Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“The prehistory of generative anthropology, beginning with René Girard’s Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque in 1961 and its theory of mimetic desire, puts mimesis at the core of our theory of the human. And although natural scientists can discuss the physiological aspects of mimesis: “mirror neurons” and the rest, just as they can study the components of language: sociality, neuronal capacity, vocal tract development, aural sensitivity... the fact remains that, just as natural science cannot explain the origin of language, the same can be said for the specificity of mimetic desire, which is simply human desire tout court . Eleven years after Mensonge , in La violence et le sacré (1972), Girard expanded his insight about “bad” desire into a fundamental anthropology. The mimetic triangle became the basis for his model of the originary event, the “emissary murder” of the “scapegoat” by his unanimous fellows. This proto-human murder scene can be understood as a circle constructed from a multitude of triangles with the apex on the central victim, each participant mediating each of the others to desire/hate/sacrifice the latter—who is really the mediator of them all. This is not the place to discuss my differences with this scheme, which remains an article of faith among Girardians.”

— Eric Gans, Bad Mimesis and Western Decadence · Saturday, April 10th, 2021 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment