For Girard, an account of the scapegoat's killing from the killers' standpoint, telling it so as to justify the violence.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Structuralism decenters the individual: on Eagleton's gloss, myths do the thinking, running through people rather than arising from any one consciousness or aiming at any particular end.
Put simply Eagleton's account of structuralism: the individual is no longer the center. Myths do the thinking, passing through people rather than coming from any one mind or aiming at any goal.
Lévi-Strauss, Girard objects, stops at signs that point only to other signs; analysis has to push through the structure to the anterior human reality underneath.
Put simply Girard's objection to Lévi-Strauss: he stops at signs that only point to other signs. We must dig beneath the structure to the human reality that came before it.
Cultural phenomena, on Girard's summary of Lévi-Strauss, work like languages: signs mean nothing in isolation, only through other signs, so symbolic forms are read from within, never referred beyond themselves.
Put simply Girard's summary of Lévi-Strauss: culture works like a language. Signs mean nothing alone, only through other signs, so cultural symbols must be read from inside the system, never traced to something beyond it.
Beneath every myth lies a real victim and a real sacrifice; the story is never self-contained, and one can always dig back through it to the killing.
Put simply Girard: behind every myth lies a real victim who was really killed. A myth never stands on its own; you can always dig back through the story to the killing.
Myth, in Girard's strict sense, is the scapegoat's murder recounted by the murderers, told so as to sanctify it: the violence was necessary to expel worse violence.
Put simply Girard uses "myth" in a narrow sense: the killing of a scapegoat as told by the killers, told to make it holy, as if the violence was needed to drive out worse violence.
A myth yields truth when inverted: read it from the victim's side, because for Girard the reality a myth refers to is always located with its victim.
Put simply Girard: to find the truth in a myth, turn it around and read it from the victim's side, because what really happened always lies with the victim.
For Girard, Christianity breaks the mythic tradition: it tells the murder of Jesus from the murdered man's standpoint rather than the crucifiers', so one identifies with the victim, not the crowd.
3 links between claims that both use the term. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
Lévi-StraussCultural phenomena, on Girard's summary of Lévi-Strauss, work like languages: signs mean nothing in isolation, only through other signs, so symbolic forms are read from within, never referred beyond themselves. L20 · 18:29
GirardBeneath every myth lies a real victim and a real sacrifice; the story is never self-contained, and one can always dig back through it to the killing. L20 · 46:55
Charges that staying at the level of signifiers misses the real victim beneath every myth.
Lévi-StraussCultural phenomena, on Girard's summary of Lévi-Strauss, work like languages: signs mean nothing in isolation, only through other signs, so symbolic forms are read from within, never referred beyond themselves. L20 · 18:29
GirardLévi-Strauss, Girard objects, stops at signs that point only to other signs; analysis has to push through the structure to the anterior human reality underneath. L20 · 16:59
Rejects confining interpretation to relations among signs, demanding a return to substance beneath the structure.
GirardMyth, in Girard's strict sense, is the scapegoat's murder recounted by the murderers, told so as to sanctify it: the violence was necessary to expel worse violence. L20 · 47:29
GirardFor Girard, Christianity breaks the mythic tradition: it tells the murder of Jesus from the murdered man's standpoint rather than the crucifiers', so one identifies with the victim, not the crowd. L20 · 50:13
Christianity reverses the mythic vantage point, telling the killing from the victim's side.
Terms that appear in the same claims.