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ABSTRACT
Levinas is famously opposed to the sacred and its association with violence. In Totality and Infinity, he writes that he seeks to describe a relationship with the other that is ‘purified of the violence of the sacred.’ René Girard’s attempt to explain the paradoxical nature of the sacred leads him to a sharp criticism of the sacred and like Levinas, he argued that the sacred is linked to violence and murder. Insofar as they both associate the sacred with violence, Levinas and Girard are often seen as bedfellows. In this paper, I will argue that they are irreconcilable, and that, moreover, reading Levinas with Girard shows just how much sacred violence can still be found in Levinas. It is conceivable that a similar argument could be levied against Girard, but that would be too much for one paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Emmanuel Levinas (2000) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Trans. Al Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP), p. 77.
2. Since both Levinas and Girard are major figures, the list of works pertaining to one or both of them is long. Of the many papers, not all are relevant to my inquiry, which is less irenic than most treatments of the pairing. While many scholars are keen to note similarities or affinities between Girard and Levinas, I am more interested in divergences and disagreements. The readers will see which papers and approaches I have found most fruitful in subsequent notes.
3. For an inventory of Girard’s passing references to Levinas, see S. Goodhart (2017), ‘Levinas and the Prophetic Current’ (in J. Alison & W. Palaver, The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. New York: Palgrave. 241–248), 241–243. Prior to Battling to the End, Girard’s references to Levinas are predominantly to his Talmudic readings, in particular, the principle that when an accusation is unanimous, the accused should be acquitted. See R. Girard (2001) I see Satan fall like Lightning (trans. James Williams. New York: Orbis Books) p. 118.
4. René Girard (1977) Violence and the Sacred (trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1977), pp. 78–79.
5. See the discussion in René Girard (1987) Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World (Trans. S. Bann and M. Metteer. Palo Alto: Stanford UP) pp. 27–29.
6. An anonymous reviewer points out that Girard is referring to structural differences within a social group (roughly differences as conceived by structuralist anthropology) and not difference as Levinas conceives it. This is an important point, and suggests further development. One difficulty, though, is that it is arguable that the way Levinas often characterises the difference of the other (for example, stranger, widow, orphan) relies on terms that are readily interpretable in terms of the former.
7. René Girard (2010) Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre (trans. Mary Baker. East Lansing: Michigan State UP), p. 71.
8. ‘The “relation to the Other” is all very well, but I see it as a front for a whole theory of humanitarianism that I reject, as you know. Humanitarianism is just a dried up form of humanism’ (Girard, 2010, p. 71).
9. Emmanuel Levinas (2000b) Otherwise than Being: or Beyond Essence (trans. Al Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP), 4.
10. See E. Levinas (1996b), ‘Transcendence and Height’ (in A. Peperzak, S. Critchley & R. Bernasconi (eds) Basic Philosophical Writings. Bloomington: Indiana UP. 11–30) 15–16: the same is alienated from itself by precisely those structures (Levinas’ target seems to be modern governmental and bureaucratic structures, but one could easily expand his claim to include what Girard would call the taboos, totems and rituals of ancient societies) that it creates to preserve itself; one ends up serving those structures and treating them as ends rather than means. The coming of the other, insofar as it challenges totality, reminds one that they are, in fact, means.
11. Sasha Biro (2017) ‘Levinas’ Reception of the Mythic’ (in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 31.3 pp. 422–431) further develops this point. According to Biro, myth and violence are intimately linked in Levinas’ thought. Biro notes that Levinas is quite critical of myth in general and sees ethics as taking a decisive step beyond myths but – and this is a key point for Biro’s position, Levinas nevertheless continues to rely on myths in his writings, referring to Ulysses, Deucalion and tales from the Old Testament. As such, Biro argues that there is an undeveloped positive evaluation of myth implicit in Levinasian thought. Against this, one could argue (a) that the references to Ulysses and Deucalion are both negative and do not suggest a positive evaluation of myth and (b) that the stories from the Old Testament are not understood by Levinas to by pagan and mythical but rather monotheistic and ethical.
12. In saying this, I respectfully disagree with S. Goodhart’s claim in Goodhart 2012 that despite Girard’s ambivalence and reservations regarding Levinas’ thought (243), the difference is finally one of the emphasis (245).
13. This theme is developed in Cyril O’Regan (2012), ‘Girard and the Spaces of Apocalyptic’ (Modern Theology 28 pp. 112–140), pp. 123–125. O’Regan argues that Girard’s discomfort with Levinas rests (at least in part) on Levinas’ ‘hope in an order of reality otherwise than violent that can be given communal and social purchase’ (124). The opening to the other that promises an escape from violence serves to obscure from view the extent to which (in Girard’s view anyway) violence is inseparably haunting social relations. The anonymous reviewer points out that in I see Satan fall like Lightning, Girard speaks of ‘accepting the kingdom’ as a way to peace. Moreover, in BTTE Girard suggests that the apocalyptic unveiling of violence might enable a renunciation thereof, indeed, it requires it. I am not sure that Girard has worked out this position completely, because it stands in tension with his claim, in ‘Mimetic Theory and Theology’ (in René Girard (2014), The One by Whom Scandal Comes. Trans. M.B. DeBevoise. East Lansing: Michigan State UP) that there is no position outside of sacrifice that we can inhabit (p. 43). Instead, he claims there that there are two kinds of sacrifice, the sacrifice of others, and the sacrifice of Christ, who dies for others. But given the extent to which the unanimity of sacrifice of others is infectious and can lead to victim accusing himself (as in the case of Oedipus in Girard’s reading); it is not always easy to tell the difference between the two sacrifices in practice. One should bear in mind here his discussion of ‘antisacrificial rituals of victimisation’ in Girard 2001, pp. 164–165. To fully develop these points would go far beyond the limits of a footnote.
14. The above is arguably a bit simplistic (although sufficient for our purposes): Girard does admit the possibility that the borrowed desire for objects desired by the other can lead, in some circumstances, to the desire to possess everything the other possesses, to replace the other. This desire to ‘become’ the other (in Girard’s terminology, ‘metaphysical desire’) is, however, and importantly, secondary. The primary desire is for objects, even if the object becomes increasingly unimportant as the conflict escalates. See Girard, 1987, pp. 15–16.
15. Jeff Bloechl (2011) ‘Towards and Anthropology of Violence: Existential Analyses of Levinas, Girard and Freud’ (in N. Eckstrand & C. Yates (eds) Philosophy and the Return of Violence: Studies from this Widening Gyre. London: Continuum, pp. 112–124), pp. 117–18 offers the best comparison of Girard and Levinas on this point that I have come across. Bloechl points out that ‘whereas for Levinas the desiring other is an other in need … Girard places the accent on that desire as potential and as menace: the other person wants what I want.’ One misstep can be seen in the preceding: it is not, for Girard, that the other wants what I want, but that I want what the other wants. The other’s desire precedes and guides mine. But this does not distract from Bloechl’s overarching point that Girardian desire leads to violence in a way that Levinasian desire does not. Nevertheless, as I will emphasise later in the paper, it is important to note that Girardian desire gives rise to violence insofar as I attempt to rival the other, to take for myself what the other desires. Girard does not think that the other attacks me, so much as I attack the other while blaming him or her for the violence.
16. As the anonymous reviewer astutely points out, this description is more aptly applied to Levinas’ earlier texts, and that seems to be Girard’s focus. Indeed, all the references to Levinas in Battling to the End are to Totality and Infinity. By the time of Otherwise than Being (the reviewer continues), Levinas speaks of a self that is always already constituted by the other. I think my point can still stand though since the self of Otherwise than Being is constituted by the other in the same way that Girard describes, i.e. mimesis is not at work in Otherwise than Being, but rather assignation, guilt, and so forth.
17. So, in the extremes, there is no longer a distinction drawn between combatant and non-combatant, either in terms of self or other. Uniforms and flags are replaced by mufti to blend in with the population – a tactic used by both guerilla groups and regular military Special Forces units – and, at the same time, it becomes impossible to distinguish the enemy combatant from the non-combatant. The terrorist driving a truck into a crowd of shoppers and the drone missal bombing a wedding are either unable or unwilling to distinguish between the two. This is part of what Girard means when he speaks of the escalation to extremes.
18. Emmanuel Levinas (1995), Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Phillipe Nemo (trans. R. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP), p. 89.
19. Jeff Bloechl 2011, p. 115: ‘There is, thus, something fundamentally ambivalent about the other person such as I encounter her: on the one hand, her poverty and destitution are, of course, figures of powerlessness; on the other hand, they are figures of an unfathomable mystery, and in that sense indicate the power to resist or withdraw from me. Paradoxical as it may sound, the powerlessness of another person that presents itself to me in her face marks the limit of my own power.’ (Emphasis mine).
20. See the discussion in Paul Dumouchel (2015), ‘A Covenant among Beasts: Human and Chimpanzee Violence in Evolutionary Perspective’ (in P. Antonelli and P. Gifford, Can we Survive our Origins: Readings in René Girard’s Theory of Violence and the Sacred. East Lansing: Michigan State UP) p. 3–24.
21. See Augustine, City of God 19.12; Cyril O’Regan discusses the resonances with Augustine in Battling to the End at length in O’Regan, 2012, pp. 125–131; while admitting that these similarities exist, O’Regan quite rightly points out that Girard cannot be simply identified as an Augustinian simpliciter.
22. Levinas 1995, p. 5. If it is not apparent to the reader why ‘do not kill me’ is insulting should conduct the following experiment: when meeting friends or strangers, greet them with said request. The response will be shock and insult: ‘Why would you say that to me, why would I want to kill you, what about me makes you think I would do something like that? Do you hate me, are you racist, prejudiced, classist … ?’
23. Girard (2001) recounts the ‘horrible miracle’ of Apollonius of Tyana. He promised to cure a town of plague by goading the townsfolk to stone a hobo who, Apollonius explained, was a demon in disguise. The people took the pained and panicked look on his face when the stones fell as evidence of the demon’s anger as if the mask was slipping (59–60). Ibanga Ikpe has raised a number of concerns about Girard’s use of Apollonius in Ibanga Ikpe (2015) ‘Theoretical and Material Discontinuities in René Girard’s Discussion of the Miracle of Apollonius of Tyna’ (Journal of Cultural Inquiry 19.4 pp.365–368). According to Ikpe, the anecdote fails to prove what Girard hoped it proved and does not precisely fit his own model of a scapegoating murder. I think Ikpe is largely persuasive on that score, but fails to note that Girard is presenting Apollonius as a kind of anti-Christ figure insofar as he (Apollonius) is aware of the scapegoating mechanism and consciously uses it to his advantage while Christ is aware of it and consciously seeks to disable it.
24. It is only from outside the duel, Girard argues, that one can see the similarities between the duellists. The warring twins believe they differ, even though an outside observer can see that there is not much difference. However, as Girard goes on to argue, these phenomena cannot be extended globally: while I may be outside this or that duel, I cannot get myself outside of all duels for all times. (Girard, 2010, p. 35). In the work of Levinas, there is a similar movement, i.e. from a duality to a triple relationship. In Levinas’ case, however, the third party represents the judging gaze of the ‘whole of humanity’ (Levinas, 2000, p. 213) observing my dealings with the other. It is not so much that the third discerns the similarity between self and other, as in Girard’s duellists, but that the third emphasises the gap between self and other, and the obligation that the other lays upon the self. In Otherwise than Being this claim is further refined to claim that it is with the third that politics, justice and philosophy are born (Levinas, 2000b, p. 128) insofar as I must wrestle the competing demands of two others. This, it seems to me, is closer to Girard’s view, but not identical.
25. Emmanuel Levinas (1996), ‘Is ontology fundamental’ (in A. Peperzak, S. Critchley & R. Bernasconi (eds) Basic Philosophical Writings. Bloomington: Indiana UP. pp. 1–10) p. 8.
26. Girard, as is well known, argues that the Gospels unveil the scapegoating mechanism and thereby short circuit it since it (the mechanism) only works when the mob knows not what they do. He also argues that this is evidence for the supernatural origin of the Gospel and the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. Girard’s claim is, I think, too strong. The unveiling effect of the Gospel can show that it is not unreasonable to view them as divinely inspired; it does not compel such a conclusion in the manner of a demonstrative proof. Irrespective of the position one takes on that score, the failure of human beings to give up on violence subsequent to the Gospel revelation of scapegoating can be taken to show that human beings are, for whatever reason, incapable of doing so.
27. Bloechl writes of Levinas that the face both tempts us to murder and prohibits it; see Bloechl, 2011, p. 122. That this can be interpreted in term of the paradoxes of the sacred should be obvious.
28. See Girard, 1977, pp. 104–108; and 1987, pp. 51–57.
29. This paper benefited greatly from the comments of an anonymous reviewer. Some of the comments were explicitly addressed in footnotes, some were so fecund that addressing them completely would require a much longer paper. I am grateful for the care and effort that went into the review and hope that the revisions I made in the light of those comments are taken as an indication thereof.
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Brian Harding
Brian Harding is professor of philosophy at Texas Woman’s University. He has written on Augustine (Augustine and Roman Virtue) Machiavelli (Not Even a God can Save us Now: Reading Machiavelli after Heidegger) and a number of papers on the history of philosophy and continental philosophy. He is co-editor of Earl Phenomenology: Metaphysics, Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion and is co-editing a collection of papers on the practical philosophy of Michel Henry appearing in late 2019 or early 2020.