Desire & Envy & Violence

The Prophet of Envy

Robert Pogue Harrison, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, December 20, 2018 

René Girard (1923–2015) was one of the last of that race of Titans who dominated the human sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with their grand, synthetic theories about history, society, psychology, and aesthetics. That race has since given way to a more cautious breed of “researchers” who prefer to look at things up close, to see their fine grain rather than their larger patterns. Yet the times certainly seem to attest to the enduring relevance of Girard’s thought to our social and political realities. Not only are his ideas about mimetic desire and human violence as far-reaching as Marx’s theories of political economy or Freud’s claims about the Oedipus complex, but the explosion of social media, the resurgence of populism, and the increasing virulence of reciprocal violence all suggest that the contemporary world is becoming more and more recognizably “Girardian” in its behavior.

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In April 2018 the biography of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven, Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard, was published. In his Review "The Prophet of Envy", Professor Robert Pogue Harrision (*1954) not only deals with this publication but refers to key publications by René Girard to enroll the komplex picture of the philosopher of religion, the anthropologist and literary theorist who had become famous with his mimetic theory. Girard's life theme but was violence. In light of our present social media smart phone culture the thoughts and reflections gain more weight.