Eric Gans has remarked on many occasions, in agreement with Rene Girard, that mimetic theory has been derived ultimately from literature—rather than, by contrast, from philosophy and the social sciences, on the one hand, or even religion, on the other. I agree with this as well, and the reason for this is that literature is a continuation of scripture under post-liturgical conditions. Philosophy is a repudiation of ritual, and the social sciences are split-offs from philosophy, sharing this constitutive repudiation. Scripture, which is to say, the sacred text, shares a kind of contemporaneity with philosophy, insofar as the sacrality of the written word is only possible and necessary when there is no longer a shared sacrificial center. There’s a rejection of sacrificial ritual here, as, for example, in the Hebrew bible’s denunciation of idolatry, but this repudiation is in the name of acknowledging a more originary centrality, rather than recentering truth in the exchange of declaratives among those who have set aside their ostensive commitments.
Fict-tech-tion; Archae-tecture
Fict-tech-tion; Archae-tecture
Fict-tech-tion; Archae-tecture
Eric Gans has remarked on many occasions, in agreement with Rene Girard, that mimetic theory has been derived ultimately from literature—rather than, by contrast, from philosophy and the social sciences, on the one hand, or even religion, on the other. I agree with this as well, and the reason for this is that literature is a continuation of scripture under post-liturgical conditions. Philosophy is a repudiation of ritual, and the social sciences are split-offs from philosophy, sharing this constitutive repudiation. Scripture, which is to say, the sacred text, shares a kind of contemporaneity with philosophy, insofar as the sacrality of the written word is only possible and necessary when there is no longer a shared sacrificial center. There’s a rejection of sacrificial ritual here, as, for example, in the Hebrew bible’s denunciation of idolatry, but this repudiation is in the name of acknowledging a more originary centrality, rather than recentering truth in the exchange of declaratives among those who have set aside their ostensive commitments.