Even down to the truly bizarre claim that human conflict is the result of mimetic rivalry
Two starving men will fight over a loaf of bread without us having to assume mimetic rivalry. But if one of them gets the bread and eats it, and then the other sneaks up behind him later and kills him out of revenge, or a sense of injustice, that's only explicable in terms of mimesis. And that's the kind of conflict that really threatens any social order. The two men could have shared the bread, even if one was stronger than the other. That lesson can only be learned as a result of the specifically mimetic violence unique to humans. And so that order could only have been formed in the first place so as to defer that kind of violence.
> kills him out of revenge, or a sense of injustice, that's only explicable in terms of mimesis. Not sure why higher emotions/rationalizations would have to come from mimesis > that's the kind of conflict that really threatens any social order. Political fanatics armed with just the right theory have done considerably more harm than random criminality has. > That lesson can only be learned as a result of the specifically mimetic violence unique to humans That’s quite a leap, given that you just used reason and not mimesis to explain it. And also other animals are mimetic like gorillas and they have been taught to share in the lab among other things. > And so that order could only have been formed in the first place so as to defer that kind of violence. You are quite fond of using words like “only” and “must” about things that have very many possible explanations and that really don’t follow at all.
An insistence on eclectic, multi-causal analysis is epistemological liberalism. Everyone throws in their two cents.
"Not sure why..."=I don't really want to think about it. Give some thought to "envy," "pride," "honor," "anger," "jealousy" and some other "higher emotions"--where, exactly, do they come from? Why would someone be "insulted" by an "offense"?
What in the world accounts for "political fanaticism" if not resentment that the social order is not arranged to your liking? And what is the source of that "higher emotion," resentment?
No, I didn't use "reason" to explain the possibility of sharing so as to avoid resentment and defer violence. What "reason" arrives at will depend upon the "inputs" processed through language. Dividing something up is possible because of language, and language is possible because we can defer appropriation of an object deemed to be "sacred."