Shots and Innoculations -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 04:56:05 02/04/08 Mon
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: Shots and Innoculations

In The Violence and the Sacred, Girard suggested that "the sacrificial ritual initiates a constructive cycle which protects the community against the original violence." He went on to describe a list of cultures in which the king in his enthronement participates in these many acts of violence not in order to gain some sort of permission to perform these acts in his office, but as a guard against true violence in his office. While reading this, the analogy of a booster shot popped into my head. In a vaccine, we purposely expose ourself to a deadly disease, not in order to come down with it but in order to guard against "really" getting sick. Ritual violence inoculates the community against real violence.

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Replies:

Yes, the pharmakon. -- j.jackson, 06:19:16 02/04/08 Mon