Saturday, April 18, 2009

Quotes of the Day - René Girard

"We can no longer blame the favorite institutional scapegoats beaten to death by our master thinkers of the last two centuries. These beasts of burden have all collapsed long ago, just like Nietzsche's famous horse in Turin. One can go on beating dead horses for several decades, no doubt, especially in graduate seminars but, even there, there will be an end. No one can really believe that our families, the class system, the male gender as a whole, the Christian churches, or even a repressive university administration might be responsible for what is going on."

"We cannot escape the issue of a relationship with the real course of history. Indeed, we shall see that only by confronting the real course of history -- which the gospel text claims to determine -- can the astonishing coherence of the gospel logic be fully revealed in our time."

"The idea of the demon who bears light is more far-reaching than any notion in psychoanalysis. Desire bears light, but puts that light in the service of its own darkness. The role played by desire in all the great creations of modern culture -- in art and literature -- is explained by this feature, which it shares with Lucifer."
- René Girard
[ht: Gil Bailie @ Cornerstone Forum]

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