Mimesis and Social Interactions: Conversations with René Girard

In this 1996 interview, published here in English translation for the first time, René Girard retraces some of the main aspects of his mimetic theory, such as the mimetic nature of desire and sacrificial scapegoating. In particular, Girard focuses on the similarities and differences between the role of sacrifice in primitive societies and in our contemporary Western society. Girard argues that fashion is essentially mimetic and that nowadays fashions incline towards forms of negative escalation, and finds evidence of such “minimalism” both in art and literature. In Girard’s view, all forms of scapegoating are founded on the crisis of differences, and the victim-age mechanism is a fundamental structure of society. Girard concludes by advocating for a renunciation of rivalry, which he argues is one of the fundamental messages of the Christian Gospels.