UB-INNSBRUCK FAKULTATSBIBLIOTHEK THEOLOGIE Z3 CONTAG 100 011 VOLUME 11 SPRING 2004 EDITOR ANDREW MCKENNA I LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ADVISORY EDITORS REN£ GIRARD, STANFORD UNIVERSITY JAMES WILLIAMS, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY EDITORIAL BOARD REBECCA ADAMS CHERYL K3RK-DUGGAN UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME MEREDITH COLLEGE MARK ANSPACH PAISLEY LIVINGSTON £COLE POLYTECHNIQUE, PARIS MCGILL UNIVERSITY CESAREO BANDERA CHARLES MABEE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ECUMENICAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, DETROIT DIANA CULBERTSON KENT STATE UNIVERSITY JOZEF NIEWIADOMSKI THEOLOGISCHE HOCHSCHULE, LINZ JEAN-PIERRE DUPUY STANFORD UNIVERSITY, £COLE POLYTECHNIQUE SUSAN NOWAK SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PAUL DUMOUCHEL UNIVERSITE DU QUEBEC A MONTREAL WOLFGANG PALAVER UNIVERSITAT INNSBRUCK ERIC GANS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES MARTHA REINEKE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA SANDOR GOODHART WHITMAN COLLEGE TOBIN SIEBERS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ROBERT HAMERTON-KELLY STANFORD UNIVERSITY THEE SMITH EMORY UNIVERSITY HANS JENSEN AARHUS UNIVERSITY, DENMARK MARK WALLACE SWARTHMORE COLLEGE MARK JUERGENSMEYER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, EUGENE WEBB SANTA BARBARA UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Rates for the annual issue of Contagion are: individuals $10.00; institutions $32. The editors invite submission of manuscripts dealing with the theory or practical application of the mimetic model in anthropology, economics, literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology, and cultural studies. Essays should conform to the conventions of The Chicago Manual of Style and should not exceed a length of 7,500 words including notes and bibliography. Accepted manuscripts will require final sub- mission on disk written with an IBM compatible program. Please address correspondence to Andrew McKenna, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Loyola University, Chicago, IL 60626. Tel: 773-508-2850; Fax: 773-508-2893; Email: [email protected]. Member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals CELJ © 1996 Colloquium on Violence and Religion at Stanford ISSN 1075-7201 Cover illustration: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Envy, 1557. Volume 11 Spring 2004 CONTENTS The Scandal of Origins in Rousseau 1 Jeremiah L. Alberg Maternal Compassion in the Thought of Rene Girard, Emil Fackenheim, and Emmanuel Levinas 15 Anne W. Astell Violence, Anarchy, and Scripture: Jacques Ellul and Rene Girard 25 Matthew Pattillo The Bible and Modernity: Reflections on Leo Strauss John Ranieri 55 Violent Memes and Suspicious Minds: Girard's Scapegoat in the Light of Evolution and Memetics 88 Guflmundur Ingi Markiisson What Persuasion Really Means in Persuasion: A Mimetic Reading of Jane Austen Matthew Taylor 105 Narrative and Explanation: Explaining Anna Karenina in the Light of Its Epigraph Marina Ludwigs 124 "Coneupiscience" and "Mimetic Desire": A Dialogue Between K. Rahner and R. Girard Nikolaus Wandinger 146 "With a Rod in the Spirit of Love and Gentleness?" Paul and the Rhetoric of Expulsion Dizdar Drasko 161 Desired Possessions: Karl Polanyi, Rene Girard, and the Critique of the Market Economy Mark R. Anspach 181 Notes on Contributors 189 UB INNSBRUCK +C145157004 Editor's Note As has been past practice, the editors of Contagion continue to select for referee process papers from the annual meetings of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. The present volume contains some of the revised proceedings from the 2002 Colloquium at Purdue University on "Judaism, Christianity, and the Ancient world: Mimesis, Sacrifice, and Scripture" as well as from the 2003 Colloquium at the University of Innsbruck on "Passions and Economy." The volume also contains articles submitted directly to the journal for consideration. We continue to welcome manuscripts from authors in all academic disciplines and fields of professional activity which bear on Rene Girard's mimetic- model of human behavior and cultural organization. Future volumes will also include a section for Notes and Comments, allowing for responses to previous essays and discussion of texts and issues relating to interests of the Colloquium. We wish again to express our thanks to Patricia Clemente, Administrative Secretary of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Loyola University Chicago, for her resourceful vigilance in seeing the journal through to its timely production. THE SCANDAL OF ORIGINS IN ROUSSEAU Jeremiah L. Alberg University of West Georgia o speak of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and scandal is not difficult. TImmediately one thinks of his relationship with Mme de Warens, his lover and his beloved mama. Most of his works upset some group or another—other intellectuals (the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts), the Genevan authorities (the "Dedication" the Discourse on Inequality), the Church (Emile)—the list could go on and on. In this article I would like to turn away from our usual use of the word scandal and look more deeply at the connection between Rousseau's system and the theological or, more properly, the biblical notion of scandal. This notion is obscure. While no one would deny its importance in the New Testament, trying to develop a coherent "theory of scandal" from the various usages in the New Testament has proven difficult.1 To give only one example of the problem, Christ crucified is proclaimed as a scandal (ICor 1.23) and yet the Christians who follow him are forbidden to cause scandal to others (ICor 8.9), especially the younger and weaker. 1 For a basic understanding of the biblical notion of scandal the following titles arc helplul: G. Stahlin. Skandalon: Untersuchungen ~ur Geschtchte emes biblischen Begri/js. (Giitersloh: Bertelsmann, 1930), as well as his article "Skandalon, skandalizo" in Theologisches Worterbuch des Seuen Testaments, ed. Kittel and Friednch, 7: 339-58: .1. Calvin, Concerning Scandals (translation of De scandal is. 1550) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1978); H. Bintz. Das Skandalon als Gnindlagenproblem der Dogmatik. {Berlin: de Gru\ lcr. 1969); D. McCracken, The Scandal oj the Gospels. Jesus, Story, and O/Jense. (NY: Oxford UP. 1994); J. Alison. The Joy of Being Wrong' Original Sin Through Easter Eyes (NY: Crossroad, 1998) 140-146; G. Bailie. Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (NY: Crossroad, 1995) 207-210; R. Girard, Des choses cachees depuis la foundation da monde. (editions Grasset et Fasqelle. 1978) especially 573-592. 2 Jeremiah L. Alberg The most successful attempt at bringing coherence to the various elements of scandal has been carried out in the various works of Rene Girard.2 His basic insight was to see in biblical scandal an inchoate theory of human desire. Girard calls this desire "mimetic" or desire that one receives from another. This type of desire leads to scandal. It is here that the connection with Rousseau becomes evident. The famous literary theorist T. Todorov states: "the 'mimetic desire1 of Girard is only another name for the amour-propre of Rousseau" (Todorov 38). For his part Girard defines the skandalon (that which causes the scandal) in the following way: It is not an obstacle that just happens to be there and merely has to be got out of the way; it is the model exerting its special form of temptation, causing attraction to the extent that it is an obstacle and forming an obstacle to the extent that it can attract. (Girard 1987,416) Rousseau's analysis of amour-propre as that which excites without satisfying, seduces without delivering, and promises without fulfilling, parallels Girard's analysis of mimetic desire as the doomed-to-be-frustrated reaching for the scandalon? Thus, I am arguing that in his various works Rousseau is developing the conceptual possibilities of biblical scandal. While there would be many ways of showing this structural parallel between Rousseau's thought and biblical scandal, I will concentrate on a reading of the "Preface" to the Discours sur I'origine et lesfondemerits de I'inegalite parmi les hommes (1755), in order to show that this work is structured by scandal. It is structured by a human desire that seeks what is unattainable and renders the object unattainable in the very seeking after it. More concretely, I shall argue that in the "Preface" Rousseau is able to reduce the question about the origin of inequality "to its genuine state" only : See the work cited above as well as his more recent / See Satan Fall Like Lightning. ' Rousseau's definition of amour-propre makes its connection with offense (another translation of the biblical word for scandal) quite clear. Speaking of man in the primitive state he remarks: "For the same reason [that he is not capable of making comparisons] this man could have neither hate nor desire for revenge, passions that can only arise from the opinion that some offense has been received: and as it is scorn or intention to hurt and not the harm that constitutes this offense, men who know neither how to evaluate themselves nor compare themselves can do each other a great deal of mutual violence..., without every offending one another." This quote is taken from the note explaining the distinction between amour de soi and amour-propre (91). The Origin of Scandals in Rousseau 3 through a careful construction of the text around a relationship between being scandalized and being able to see (13). We will analyze this "Preface" in order to allow two things to emerge. First, we will see how discourse about origins is grounded in scandal in two related ways. First, Rousseau understands the problem of origins as a problem constituted precisely by its insuperable methodological difficulties. It is an intellectual scandal. Secondly, this intellectual scandal is the necessary condition for thinking about origins in the way that Rousseau does. After its "Epistle Dedicatory," the Second Discourse has a "Preface," a "Notice on the Notes" and an "Exordium." Apparently it is not an easy task to begin to speak about the beginning of human society. In fact it is impossible. Perhaps the reason why Rousseau judges that this "most useful" of all human knowledge is also the "least advanced" is due to the fact that it cannot be begun (13). In these methodological considerations Rousseau does not resolve this problem of beginning; he deepens it.