The distortion of René Girard
René Girard, above, whose ideas have, arguably, been distorted by US tech billionaire Peter Thiel
Alamy
The ideas of the French social theorist and critic are being actively twisted by influential figures around President Donald Trump
René Girard (1923-2015) is one of the most significant Catholic thinkers of recent times. At the core of his “mimetic theory” is his discernment of a connecting pattern between a certain kind of social formation – the mobilisation of one group over against another, or against a vulnerable victim – and the sacred imagination. He argues that this construction of an identity “over against” lies at the heart of much religious behaviour.
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