Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture

INTRODUCTION

Why are human beings inclined to commit violence that finally brings themselves into conflict? How could human beings have maintained their society that is full of violence and conflicts? René Girard's theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism are the answers to these two anthropological questions. Even though his theory basically belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy, it is not limited to that realm. In reality, his theory has been applied in other academic disciplines, in particular, in social science, such as political science and economics.

There are two remarkable features of Girard's theory that make it possible for its influence to extend beyond anthropology. The first one is that his theory is broadly recognized as being scientifically grounded. Girard claims in his book Violence and the Sacred that "our theory should be approached, then, as one approaches any scientific hypothesis."¹ He brings forward a couple of reasons why the claim is reasonable. He is aware of the most important point of criticism directed at him. The point is that "his theories regarding mimetic [End Page 129] desire are derived, not from a careful study of subjects and the implementation of tests, but rather, from the reading of works of fiction."² He acknowledges the deficiency in his theory as follows:

The theory of the surrogate victim is paradoxical in that it is based on facts whose empirical characteristics are not directly accessible. These facts can be drawn exclusively from texts that invariably offer distorted, fragmentary, or indirect testimony. We can only gain access to the generative event through constant reference to these enigmatic sources, which constitute at once the foreground in which our theory situates itself and the background against which its accuracy must be tested.³

However, Girard defends his theory against the criticism by providing a counterexample of the theory of evolution to show that the criticism is unfair. The theory of evolution is recognized as scientific even though it relies only on the remains of living creatures and thus it is impossible to collect their direct observation or to empirically get it verified. The critics moved the yardsticks! The following paragraph shows his comparison between the theory of evolution and his own theory.

The theory of evolution depends on the comparison and linkage of evidence—the fossil remains of living creatures—corresponding, in the case of my hypothesis, to religious and cultural texts. No single anatomical fact studied in isolation can lead to the concept of evolution. No direct observation is possible, no form of empirical verification even conceivable, because evolution occurred over a span of time entirely out of scale with the span of human experiences.⁴

He also asserts that "whether my theory proves to be true or false, it can, I believe, lay claim to being scientific, if only because it allows for a rigorous definition of such terms as divinity, ritual, rite, and religion."⁵

The second feature that allows us to apply Girard's theory to other areas is that his grandiose theory is a universal theoretical system that attempts to explain every aspect of human nature and society. In The Scapegoat's original French edition, Le Bouc Émissaire, Girard asserts that "Je réduis tout à un seul thème. J'invente un nouveau réductionnisme. Comme tant d'autres avant moi, je choisis une donnée particulière et je la gonfle sans mesure au détriment des autres."⁶ A literal English translation of these French sentences would be as follows: "I reduce everything to one theme. I invent new reductionism. Like so many others before me, I choose a particular data and I inflate it without measure to the detriment of others."⁷ Girard identifies his theory with a kind of reductionism that is a philosophical thought or tendency to find a single, fundamental [End Page 130] principle that explains a variety of different phenomena. For him, his mimetic theory is a single, fundamental principle that penetrates many different phenomena in human society. This has provoked severe criticism and contempt by postmodernist critics, who, on the whole...