I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.
Rene GirardRead
Instead of blaming victimization on the victims, the Gospels blame it on the victimizers. What the myths systematically hide, the Bible reveals.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the idea that responsibility for victimization lies with those who perpetrate harm, rather than the victims themselves.
Rene Girard's quote challenges the conventional narrative around victimhood by asserting that the true blame for victimization should be placed on the aggressors rather than the victims. He suggests that while societal myths may obscure this truth, religious texts like the Bible shed light on the inherent injustice of victimization and reveal the moral responsibility of the victimizers.
Themes
VictimizationResponsibilityBibleMythsJusticeVictimizers
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social justice, this quote could be used to emphasize the need to hold perpetrators accountable.
More from Rene Girard
All quotes βWe don't even know what our desire is. We ask other people to tell us our desires. We would like our desires to come from our deepest selves, our personal depths - but if it did, it would not be desire. Desire is always for something we feel we lack.
Rene GirardRead
The protective system of scapegoats is finally destroyed by the Crucifixion narratives as they reveal Jesus' innocence and, little by little, that of all analogous victims.
Rene GirardRead
What I call a mimetic crisis is a situation of conflict so intense that on both sides people act the same way and talk the same way even though, or because, they are more and more hostile to each other.
Rene GirardRead
Salvation lies in imitating Christ, in other words, in imitating the 'withdrawal relationship' that links him with his Father... To listen to the Father's silence is to abandon oneself to his withdrawal, to conform to it.
Rene GirardRead
It doesn't take much insight to realize that wars have been getting worse every time - worse from the point of view of the civilian, more and more destructive, more and more total.
Rene GirardRead
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On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.
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The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
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I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.
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No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
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One of the pitfalls of writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise, beyond-their-years creatures or else these sad-eyed, tragic people. And the truth is people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer.
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People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he's ever read, and another person will say it's absolutely idiotic. I mean, there's no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.
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