I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.
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.
Interpretation
Wars increasingly harm civilians and become more destructive over time.
Rene Girard emphasizes that wars are evolving into more catastrophic events, particularly for civilians, highlighting a troubling trend of increasing destruction and totality in conflicts. This observation invites reflection on the consequences of war and the persistent suffering of innocents caught in the midst of violence.
In practice
In a speech about humanitarian crises, one might quote Girard to emphasize the impact of war on civilians.
I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.
We 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.
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.
Instead of blaming victimization on the victims, the Gospels blame it on the victimizers. What the myths systematically hide, the Bible reveals.
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.
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.
There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.
Tragedy is formed 'round ideas it does not expound, and to understand its history is, in some part, to understand those ideas and their place in the society that produced it.
Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.
Everybody works but the vacant lot
They'd smash up the world if they thought it would make a pretty noise.
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