![]() "Leur crime : un enragé vouloir de nous apprendre à mépriser les dieux que nous avons en nous." René Char - La Parole en archipel (Gallimard - 1962) | |
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* Hypothesis * The triangle of the desire * External & internal mediation * The loss of the differences * Mimetic rivalry |
The desire never stops to the only observation of the differences: it wants to become the so fascinating Other, and so to reduce all what distinguishes itself from its model, because everything in this last one says to the subject : do like me. "The desire according to the Other is always the desire to be the Other. There is only single metaphysical desire but the particular desires which concretize this primordial desire vary ad infinitum. " (MRVR p.101) It is naturally what does Don Quixotte with Amadis de Gaule:
to become a perfect knight, it is enough to imitate the acts of a
perfect knight. It is also what will do, for example, all little
children in their learning of social behaviours, cleanliness or
language. By imitating their parents or teachers, and this with
a fearsome precision, they make like the adults, better, they become adults.
![]() The estrangement between the subject and the model which characterizes the external mediation is not a simple question of physical or temporal distance, but is also due to the nature of the differences separating, originally, one and the other. "Although the geographical estrangement can constitute a factor of it, the distance between the mediator and the subject is initially spiritual. D.Q. and Sancho are always close physically but the social and intellectual distance which separates them remains unsuperable." (MRVR, page 22). However, unless evolve in the void which is one
of the romantic illusions, the desire inevitably will come into
contact with other desires. It will do it more easily and
quickly if those are near, i.e. are interested in the same objects.
Thus, nothing separates Mr. de Rênal and Valenod, which clashes both
to dominate the social life of Verrières and which are thus very
attentive to what is and what does the other : Julien Sorel is
not the possible tutor to the one or the other one. He is whose will
allow his employer to obtain an advantage in this prestige rivalry. |
The Hypothesis • Girard's Anthropology • The Gospel Revelation Debates (only in French) • Bibliography • Links |