Monday, December 30, 2013

From the Archives: Part 96 of The Self and its Sources




The madness of self-creation vis a vis the ‘other’. Girard: “It is the effort to leave the beaten path which forces everyone inevitably into the same ditch.”

Saturday, December 28, 2013

From the Archives: Part 95 of The Self and its Sources




The story telling that takes place without a meta-narrative is designed to obliterate the one true story. Bernard, “I, who am always distracted, always make up a story and so obliterate the angles of the crucifix.”

Thursday, December 26, 2013

From the Archives: Part 94 of The Self and its Sources




Over the course of Virginia Woolf’s novel, The Waves, the internal monologues of the characters become shorter, and it becomes harder to distinguish who is speaking. In the end, only Bernard’s character remains speaking. He tries to sum up the story of the novel: “There are so many stories, stories of childhood, love, marriage and death; and none of them are true.

The agenda of literary or philosophical deconstruction: to rid ourselves of metanarratives – a story that operates as an interpretive key to all other stories. To rid ourselves of the idea that there could be one true story to which all the other stories relate and derive their meaning.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

A René Girard Christmas Card...

Courtesy of National Review Online - Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson...


Every Christmas since the 2009 Peter Robinson interview with René Girard was first aired we have featured this excerpt. Like most of Girard's works, it only becomes more meaningful and moving with the passing of time. It is especially touching to see one of the preeminent scholars of our age comment on the nativity narratives in Luke with such gentle humility. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to René, not only for his extraordinarily insightful scholarly work, but perhaps even more for his friendship over many years and for the kindness and encouragement that he and his wife Martha have extended to us. René will celebrate his 90th birthday on Christmas Day, and we wish him our heartfelt best wishes. 

Friday, December 20, 2013

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

From the Archives: Part 92 of The Self and its Sources




Virginia Woolf portrays a more advanced stage of the ‘disease’ that Dostoyevsky depicts in the character of the “underground man”. Nietzsche incorrectly saw Christianity as the source of the modern world’s resentments – when in fact the resentments are the source of mimetic entanglements. Christianity censured the taking of revenge. It is this prohibition that Nietzsche rejects. To the extent that people refuse the Christian call to conversion and repentance that can change the human heart and yet still renounce revenge, there will be resentments.

Monday, December 16, 2013

From the Archives: Part 91 of The Self and its Sources




Nietzsche’s “madman” & Dostoyevsky’s “underground man” – are reflected in the metaphorical prelude to the last section of the novel.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

From the Archives: Part 90 of The Self and its Sources




The stigmata of mimetic entanglements; its bodily effects. The search for a non-sacrificial way to experience transcendence.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

From the Archives: Part 89 of The Self and its Sources




Faith of any kind has mimetic consequences. St. John of the Cross: Love creates a likeness between that which loves and that which is loved.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

From the Archives: Part 88 of The Self and its Sources




The vanishing of transcendence is like the depletion of the Ozone layer: the ozone layer is thinned, nobody notices it and yet people begin to develop skin cancer. The lack of transcendence will not keep us from being religious; it will only make us idol worshipers.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

From the Archives: Part 87 of The Self and its Sources




The novel “The Waves” as a prayer book on transcendence: vertical and deviated transcendence. However, the prayers of these characters are all addressed to each other.

Friday, December 06, 2013

From the Archives: Part 86 of The Self and its Sources




Bernard, speaking of a possible religious ‘way out’ of the crisis:
“I, who am always distracted, at once make up a story and so obliterate the angles of the crucifix. I have made up thousands of stories; I have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when I have found the true story, the one story to which all the phrases refer. But I have never yet found that story.”

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

From the Archives: Part 85 of The Self and its Sources




Virginia Woolf’s voice in the novel: Bernard -
“He joined the sensibility of a woman and the logical sobriety of a man…” “When I am alone I fall into lethargy; when Lewis is alone he sees with astonishing intensity and will write some words that will outlast us all.”

The solution to the mimetic crisis can only be religious; can only be found in true transcendence.

Monday, December 02, 2013