‘Indifferentiation’ and Intercultural Dialogue in the Mimetic Theory of Rene Girard.
Anthony Ekpunobi, Kharkov, Ukraine.
Doctoral Student
Theological Faculty, University of Ljubljana.
Abstract.
Social crisis is caused not by the diverse cultures that exists in a polity, rather it is the lack of it. According to Rene Girard, culture is somehow eclipsed as it becomes less differentiated. The crisis of indifferentiation is both intracultural in that the differences are legitimate, and intercultural – the differences that exist outside the system are terrifying because they reveal the truth of the system, its relativity, its fragility and its mortality. The ethnoreligious crisis that results in the attempt at a resolution of indifferentiation, exposes the religious foundation of culture according to Rene Girard.
The Council of Europe’s White Paper on intercultural dialogue undermined religion presumably because of a common Christian heritage. This is not so in Asia and Africa where ethno-religiosity thrives. The recent migration crisis in Europe is redefining intercultural dialogue due to the reality of indifferentiation which enjoys resolution in religious terms. This paper is an attempt at stating that religion should be the starting point of any intercultural dialogue.
Key words: Indifferentiation; Mimetic Theory; Scapegoating Mechanism; Intercultural Dialogue; Mimetic Desire; Mimetic Rivalry.
1. Intercultural Dialogue and Identity crises
The Council of Europe Ministers of Foreign Affairs at their 118th Ministerial Session, Strasbourg, 7 May 2008, presented a White Paper on intercultural dialogue titled: Living Together As Equals in Dignity. This highly celebrated White Paper is designed to protect and develop human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Council is convinced that ‘Intercultural dialogue… allows us to prevent ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural divides. It enables us to move forward together, to deal with our different identities constructively and democratically on the basis of shared universal values’ (White Paper, 4). The White Paper defined intercultural dialogue thus;
Intercultural dialogue is understood as an open and respectful exchange of views between individuals, groups with different ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds and heritage on the basis of mutual understanding and respect. (White Paper, 14).
This document demonstrates a bold step by Europe to set the pace for intercultural dialogue bearing in mind the plurality that exists within its borders. As many modern societies become aware of the reality of the multiculturalism due to migration, the call for dialogue on culture becomes imperative.
Unfortunately, the White Paper lacks a proper definition of what it means to be European. One expects the definition of a European identity in a multicultural continent that will aid intercontinental relations. The paper did not express how the European identity relates with the multi-religious reality of the continent. Rumford, C. et al (2005:60) notes that the ‘resulting notion of a European identity has led to a confused debate, not because Europe cannot have an identity or because the bearers of such an identity, Europeans, do not exist, but because the very idea of identity in this debate has rarely been clarified’. A true discuss on intercultural dialogue presupposes an understanding of ‘identity’. Hans Erik Näss of the University of Oslo – Norway, faults this document in his article titled “The Ambiguities of Intercultural Dialogue: Critical Perspectives on the European Union’s New Agenda for Culture”, published in the Journal of Intercultural Communication. He argues the ambiguity of the usage of the words diversity and difference. ‘The line between acceptable diversity and unacceptable difference should be settled by law, not feelings’. (Hans Erik Näss, 2010).
The in flock of Islamic migrants into Europe in the last decade, has widened the idea of a multicultural and Multi-religious Europe. These Islamic migrants come into Europe with well define cultural identity founded on strict religious laws. Francis Fukuyama, a professor of International Political Economy at John Hopkins School of International studies, writes in his article “Identity and Migration”, that ‘the rise of relativism has made it harder for postmodern people to assert positive values and therefore the kinds of shared beliefs that they demand of migrants as a condition for citizenship’. (Fukuyama, 2007). Since there is nothing on ground, these migrants hold fast to what defines them as a people, including their religion.
2. Identity and the Mimetic Theory
Our consideration of identity and its relation to religion is rather social than psychological. We look at identity from ‘how do groups find and express their identity? What holds them together? What motivates their actions, including their internal and external conflicts?’ (Marty, 1997:6). Rene Girard traces identity from the relationship between religion and violence. The sacrificial resolution of crisis, revealed to Girard, the single factor responsible for all human conflicts. In his Mimetic Theory, he exposed the triangular nature of human desire that often lures into violence. The mimetic process involves a subject, the object and the mediator or the model. The subject does not desire directly at the object of desire, rather through the desire of another regarded as a model or mediator. Girard observes in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, ‘The mediator is there, above that line, radiating toward both the subject and the object. The spatial metaphor which expresses this triple relationship is obviously a triangle.’ (Girard, 1976: 2). From a triangular desire, he saw clearly the mimesis that holds sway of human actions. P.J. Watson writes that ‘mimesis is triangular desire. …. Involving a subject, a model, and an object. Subjects must look toward some model in order to learn which specific objects should be desired.’ (Watson 1998). The mimetic nature of desire accounts for the fragility of human relations (Girard, 2001:10). Desire is undoubtedly a distinctively human phenomenon that can only develop when a certain threshold of mimesis is transcended. (Girard, 1987:283).
According to Girard, ‘rivalry does not arise because of the fortuitous convergence of two desires on a single object; rather, the subject desires the object because the rival desires it. In desiring an object the rival alerts the subject to the desirability of the object’ (Girard, 1979:145). Individual social and cultural identity is achieved through mimesis. Imitative desire is always a desire to be Another (Girard 1976, 83). The reason for Girard (1979) is that the subject desires being something- identity- he himself lacks and which some other person seems to possess. The subject thus looks to that person to inform him of what he should desire in order to acquire that being. Mimetic desire is the unconscious, involuntary and uncontrollable driving force of human events. No one can do without a highly developed mimetic capacity in acquiring cultural attitudes in situating oneself correctly within one’s own culture. (Girard, 1987:290). The interdividual nature of mimesis presupposes that we are constituted by the other. (Girard, 2001:137n.2).
Identity through mimesis is double edged because it determines group identity and individual identity. The individual borrows identity through mimesis, yet the inner impulse is to deny the entire mimetic process. The more the subject denies the mimetic rivalry, the more he become identical with the model. The only option is that identity is realized in the hatred of the identical. (Ibid: 22). Only someone who prevents us from satisfying a desire which he himself has inspired in us is truly an object of hatred. (Girard, 1976:10). There exists in every individual a tendency to thinks of himself not only as different from others but as extremely different, because every culture entertains this feeling of difference among the individuals who compose it. (Girard, 1989:21). The reality is that identity crisis is imminent in mimesis, hence the fragility of human relations. Cultures must inevitable conceal these difference through a healthy exchange between individual and society. A peaceful society presupposes a system of exchange that differentiates and therefore conceals the reciprocal elements it contains by it very culture and by the nature of the exchange. (ibid: 13). The mimetic violence is the crisis of indifferentiation.
3. Identity and religion
Religion creates identity through the mimetic violence i.e. the hatred of the identical. Culture is somehow eclipsed as it becomes less differentiated [indifferentiation] (Girard, 1989:14). Indifferentiation is the fear of seeing the disappearance of differences conceived as fundamental for the preservation of national order. (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The preservation of differences is thus conceived as a necessary condition for the survival of any group. (Almeida, 2014). In the hatred of the identical, violence establishes identity and cures the crisis of indifferentiation. Both internal and external crisis is settled by violence. The violence in question is man’s own violence. The procedures that keep men’s violence in bounds have one thing in common: they are no strangers to the ways of violence.
Sociologist claim that religion is a tool for the nationalist movement. Scott Appleby argues that “weak religions” are chronically vulnerable to manipulation by external agents for political interests. (Appleby, 2000:58). Indifferentiation is a social crisis of all-against-all. Raymand Grew, believes that religion provide a consonant between community and true individualism. (Grew, 1997:25). Religion provides violence with a substitution in order to satisfy its fury. The nature of violence for Girard is ‘a raging fire that feeds on the very objects intended to smother its flames’. (Girard, 1979:31). Through an obscure means, a substitution is made in ritual sacrifice to distract or divert the attention of violence on a victim. According to Robert Petkovsek (2015), the scapegoat mechanism is employed by primitive ritual sacrifice to automatically transform the crisis of “war of all against all” into a “war of all against one”. The human instinct to apportion blames in times of crisis is what religion employs in order to divert the violence. What matters here is the intention- aversion of violence, and not the action- murder. Its validity as an institution depends on its ability to conceal the displacement upon which the rite is based. (Girard, 1979:4). The guilty party poses the most immediate threat, as such in choosing a surrogate victim, scapegoating averts the anger of both the parties involved in the crisis, and unites them against a victim.
Modern judicial systems differ from ritual of sacrifice in the sense that it makes a rational confrontation of violence. According to Girard, instead of following the example of religion and attempting to forestall acts of revenge, to mitigate or sabotage its effects or to redirect them to secondary objects, our judicial system rationalizes revenge and succeeds in limiting and isolating its effects in accordance with social demands. The system treats the disease without fear of contagion and provides a highly effective technique for the cure and, as a secondary effect, the prevention of violence. (Girard, 1979: 22). The judicial system requires a strong political will in order to maintain its stand against violence. Unfortunately, the political will is subject to mimetic crisis as we have seen earlier. Like all modern technological advances, it is a two-edged sword, which can be used to oppress as well as to liberate. (Ibid: 23). But for the mimetic crisis, the modern judicial system proves an effective cure to violence.
Religion unites the society through the unanimity against a surrogate victim. ‘Myths arise in order to justify this practice by deceptively making believe that the victims are truly guilty’ (Petkovšek, 2015). Once united, the society reenacts the ritual of sacrifice in order to sustain peace and unity. The cultural identity founded by religious ritual sacrifice is celebrated in the rituals. With its inherent violence, the sacrificial system is beyond the clutches of mimetic crisis in the sense that the violence choses its own victims. The victim of mimetic snowballing [scapegoating] is chosen by the contagion itself; he or she is substituted for all other victims that the crowd [society] could have chosen if things happened differently. Substitution come about spontaneously. (Girard, 2001:24). The judicial system in effectiveness and importance, does not unite the community.
4. Religion And Intercultural Dialogue
The starting point of every intercultural dialogue should be religion. The religious foundation of human culture is undeniable from the point of view of the Mimetic Theory. According to Girard:
The true guide of human beings is not abstract reason but ritual. The countless repetitions shape little by little the institutions that later men and women will think they invented ex nihilo. Actually it is religion that invented human culture. (2001:92).
The ambivalence of the sacred in religion is unfounded. The ambivalence lies on a focus on the sacred rather than on religare – to bind together. The scientific temperament of the secular modernity that informed the sociological and ethnological enquiries focus on the sacred as responsible for human actions. The top-down definition of religion, will always end in ambivalence of the sacred. Scott Appleby defines religion as a human response to a reality perceived as sacred. (Appleby, 2000:8). The above definition presents religion as a tool in the hands of religious leaders on whom lies the onus of religious interpretation of the sacred. Most religious societies, in fact, have interpreted their experience of the sacred in such a way as to give religion a paradoxical role in human affairs— as the bearer of peace and the sword. (Ibid: 27). Religious rituals provides an opportunity of dialogue. They are those celebrations that marks the identity of any group of people. The meaning expressed in rituals binds the community. Rituals express the understanding of the sacred in religion. An intercultural dialogue through the rituals, provides us with a bottom-up approach that begins with human actions and leads to the sacred.
The ethnoreligious crisis of post President Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia is an expression of religious cultural identity. The parties involved were defined alongside religious affiliations; the orthodox Serbs, the catholic Croats and Slovenes and, the Muslim Slavs. Dragoljub Djordjevic (1998) writes that the Serbian Orthodox Church acquired autocephalous, or independent, status in 1219 and played a key role in creating and sustaining the various forms of Serbian national identity throughout much of Serbian history. Identity finds expression in religion. The ambivalence of religion is explicable, yet a problem calling for solution. That it abhors scientific solution presupposes the development of a new methodology. Of the six sections of the White Paper, subsection 3.5 is devoted to what is called ‘The Religious Dimensions’. This section recognized the reality of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the European continent and their concomitant interplay in the development of the Europe. The lack of consensus especially in matters concerning religious symbols is admitted; transparent and regular dialogue guided by universal principles and values are recommended; an all-inclusive right to contribute in debates of the moral foundation of society and forums of cultural dialogue is recommended.
5. Conclusion
Violence is never destroyed, rather it is diverted. Between religion and the judicial system, violence is contained at a cost. One saves the society from revenge, while the other rationalizes revenge according to social demands. The social crisis of indifferentiation is dispelled by cultural identity which religion guarantees. An effective judicial system will serve to promote cultural identity. Religion and the Judiciary can work together to promote identity. But the discussion of cultural integration must begin with comprehension of the religious bond. National celebration of religious rituals like the American day of Thanksgiving, reenacts the bond of identity. Dialogue is a human action. Rituals as human actions in religious practice provide avenue for intercultural dialogue. The American Day of Thanksgiving is embraced by all living in America because the meaning contained within this ritual, appealing and understandable.
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