/lit/ - Literature

Was he right?

tldr;
In his hypothesis, the ritual sacrifices acted out in archaic civilizations were reenactments of a prototypical sacrifice (a founding murder) which brought about a resolution to a preeminent conflict which threatened to surge into uncontrollable violence if it found no release. The myths of the different traditions illustrate this sacrifice as the creation of the world, wherein a god or deity is dismembered, whose parts then form the cosmos. This scene is reenacted in rituals whose purpose is to restore or maintain order and unity in the people/civilization.

>>10854562
I can't even be like my heroes: Kant, Schopenhauer, Girard, etc. because when they went to university women weren't allowed. Where the FUCK is a man supposed to go these days if he wants to devote himself to real study? Does he just have to resign himself to making the most of his free time while working a pleb job surrounded by fast food joints and pubs?

>>10596197
>targeting slobbering idiots with no self-control to save their lives
>unwashed plebs

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Believe me, I have struggled in recent years with disdain for the masses. It is easy to go around, being disgusted by mass culture, living in perpetual hatred of everyone around you. It took me a long time to get over this. Ultimately, you cannot hate them, because as long as you hate them, you cannot heal them, and as long as you cannot heal them, you are one of them. This is truth, and no true saint has not overcome this ugliness in themselves.

Again, believe me, this is one of the hardest things to overcome, but it is necessary. Consider this teaching from the Apophthegmata Patrum:

>2. When the same Abba Anthony thought about the depth of the judgments of God, he asked, 'Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked men prosper and why are the just in need?' He heard a voice answering him, 'Anthony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to know anything about them.'

In other words, you cannot attain freedom until you have stopped using a disdain for the masses as a spiritual crutch, which is really what it is. You have to liberate yourself from them by keeping your thoughts from wandering towards them and "keeping your attention on yourself".

>>10596204
>Christianity was for the most part lacking a comprehensive metaphysical teaching.

And this is what I don't understand. As far as I can tell, the Gospels contain, in the few but profound words of Christ, the bridge between worldly life and the divine life which are interceded by faith. This is presented perfectly in the Gospels, and has been expounded upon by the writers I named in my other post, as well as many others, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, who Guenon wrote about. And the way of faith is clearly opposed to violence according to the teachings.

What Girard has shown is that other traditions lack this fundamental distinction to a greater or lesser degree, and I'm wondering what is lacking in Christianity, according to Guenon, which is apparently critical for initiation?

Possible connection between Girard and Kant:

>Nor could one give worse advice to morality than by wanting to derive it from examples. For, every example of it represented to me must itself first be appraised in accordance with principles of morality, as to whether it is also worthy to serve as an original example, that is, as a model; it can by no means authoritatively provide the concept of morality. Even the Holy One of the Gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is cognized as such; even he says of himself: why do you call me (whom you see) good? none is good (the archetype of the good) but God only (whom you do not see) But whence have we the concept of God as the highest good? Solely from the idea of moral perfection that reason frames a priori and connects inseparably with the concept of a free will. Imitation has no place at all in matters of morality, and examples serve only for encouragement, that is, they put beyond doubt the practicability of what the law commands and make intuitive'" what the practical rule expresses more generally, but they can never justify setting aside their true original, which lies in reason, and guiding oneself by examples.

So a prerequisite for Kant's good will is transcendence of the mimetic tendency.