Sublime

the real solution to anthropological enigmas that the so-called science of anthropology has never been able to solve.

Girard found versions of scapegoating rituals in nearly every ancient culture. The scapegoat is often chosen randomly. But the scapegoat is always perceived to be different, marked with some distinguishing feature of an outsider—something to get them noticed.

Derrida

French literary theorist and anthropologist Rene Girard called mimetic desire, meaning, we want what someone else wants, because we want to be that someone else.

Few scientists have done more to refute the myth of the asocial infant than Andrew Meltzoff, whose work in childhood development, psychology, and neuroscience over the past several decades has lent support to Girard’s discovery.

Nietzsche thought that the psychic pain that often overwhelms us as we make our way through the haunted wood impels us to identify an enemy or hate-figure on whom we can vent our revenge for the sufferings we are undergoing.