The Last of the Hedgehogs - Los Angeles Review of Books
Rene Girard, in his classic Violence and the Sacred,3 says that the most basic cause of violence is mimetic desire, that is, the desire to have what someone else has, which is ultimately the desire to be what someone else is. Envy can lead to breaking many of the other commands: it can move people to adultery, theft, false testimony, and even
... See moreJonathan Sacks • Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)
“Girard discovered that we come to desire many things not through biological drives or pure reason, nor as a decree of our illusory and sovereign self, but through imitation.”
Luke Burgis • Just a moment...
The more desperately we seek to worship ourselves and to be good “individualists,” the more compelled we are to worship our rivals in a cult that turns to hatred.