Re: Imitatio and Piosity -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 18:26:49 03/08/08 Sat
Author: Cara
Subject: Re: Imitatio and Piosity
In reply to: CS Holden 's message, "Re: Imitatio and Piosity" on 12:58:31 03/04/08 Tue

In itself, practice of "Imitatio Christi" will not lead to violence. Why is Christ special? What sets him apart as a positive model from all the negative ones? It is his simple rejection of mimetic violence. So, if a person is completely imitating the rejection of mimetic violence, they themselves will reject mimetic violence.

Of course, this brings us back to the original question: what happens when people "mess up" this imitation of the rejection of mimetic violence? Girard may have given us one example already, when he claims that when the authors of the Gospels use sacrificial imagery and explain things in terms of sacrificial propitiation, they are simply reverting back to the natural, human practice of mimetic violence. Similarly, Christians may be consciously imitating Christ, while they still continue occasionally to revert back to the mimetic mechanisms that governed their lives before.

When Dr. Jackson gave us a teaser about Girard's more recent interview, he said that only God could live life on earth in a human community without participating in its violence. Well, even if humans have God or Christ as their model, they are not God, which means they cannot always live in human communities without participating in the violent mechanisms.

Perhaps Christians have hit an obstruction on the interdividual moeobian structure, where they can continue to imitate their Model more and more closely, but cannot quite become identical to Him.

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