Abstract
René Girard’s breakthrough consists in uncovering the mechanism of violence, namely the mimesis and rivalry it permits. Yet, mimetic violence still leaves the very origin of evil and murder unquestioned. Here Lévinas plays (or should play) a decisive role: the call to murder only becomes possible as one of the versions of the call of the face, the call of the other. This is what Girard should have taken up in order to clarify his final allusions to a “good mimesis”—this other, properly Christic, possibility of the call of the face.
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Notes
Girard (2010, p. 117). I will rely entirely on this final work, Battling to the End, first because it constituted the reference point of the conference [in which this paper was first delivered] (“Battling to the end. 1914–2014. The escalation of violence and victimization. René Girard and Jean-Luc Marion,” held in Freising, Germany, 21–24 July 2014), second because its dialogical form introduces a depth and opening on Girard’s thought, which is usually very coherent and almost closed in on itself.
Girard (2010, p. 118 and p. 216, respectively).
Girard (2010, p. 118).
Girard (2010, p. 71).
Levinas (1969, p. 194).
Levinas (1969, p. 197).
Levinas (1969, p. 198).
Levinas (1969, p. 199).
Levinas (1969, p. 303).
Levinas (1969, p. 213).
Levinas (1969, p. 211, trans. lightly modified).
Levinas (1969, p. 207, trans. lightly modified). See: “The idea of the infinite in me, implying a content overflowing the container, breaks with the prejudice of maieutics without breaking with rationalism, since the idea of the infinite, far from violating the mind, conditions nonviolence itself, that is, establishes ethics” (ibid, p. 204; trans. lightly modified). “The idea of the infinite in consciousness is an overflowing of a consciousness whose incarnation offers new powers to a soul no longer paralytic—powers of welcome, of gift, of full hands, of hospitality” (ibid., p. 205; trans. lightly modified). Emphases added.
Pascal says: “Mine, yours. / ‘This is my dog,’ said those poor children. ‘That is my place in the sun.’ That is the origin and picture of universal usurpation.” (Pascal 1995, p. 25).
Girard (2010, p. 113).
Girard (2010, p. 113).
Girard (2010, pp. 118 and 95, respectively).
Girard (2010, p. 103).
Girard (2010, p. 216).
Girard (2010, p. 96).
Girard (2010, p. 100).
Girard (2010, p. 82; emphasis added).
Girard (2010, p. 82).
Girard (2010, p. 71; emphasis added). See: “We will have to come back to the way in which mimetic anthropology tries to establish that relationship, by going from a violent mimesis to peaceful mimesis” (ibid., p. 49).
Girard (2010, p. 103). See: “Mimetism has to be thought of as both good and bad” (ibid., p. 140). Or: “to think of an alternative, something beyond war, a good transcendence” (ibid., p. 79).
Girard (2010, p. 101). “However, we also still have to keep in mind the possibility of positive imitation” (ibid., p. 109). See: “Intelligent imitation, which is self-conscious, is something else entirely” (ibid., p. 102). The “good model” is actually “one good distance: the imitation of Christ in order to avoid the imitation of men” (ibid., p. 129). In this way, “we might be in a state of positive indifferentiation, in other words, identified with others. This is Christian love” (ibid., p. 131).
Girard (2010, pp. 101 and 109ff.).
Girard (2010, p. 109).
Girard (2010, p. 106).
Girard (2010, p. 106).
See: “The presence of the divine grows as the divine withdraws” (Girard 2010, p. 122). “His presence is not proximity” (Ibid., p. 123). On this point of Hölderlin’s thematization of distance I can only note Girard’s agreement with my old analysis in Idol and Distance (Marion 2001, chapter 3, §§ 8–12).
Girard (2010, p. 129).
Girard (2010, p. 134).
[The original title of Girard’s Battling to the End in French is Achever Clausewitz.—Trans].
Girard (2010, p. 120).
Girard (2010, p. 112, trans. lightly modified).
Girrd (2010, pp. 60 and 214, respectively). (The latter citation ends: “Islam seems in many respects to situate itself prior to that rejection.”).
On forgiveness (and its relationship to sacrifice, itself thought starting from the gift), see Marion (2015, chapter IV).
References
Girard, René. 2010. Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre. Trans. Mary Baker. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1987. Time and the Other. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2001. Idol and Distance: Five Studies. Trans. Thomas A. Carlson. New York: Fordham University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2005. From the Other to the Individual. Trans. Arianne Conty. In Levinas Studies: An Annual Review, ed. Jeffrey Bloechl and Jeffrey L. Kosky, 99–117. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2015. Negative Certainties. Trans. Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pascal, Blaise. 1995. Pensées and Other Writings. Trans. Honor Levi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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This is a revised translation of “Violence et pardon: Girard, Levinas et au-delà,” first published in French language in J.-L. Marion, Figures de phénoménologie, Paris: Vrin 2015, second edition.
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Marion, JL. Violence and forgiveness: from one mimesis to another. Cont Philos Rev 53, 385–397 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-019-09483-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-019-09483-8