Among Nietzsche's critics, René Girard is perhaps unique. Girard's understanding of human civilization and the origins of human culture is that it is based on ritual, collective violence against a scapegoated individual - and he argues that Nietzsche is one of the only thinkers hitherto who understood this. Nietzsche's famous formula - Dionysus versus the Crucified - is the title of Girard's critical essay on Nietzsche. He does not quibble with Nietzsche's framing of the situation, but rather with Nietzsche's conclusions. While Nietzsche takes up for the side of Dionysus, Girard stands on the side of the Crucified, arguing that Nietzsche was fundamentally wrong to lament the ascendance of Christianity and to yearn for a return to the Dionysian. In the course of Nietzsche's defense of Dionysus, he put forward moral theories that were "untenable", and become increasingly "inhuman". Among the many commenters of Nietzsche, both disciples and critics, it is rare to find a figure like Girard, who recognizes Nietzsche's brilliance, but totally condemns his legacy. Join me today to learn about the life of Rene Girard, his theories of mimetic desire and scapegoating, and the impassioned case he puts forward for The Crucified.
Q&A #9
Untimely Reflections #31: Quinn Williams - On Deleuze, and Methods of Interpretation
91: Carl Jung - Nietzsche on the Couch
90: Carl Jung - Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious
Untimely Reflections #30: Weltgeist - Aesthetics of Schopenhauer & Nietzsche
Untimely Reflections #29: Daniel Tutt - Boxing with Nietzsche
Untimely Reflections #28: Stephen Hicks - Is Nietzsche a Postmodernist?
89: Sigmund Freud - Sublimations, Dreams & Repressions
87: Science and Wisdom in Battle
86: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks pt 2 - Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus
85: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, pt. 1 - Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus
Q&A #8
84: Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe
83: Baruch Spinoza’s Geometric Faith
ANNOUNCEMENT.
82: Blaise Pascal’s Faithful Calculations
81: Michel de Montaigne - “What Do I Know?”
Untimely Reflections #27: Devin Goure & the Nietzschean Left
80: Gilles Deleuze, pt. 2: Becoming-Active
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