Violence and the return of the religious
René Girard speaks of the return of the religious as a "return of the sacred… in the form of violence." This violence was inherent in the original "sacrificial system," which deflected communal violence onto the victim. In this article, I argue that there is a double return of th...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
Continental philosophy review
Year: 2020, Volume: 53, Issue: 3, Pages: 271-285 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Violence
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| Further subjects: | B
René Girard
B Violence B Religion B The political B Sacrifice B Carl Schmitt |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | René Girard speaks of the return of the religious as a "return of the sacred… in the form of violence." This violence was inherent in the original "sacrificial system," which deflected communal violence onto the victim. In this article, I argue that there is a double return of the sacred. With the collapse of the original sacrificial system, the sacred first reappears in the legal order. When this loses its binding claim, it reappears in the political order. Here, my claim will be that Carl Schmitt’s conception of the political is not simply structurally similar to Girard’s conception of the sacrificial system. It is actually a manifestation of this. In this political return of the religious, the religious and the political systems are conflated. What prevents us from seeing this is the self-concealment that is essential to the sacrificial act, a self-concealment that also characterizes its twofold return. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-1103 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Continental philosophy review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11007-018-9443-y |
