Clara- You got me thinking with this comment. I grew up completely immersed in popular culture--which is neither of the people or a culture. It is the commercial mimesis of consumerism. It trains us in a kind of desire that enhances profit and not in anyway an orientation towards the good. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: the trick they play is to instill a mimetic desire that pretends to be a radical individualism. They tells us what to do by convincing us that we are rebels who can't be told what to do. It would be hilarious if it weren't so insidious.
I recall you saying you grew up differently--no tv for example. But there was surely mimesis going on, though a different one than the pop cult/corporate version I had.
So all this is preamble to wondering whether there can be a counter-mimesis that is awake and deliberate and communally developed and guided. Rather than being completely at the mercy of forces we don't fully understand other than the ominous sense that they do not have our good in mind...at all.
If there is such a counter-mimesis than I think it will have to be small and local and under the radar. Anything that "trends" becomes subject to hijacking and cooption by the machine. Which puts everything back to square one.
Just thinking this through. Maybe it is worth a post. We shall see.
Yes, in the church community I grew up with there was "peer pressure" of another sort. There were people who were competitive about how holy, righteous, committed, faithful, spiritual, they appeared to be. That is not a good thing though it may seem lots better than drug addiction or consumer culture. It's not a good thing for the church because unacknowledged ego is operating with the guise of God's service.
I don't think this rivalry has a place in spiritual growth of the best, highest sort. I'm pretty sure that lots has been written by those who have gone before about this danger. Maybe I am missing what you mean?
Anything done for the eyes of man rather than the approval of God "has its reward". There is legitimate encouraging of each other and helping or advising but you can't get far without being willing take some steps that no one else sees/understands/appreciates but are between you and God..... right? I think the mystics say this again and again. And in my experience the people who strove the least for the outwardly impressive church status were the most Christ like.
My father in law is an example. He used to go to the local homeless shelter before every church service (3 times per week) and announce that he would bring anyone to church. Many took him up on it. Sometimes they smelled badly, were drunk, or talked to themselves loudly during the sermons, but certainly not all of them. He would inevitably become involved in the lives of a few of the people he met this way. He would leave prayer meeting early to go do this and would sometimes leave services if the people were too disturbing. So after years the pastor approached him and offered him a "ministry" position which, he was told, would require him to stop the driving of homeless people to church. He said no thanks. Now to be offered "ministry" was the goal of many and was always preached about as synonymous with God's will for us. I think he has more of the heart of the gospels than many who were striving for status within the church system.
I guess mimesis in the church would be great if the church were pure and holy without taint, but...... never gonna happen so we have to be ultimately accountable to something more. Not sure if all that makes any coherent conclusion.
How are you, Jack? Have you been sleeping well? I heard Ian McGilchrist say something like, "The really important things in life cannot be made into ends. For example sleep: you cannot make a goal of sleeping well. Good sleep is a product of life well lived." Maybe spirit life is too.
Clara- Right now I am, not surprisingly, grappling with Girard. I think what he is saying is deep, brilliant and disturbing. But it is also kind of locked away in the world and language of academia. I have been thinking about the need to render his insights into both more deeply poetic but also immediate language. I am in the middle of "Reading the Bible with Rene Girard" which is an excellent introduction to the topic. But it seems that Girard thought so, too. In an answer about whether people understand what he is saying, he responded (in 2005):
"Very, very few people understand. More people now do understand, but not too many. **However, it must be said that there are better ways to formulate it than the way I have done so far; it could still be done better. I mean more clearly, more explicitly, more forcefully, more dramatically** while at the same time showing that the scapegoat, the lie of scapegoating, this unconsciousness of scapegoating (to have a scapegoat is not to be aware that one has a scapegoat), therefore means that a text that openly mentions a scapegoat cannot be a scapegoat text. I have confidence that this will be done and is already being done by interpreters of the Bible who use mimetic theory."
In my own small way this is something I would like to contribute to doing. So your story of your Father-in-law is spot on in this sense. A church is just as susceptible to unconscious mimetic desire as anybody else. As always, there are real benefits to going along, but to remain unconscious to the whole process is to continue to feed into it. The so-called culture war may be little more than one memetic matrix in battle with another counter-memetics. Your Father-in-law seemed able to step outside that somewhat, to what I will call a eumemetic--or good memetics. There is only one person worth imitating.
Girard felt the only solution to memetic escalation was to be better Christians. Christian institutions may be less helpful than we would like in that regard. There is no system that can guarantee the correct way. Once it becomes systematized and institutionalized the rewards become too great and the whole thing is at risk of been hijacked for very different purposes. This is at the heart of The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky. Which I try to read on a regular basis as a reminder.
And once again I am using the comment section to think through my next post. Your indulgence is appreciated!
----
And I am sleeping better, thank you for checking in. Once again I think Iain Mcgilchrist is spot on. My sleep is better because there is something far more deeply satisfying about my life right now. Better sleep is a byproduct of that.
I hope you and the entire family are having a joyful day! -Jack
I'm very interested in this from Girard. Looking forward to hearing more on it when you are so inspired. Maybe people do understand it when they are good christians but not enough to put it into words. They simply don't long to be above others or to be recognized, but love to serve and to see others grow.
You are right, on some intuitive level people definitely do get it. And thankfully there have always been people who silently go about serving others without fanfare. That is a eumimesis I can do better to imitate.
And the past few years have given us all a lesson in the possibly less tangible aspects mimetic desire and scapegoating. The whole ugly business surfaced from the depths of its hiding place and now there is this pretence as if it all never really happened like that. But we did see it, and it is good to fathom what that means.
By the way, I got my beautiful copy of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association newsletter in the mail yesterday and saw a classified "help wanted" for this residency at the former Nearing homestead:
Could be good for someone looking for a place to be outside of the worst of the machine for a time. I have driven through the area,and read about it... must be beautiful.
And I am still praying for the Farm in Maine for you all. Not all of us are meant to find a way out of the machine, but it is still a good thing to do so. Or it could be...
I certainly still have great hope for it. I feel confident that we are being guided. Just two years ago my husband and I firmly believed that we would always live here... so now that we are getting ready to depart it feels like anything is possible. Thanks for your prayers and concern.
This does look good. Though I don't have any real gardening experience. I would like to learn. I did water plants in office buildings in Manhattan long ago. But I don't think that counts for much.
Ha Ha! You could read a couple books on the Nearings and claim to be a great fan, then say you are longing to get some gardening experience but due to oppressive colonial structures have been excluded from access to land. They'll love you.
Which, given the gist of the discussion here lately, this would be a beautifully ironic way to be interrupted. Proving, as if we need further proof, that God has a sense of humor.
The dance between silence and tending to kiddos and their needs is one of the main features of our daily prayer times. Both parts are about self-surrender, just in different forms. :)
Is this mimetic rivalry on the spiritual path? ;)
Why, yes...yes, I do think that's exactly what this is.
Clara- You got me thinking with this comment. I grew up completely immersed in popular culture--which is neither of the people or a culture. It is the commercial mimesis of consumerism. It trains us in a kind of desire that enhances profit and not in anyway an orientation towards the good. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: the trick they play is to instill a mimetic desire that pretends to be a radical individualism. They tells us what to do by convincing us that we are rebels who can't be told what to do. It would be hilarious if it weren't so insidious.
I recall you saying you grew up differently--no tv for example. But there was surely mimesis going on, though a different one than the pop cult/corporate version I had.
So all this is preamble to wondering whether there can be a counter-mimesis that is awake and deliberate and communally developed and guided. Rather than being completely at the mercy of forces we don't fully understand other than the ominous sense that they do not have our good in mind...at all.
If there is such a counter-mimesis than I think it will have to be small and local and under the radar. Anything that "trends" becomes subject to hijacking and cooption by the machine. Which puts everything back to square one.
Just thinking this through. Maybe it is worth a post. We shall see.
I hope you are having a fine day. -Jack
Yes, in the church community I grew up with there was "peer pressure" of another sort. There were people who were competitive about how holy, righteous, committed, faithful, spiritual, they appeared to be. That is not a good thing though it may seem lots better than drug addiction or consumer culture. It's not a good thing for the church because unacknowledged ego is operating with the guise of God's service.
I don't think this rivalry has a place in spiritual growth of the best, highest sort. I'm pretty sure that lots has been written by those who have gone before about this danger. Maybe I am missing what you mean?
Anything done for the eyes of man rather than the approval of God "has its reward". There is legitimate encouraging of each other and helping or advising but you can't get far without being willing take some steps that no one else sees/understands/appreciates but are between you and God..... right? I think the mystics say this again and again. And in my experience the people who strove the least for the outwardly impressive church status were the most Christ like.
My father in law is an example. He used to go to the local homeless shelter before every church service (3 times per week) and announce that he would bring anyone to church. Many took him up on it. Sometimes they smelled badly, were drunk, or talked to themselves loudly during the sermons, but certainly not all of them. He would inevitably become involved in the lives of a few of the people he met this way. He would leave prayer meeting early to go do this and would sometimes leave services if the people were too disturbing. So after years the pastor approached him and offered him a "ministry" position which, he was told, would require him to stop the driving of homeless people to church. He said no thanks. Now to be offered "ministry" was the goal of many and was always preached about as synonymous with God's will for us. I think he has more of the heart of the gospels than many who were striving for status within the church system.
I guess mimesis in the church would be great if the church were pure and holy without taint, but...... never gonna happen so we have to be ultimately accountable to something more. Not sure if all that makes any coherent conclusion.
How are you, Jack? Have you been sleeping well? I heard Ian McGilchrist say something like, "The really important things in life cannot be made into ends. For example sleep: you cannot make a goal of sleeping well. Good sleep is a product of life well lived." Maybe spirit life is too.
Clara
Clara- Right now I am, not surprisingly, grappling with Girard. I think what he is saying is deep, brilliant and disturbing. But it is also kind of locked away in the world and language of academia. I have been thinking about the need to render his insights into both more deeply poetic but also immediate language. I am in the middle of "Reading the Bible with Rene Girard" which is an excellent introduction to the topic. But it seems that Girard thought so, too. In an answer about whether people understand what he is saying, he responded (in 2005):
"Very, very few people understand. More people now do understand, but not too many. **However, it must be said that there are better ways to formulate it than the way I have done so far; it could still be done better. I mean more clearly, more explicitly, more forcefully, more dramatically** while at the same time showing that the scapegoat, the lie of scapegoating, this unconsciousness of scapegoating (to have a scapegoat is not to be aware that one has a scapegoat), therefore means that a text that openly mentions a scapegoat cannot be a scapegoat text. I have confidence that this will be done and is already being done by interpreters of the Bible who use mimetic theory."
In my own small way this is something I would like to contribute to doing. So your story of your Father-in-law is spot on in this sense. A church is just as susceptible to unconscious mimetic desire as anybody else. As always, there are real benefits to going along, but to remain unconscious to the whole process is to continue to feed into it. The so-called culture war may be little more than one memetic matrix in battle with another counter-memetics. Your Father-in-law seemed able to step outside that somewhat, to what I will call a eumemetic--or good memetics. There is only one person worth imitating.
Girard felt the only solution to memetic escalation was to be better Christians. Christian institutions may be less helpful than we would like in that regard. There is no system that can guarantee the correct way. Once it becomes systematized and institutionalized the rewards become too great and the whole thing is at risk of been hijacked for very different purposes. This is at the heart of The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky. Which I try to read on a regular basis as a reminder.
And once again I am using the comment section to think through my next post. Your indulgence is appreciated!
----
And I am sleeping better, thank you for checking in. Once again I think Iain Mcgilchrist is spot on. My sleep is better because there is something far more deeply satisfying about my life right now. Better sleep is a byproduct of that.
I hope you and the entire family are having a joyful day! -Jack
I'm very interested in this from Girard. Looking forward to hearing more on it when you are so inspired. Maybe people do understand it when they are good christians but not enough to put it into words. They simply don't long to be above others or to be recognized, but love to serve and to see others grow.
You are right, on some intuitive level people definitely do get it. And thankfully there have always been people who silently go about serving others without fanfare. That is a eumimesis I can do better to imitate.
And the past few years have given us all a lesson in the possibly less tangible aspects mimetic desire and scapegoating. The whole ugly business surfaced from the depths of its hiding place and now there is this pretence as if it all never really happened like that. But we did see it, and it is good to fathom what that means.
By the way, I got my beautiful copy of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association newsletter in the mail yesterday and saw a classified "help wanted" for this residency at the former Nearing homestead:
http://goodlife.org/residency/
Could be good for someone looking for a place to be outside of the worst of the machine for a time. I have driven through the area,and read about it... must be beautiful.
Clara
And I am still praying for the Farm in Maine for you all. Not all of us are meant to find a way out of the machine, but it is still a good thing to do so. Or it could be...
I certainly still have great hope for it. I feel confident that we are being guided. Just two years ago my husband and I firmly believed that we would always live here... so now that we are getting ready to depart it feels like anything is possible. Thanks for your prayers and concern.
Clara
This does look good. Though I don't have any real gardening experience. I would like to learn. I did water plants in office buildings in Manhattan long ago. But I don't think that counts for much.
Ha Ha! You could read a couple books on the Nearings and claim to be a great fan, then say you are longing to get some gardening experience but due to oppressive colonial structures have been excluded from access to land. They'll love you.
I'm going to try to do it but I anticipate being interrupted by my daughter's loud complaint, "Mom, she won't stop copying me!"
Which, given the gist of the discussion here lately, this would be a beautifully ironic way to be interrupted. Proving, as if we need further proof, that God has a sense of humor.
The dance between silence and tending to kiddos and their needs is one of the main features of our daily prayer times. Both parts are about self-surrender, just in different forms. :)
Mark- This is useful to remember. There are some interruptions that are essential and good. -Jack