Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Unlike Derridean deconstruction, until recently so popular among academics, mimesis or imitation is something we can all understand. Mimesis is essential to all forms of intelligence, and particularly to the human. Aristotle’s remark that humans are the most mimetic of creatures was a profound anthropological observation—one that, had he been able to make it the basis of his philosophy rather than restricting it to his Poetics , would have transformed Western intellectual history. For it would have sufficed to deduce the consequences of taking this characterization as the definition of the human to pass from the world of metaphysics to that of generative anthropology, having observed that, once mimesis has reached a certain level, it is no longer compatible with prelinguistic/prehuman mechanisms for the mitigation of intraspecific conflict. It is paradoxical, yet in retrospect perfectly understandable, that despite Aristotle’s lucid observation, only Judeo-Christian rather than Greek culture was able to grasp the key connection between mimesis and human uniqueness via the invention of the sign. If animals lack (symbolic) signs, it is simply because they are not mimetic enough to need them , whereas humans are too mimetic to do without them . As Girard himself might have said, toute l’anthropologie est là . The Greeks could not come up with this thought because they could not conceive of our inventing language , rather than discovering and exploring it.”

— Eric Gans, Our Originary Imagination · Saturday, May 21st, 2022 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment