter included in their Violence, Desire & the Sacred series.
It was in these conferences that I got to know Fr Elias Carr, who is a Canon Regular of St Augustine at Stift Klosterneuberg in Austria. He is not only a scholar of Girard, but has also run Girard reading groups in his parish to apply the insights of Girard in the context of parish life.
Late last year, Fr Elias made an extremely important contribution to the literature on Girard by releasing I Came to Cast Fire: An Introduction to Rene Girard, published by Word on Fire.
It is important because this book bridges a number of demographics, scholars of Girard, those with only a familiarity with Girardian concepts in name but not in content, and non-specialists who nonetheless want to know more about Girard in an applicable way. I situate myself squarely in this third demographic.
The book provides highly accessible introductions to key concepts in Girard’s work, such as mimetic desire, contagion, escalation, scapegoating and so on. Non-specialists would find a number of familiar explanations of these concepts, but what surprised me as a reader is the extent to which I have missed many important nuances within Girard’s body of work, or in the very real-world application of those theories.
Where this became especially palpable for me is when he covers the subject of mediation, which can be said to be the connecting tissue by which one mimetically learns to desire (the subject) after another (the model and potential rival).
The reason for my revisiting the subject of mediation is my working through a book project on the theological engagement with pornography (more on that specific project will come in later posts). In the context of Girard’s work, my interest is located in the shift that takes place from what he calls “external mediation” (marked by a social, cultural or metaphysical distance that minimises the intensity of the rivalry) and “internal mediation” (where that distance is what is minimised, which then increases the intensity of the rivalry).
Girard dealt with the fallout of internal mediation in his Deceit, Desire and the Novel (although he also deals with this to devastating effect in I See Satan Fall Like Lightning). Of interest for me was what happens to the object in internal mediation and its comcomitant escalation in rivalry. Because for Girard, as the rivalry escalates, the object of desire is not so much the thing that is desired, as it is the being of the rival. Moreover, while we often think that internal mediation should make desire more concrete, Girard argues that it actually leads to the desire becoming more abstract. Desire then becomes evacuated of all substance and becomes, in Girard’s words, “almost nonexistent at the point of conquest”. There could be a point where the rivals no longer know what the rivalry was over in the first place. What this means in practice is that the contours of desire become less undefined, it becomes even easier to redefine, thereby adding fuel to the fire to the already escalating rivalry.
Where I Came to Cast Fire becomes especially illuminating for me on this score is the way he presents Jesus as the counter to our mimetic rivalry. Whilst I was aware of the notion of Jesus as the antidote insofar as he is one without rivals, I Came to Cast Fire also brought to my attention the notion of His being the antidote to our cultural tendency towards internal mediation.
This is possible because Jesus, in being fully human and thus cognisant of our tendency towards internal mediation, also provides us with a model for pursuing a true transcendence with the transcendent God (in this context, internal mediation is what Girard calls a deviated pursuit of transcendence). Moreover, because Jesus is fully divine and thereby fully transcendent, Jesus is also able to be our model in such a way as to ensure that the mediation remains external. In other words, our desires become healed of their propensity towards violence so long as they are modeled on the fully immanent-yet-transcendent Christ. In Fr Elias’ words:
As the innocent one, [Christ] establishes a new state of indifferentiation or identity. Against the innocent one is the entire human race, whose mimetic desire tends towards violence. Rather than condeming the human race as different from him, however, Christ…underscores at every step his total identification with the human race…
And in another place…
Yet, this does not cause a new mimetic crisis of indifferentiation, but rather establishes a safe mimesis by which we can imitate Jesus, who imitates his Father in peace rather than sccumbing to mimetic rivalry (112)
We should be grateful for Fr Elias for providing this important work. There are other points which I will cover in future posts. In the meantime, those who want to know more can also listen to Fr Elias’ fantastically succinct interview with Larry Chapp on the book on his Gaudium et Spes 22 podcast.
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