Intro. [Recording date: May 28, 2024.]
Russ Roberts: At present is Could twenty eighth, 2024, and my visitor is creator Cynthia Haven of Stanford College. She is a Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities Public scholar. Amongst different books, she is the creator of Evolution of Need: A Lifetime of René Girard, which was the primary biography of the French theorist, printed in 2018; and she or he’s the editor of René Girard’s All Need Is a Need for Being: Important Writings, which was printed in 2023. Cynthia, welcome to EconTalk.
Cynthia Haven: Pleasure to be right here.
Russ Roberts: Our matter for in the present day is René Girard and his concepts. We have now a earlier episode on Girard with Jonathan Bi that we’ll hyperlink to. However, I wish to begin with a bit about Girard’s life. He was born in 1923. He died in 2015. What was his profession? The place was he? What was he writing about? He is not a traditional scholar with a slim self-discipline, and he had a really uncommon educational life.
Cynthia Haven: Sure. He started in Avignon, the place he was born, went to the Ecole des Chartres. He adopted in his father’s footsteps. His father had been the curator of the Palais des Papes. After the war–he was largely within the Rcole in the course of the war–he went to Paris, got here again to Avignon, helped launch the primary Avignon Pageant, which is now a serious occasion in Europe; after which he went to America. It was a good time for younger males to be–America was in search of extra European younger males to complement their schools and their universities. He took the chance and went to Indiana, which is how he started his American profession.
Russ Roberts: He finally ends up at Stanford. When did he arrive at Stanford?
Cynthia Haven: He did not arrive to Stanford till 1980. He went to Johns Hopkins, went to briefly to Duke and Bryn Mawr, went to Buffalo–was on the college there–went again to Johns Hopkins, after which went to Stanford. And Stanford is the place he spent extra time than anywhere else in his life.
Russ Roberts: In the event you needed to pigeonhole him, what self-discipline would you say he is in? What did he research and what did he write about?
Cynthia Haven: Oh. Ohhh. He form of crossed boundaries, did not he? Technically, his Ph.D. was in historical past. He did American and French opinion in the course of the conflict and after the conflict. He did the historical past of Avignon, I believe, within the 14th, fifteenth centuries for the Ecole des Chartres.
However, one thing started to simmer in him in Indiana, and he started already eager about what had occurred with the conflict, what had occurred with the bombing of Hiroshima. And, that form of modified his path. He was very influenced by Malroux.
He was additionally very influenced as a result of in one among his early lessons, he had a roll call–I really like this little story–and he got here throughout a reputation he could not pronounce. The title was Martha McCullough. So, for a Frenchman, a reputation that ends with O-U-G-H was unpronounceable; and he solved the issue a couple of years later by marrying her. They have been married for greater than 60 years. It was a really comfortable marriage, a really contented marriage.
Russ Roberts: Lovely.
Russ Roberts: So, the central ideas–he writes about heaps and many various things. This e book that we’ll be referring to is collected essays that you simply edited lately, All Need Is a Need for Being. Let’s begin with the title, which is–in the again of the e book, I actually prefer it, you’ve gotten a bunch of aphorisms. We might refer to some others of Girard, however one among them is the title: ‘All need is a need for being.’ What did he imply by that?
Cynthia Haven: Properly, I am so happy with that as a result of that was my discovery. There was a e book of Q&A [Question and Answer] interviews with him–excellent. I extremely advocate it–when this stuff start, his interviews with Michel Treguer, and I used to be trying it over once I was working one among my earlier books about him. And that phrase simply jumped out at me from the web page. And no person had seen it earlier than. And, it actually takes the entire mimetic cycle that he developed one step earlier.
He at all times says, ‘It begins with envy’; however truly, the envy itself is starting as a result of we truly lengthy to be another person. We do not wish to simply imitate them. We wish to occupy them. We wish to be them. And that’s the reason all need is a need for being. We crave one thing apart from we’re.
Clearly, that may be a superb factor. We are able to grow to be higher, however it additionally places us in competitors with different folks: therefore the issue.
Russ Roberts: We’ll discuss that in some size. However, the central concept of that–you used the phrase ‘mimetic.’ The idea that is related to Girard on this space is mimesis, which I loosely translate as imitation, however as you level out, it is greater than that. So, why do not you elaborate just a little bit on what Girard meant by mimesis?
Cynthia Haven: We’re imitative beings. Imitation is the way it drives us ahead. We start imitating as quickly as nearly seconds after we’re out of the womb. It is why we be taught, it is how we be taught. But it surely’s additionally how we come to battle with one another, as a result of we’ll each attain for a similar issues, whether or not it is a job, whether or not it is an workplace suite, or a elaborate automotive. We lengthy to be one thing apart from we’re.
Russ Roberts: I believe once I interviewed Jonathan Bi, I am certain revealed I had not come throughout Girard’s concepts till actually a yr or so, a couple of years in the past at most. At first look, there’s one thing very interesting in regards to the concept as a descriptive concept. I’ve talked about my granddaughter. I’ve had the privilege of watching most of her first two years of life at shut vary. One in every of my favourite examples that I believe I’ve talked about earlier than is: she realized methods to stroll, and she or he is holding a milk carton; and she or he’s obtained the lid–the prime of the milk carton in a single hand–and the carton itself within the different. It is empty. And she or he is strolling across the room as if she has received an Olympic gold medal or cured most cancers, as a result of she is imitating the adults who stroll round sometimes with a milk carton to make espresso.
Her language is all imitation. She is going to repeat endlessly belongings you say. She repeats issues in English, in Hebrew. I might train her French. I might train her any language I need. She would not perceive numerous it, however I watch as she regularly imitates. Over time, she begins to have conceptual understanding of issues. And, it’s a outstanding facet of the human expertise.
However, I believe we wish to imagine that after we get to a sure age, that ends and we create ourselves. There is a sure date at which we’re finished with all that, and now we now have a clean slate with a bunch of capabilities and we write on it our personal needs. And naturally, we’re our personal individual.
Cynthia Haven: We’re kidding ourselves.
Russ Roberts: We’re kidding ourselves. And but, this concept that we’re kidding ourselves makes, I believe, many people listening to this concept uncomfortable–which is sweet; nothing dangerous about that. Is there room for authenticity? If my need is to continuously be one thing I am not, somebody I like, somebody I aspire to–as you say, it may be a superb factor. However, if I am at all times aspiring to flee my very own self, what’s left of me? What’s genuine about me in that story?
Cynthia Haven: I do not know the way something might be utterly genuine as a result of it is obtained to come back from someplace.
I believe that that is one of many three main issues that René did, is he upset the character of our need and our violence: first, that our need is genuine in our personal; second, that we battle from our variations quite than our sameness, which can also be brought on by this mimesis. And, effectively, he additionally made an argument that faith will not be the trigger of violence, however quite the best way within the archaic world, our resolution for controlling violence.
However, we’ll see numerous mimesis this yr as a result of it is an election yr, which at all times brings numerous battle and everyone will likely be pressured to suppose like everyone else.
Russ Roberts: So, clarify this function of battle. The e book of essays opens, truly, with a really brief essay on battle that mainly says it is the essence of the human expertise that we now have battle. We might idiot ourselves into considering it is brought on by one thing exterior, like, say, spiritual variations. However he says, ‘No, it is rooted in our being.’ And, I’m confused why imitation has to result in battle.
If we now have someone–let’s take a constructive view. If I’ve somebody I like, somebody who I respect, and I wish to placed on their identity–I choose it to the best way I really feel about myself–and I begin imitating what they do, what they like, what they are saying, how they are saying it.
And naturally, simply to return to the parenting/grandparenting youngster factor, it’s extremely eerie whenever you see youngsters as adults, trying increasingly like their parents–not bodily, however of their gestures, of their needs. And you may see it in your self generally within the mirror. Typically you’re feeling it in your coronary heart. And also you notice, ‘Oh, my gosh. I am turning into my father, or I am turning into my mom.’ However, why ought to my love–love will not be the correct word–my envy or need to be somebody I am not, whether or not it is an athlete, a neighbor, or a pop star, why ought to that result in battle? Should not that be form of a harmonious factor?
Cynthia Haven: No, in the end I believe we discover that any person else is copying us or imitating us, and it creates irritation, as a result of we expect we’re genuine in our personal. However actually, we’re all of the merchandise of imitation. Such as you say, you are imitating your father or your mom or somebody, how might you not? However, it creates battle as a result of the opposite individual fights to maintain themselves from appropriation or what they could see as appropriation. Or the place they each grow to be a lot alike–which is what sometimes occurs, that two folks attain for a similar factor.
You see that in Shakespeare on a regular basis. Two guys are so shut collectively. They’re swearing in Act One which they are going to be pals eternally. After which a lady walks onto the scene. And so they’re so a lot alike that they each fall in love with the identical woman. So, immediate battle, as a result of they each need the identical woman. Or a kingship.
Russ Roberts: Or energy. But it surely’s not simply then about, say, cultural transmission, which is clearly a robust drive in folks’s day-to-day lives, whether or not they’re, once more, conscious of it or not. It additionally results in far more difficult competitors for energy, ladies, males, fill within the clean. And that leads in Girard’s view to a lot of, if not all of what makes us at one another’s throats? Is that true?
Cynthia Haven: Properly, I do not know how one can quantify it that a lot, however we start to be irritated by this man that is jostling for our job, our girlfriend, our boyfriend. It creates a certain quantity of social friction, would not you say?
Russ Roberts: Yeah, it does, however it does not imply I wish to kill them.
Cynthia Haven: You simply need them to again off, get out of your workplace[?], or get your job.
Russ Roberts: Yeah, I suppose there’s two issues right here. There’s battle and violence.
Russ Roberts: Let’s go to violence. So, in your assortment, you’ve gotten an essay of Girard on faith and violence, and there are numerous spiritual wars all through human historical past. After all, many individuals blame faith for violence. Girard did not. Why not and the way did he perceive the function of faith in violence–which is a really highly effective and provocative concept?
Cynthia Haven: Properly, he thought, in archaic societies faith was a approach of controlling violence. When this stress occurs, when persons are preventing, the apparent resolution or the frequent resolution is to search out any person that you could blame to your quarreling, any person outdoors the scenario that you could offload on him. And he might be sacked, demoted, dismissed, expelled, and no matter, or perhaps voluntarily go on his personal. That is the scapegoating course of.
Now, within the twenty first century, it would not typically result in violence, however you might not see that the place you are sitting proper now, the tensions that may explode. We periodically discover scapegoating within the archaic society: the sacrifice of that individual, the killing, the expelling, no matter, introduced an amazing sense of reduction to the society as a result of the issue has been solved. You removed this individual. After all, it is solely momentary, after which the entire cycle begins once more. In archaic–
Russ Roberts: The thought of the scapegoat is within the Bible, actually, the place the Excessive Priest in Jerusalem would put his fingers on a bodily goat and ship them out into the wilderness and bear the iniquity of the folks. It was a type of–depending in your perspective–spiritual atonement, an embodiment of atonement, a religious inspiration. In the event you’re superstitious, it might stand for one thing else.
However, that is one instance in spiritual historical past. Most of us do not consider scapegoats as a standard phenomenon in archaic society. We simply do not give it some thought. So, give us some examples of what Girard is speaking about and why it had a palliative influence.
Cynthia Haven: Properly, it has a palliative influence as a result of there’s this great society that is been constructed up with tensions. We are able to go to Shakespeare once more: Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets and the Montagues. What solves that’s the tragedy of the demise of the 2 youngsters of the respective households. Now that is not a sacrifice–I suppose it is form of sacrificial–and the society heals over that, whilst you can hardly name that peaceable; however it’s the offloading of numerous social tensions onto a 3rd social gathering, which can be inside to the system or could also be exterior to the system.
Russ Roberts: Actually, in primitive societies, human sacrifice was a observe. The way in which I at all times considered it was to mollify the deities. Why is it a therapeutic process for warring, conflicting teams inside that society?
Cynthia Haven: As a result of there’s numerous tensions that construct up, and it is a approach of not taking it out by yourself folks, however taking it out on a 3rd social gathering that may be exiled, expelled, or killed.
Take a look at–a one who research René Girard, James Alison, wrote a wonderful essay on the method after 9/11 with an enormous social reduction, and abruptly everyone feeling like they have been one after this as a result of that they had gone via one thing collectively.
That is a method that mechanism works–where there’s this great expelling of tensions in a society and it brings a therapeutic for some time. However in fact, nothing’s actually modified. So, the identical factor begins taking place once more, and you discover one other scapegoat.
Russ Roberts: Actually, right here in Israel, earlier than the assault of October seventh, there was an immense quantity of divisive disagreement, protest, counterprotests over the query of judicial reform. Within the aftermath of October seventh, there is a great quantity of unity. It is beginning to splinter now because the conflict towards Hamas continues and expands within the north. We’re beneath assault within the north now from Hezbollah, from the start of that interval. Individuals are just a little bit conflict weary and beginning to disagree and battle over what we must be doing subsequent.
However, I suppose a method to consider the scapegoat, then, is when we now have a standard enemy, we do overlook our squabbles or worse–things that divide us as a nation or as a tribe or as a neighborhood.
And a scapegoat–a ritual scapegoat–is a strategy to create an enemy that would–in the case of Israel, we did not create it. You’ll be able to debate that–it’s an fascinating question–but it was imposed on us on October seventh and we grew to become extra unified. However, lots of people would take a look at the US proper now, see how divided it’s; and, as you say, if there have been one other assault like a 9/11, there would a minimum of be a brief unification of some sort.
Russ Roberts: How does Christianity match into this, in Girard’s view?
Cynthia Haven: Yeah, I used to be nearly to go there. I have not been in a position to refute this yet–it’s an intriguing–basically, René says that the everlasting resolution is forgiveness; and the folks that invented forgiveness are the Jews. The scapegoat–it is dependent upon you considering the scapegoat is responsible. And the Christian revelation is the scapegoat is harmless. You’ll be able to’t kill the scapegoat except you actually imagine he is the reason for all the issues. However that revelation, he says, begins: ‘The revelation of the innocence of the scapegoat begins within the Previous Testomony.’ I attempted proving him incorrect. I assumed, ‘No, it will probably’t be that approach.’ However, in different religions, different historic religions, you discover debt forgiveness, however you do not truly discover forgiveness. [More to come, 22:11]
