When it turned out that our distant ancestors could not survive without helping one another, without bonding to one another, mimesis^constrained came into God’s creation.

We desire the “object that brings us into relation” because that is what allows us “to be alive in the way that we are alive”.  That is our animating principle.

Through this “object”, each one of us finds her own “niche”. We do not even know what we are doing.  We just do it.  Our nature is to find “the object” that brings each one of us into relation.

If that nature defines us as “the image of God”, then by definition, God must be the Object that brings Himself into Relation.

This error prone machination did not operate in our heart of hearts before the Fall.

All of evolved life, up to the point of our departure, paralleled mimesis^constrained, in this most realistic and fantastic sense:

Life sacrificed itself in order to live.

Individuals risked everything.  For what?  Reproductive success?  Yes, and more: the desire to be alive in the way that they are alive.

A simple rule coupled to an animating principle.  Voila, the diversity of life.

Every species learned their desires from others, insofar as others provided their niche.  “The Umwelt” is “the creature being in its niche”; a space that others created in their desire for – their pursuit of – the same “object”; “to live”.

Here we have “the object that brings all creatures into relation” in its wondrous simplicity.

Mimesis^{unconstrained} operates in our Lebenswelt after the Fall.

Just look at modern art.  Look at modern bureaucracy.  Look in your heart of hearts.  What do you see?

You see machinations that stand in the place of “something that once oriented our love of art, of our society, and of our very being”.

You see the machinations of mimesis^{unconstrained}.

Alberg claims to have an intuition for what that “something” was, or maybe, is.

He writes, “read the text with the spirit of forgiveness” and you will begin to see that “something”.

Forgive those who have forgotten.  Forgive those who have placed it under erasure.

Look closely at the consequences of the forgetting and the placing under erasure.

Look at the victims of the forgetting.  Look at the victims placed under erasure.

Look.

At first, you may be overwhelmed by the gross mechanics of forgetting and erasing, forgetting and erasing, veiling the “something” so effectively that it appears as “the empty space that once held the ‘object’ of desire”.

Such are the machinations of mimesis^{unconstrained}.

Mimesis^{unconstrained} operates like an automaton that has lost “the faith of the one who once believed in it”.  It retains an animating principle.  It strains to produce some product; to accomplish some goal.

All it knows is products and goals.  It produces monsters; beautiful, sublime monsters.  Like Nietzsche and Rousseau.

If “modern art” is “the object that occupies an empty space on a wall at the Museum of Art”, then, I suppose, there must be a reason for that empty space to be affiliated with “art”.  There must have been a “something” that once occupied that “empty space on the wall that orients the desires of art lovers”.

The “something” that “once occupied that empty space on the wall” has either been forgotten or placed under erasure, because not even the experts remember or acknowledge what that “something” was.

Similarly, if “Nothing” is “the object that that occupies the empty space in our heart of hearts”, then there must have been a “something” that once occupied “the empty space in our hearts of hearts”.

Similarly, the “something” that “once occupied the empty space in our heart of hearts” has either been forgotten or placed under erasure.

Perhaps, that forgetting and placing under erasure is scandalous.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, anyone can superimpose ‘himself’ onto the point of transcendence, that is, onto the positive form of Nothing, even “a scoundrel on a rack” (49-52).  This parallels the way that a modernist “work”, by occupying an empty space on a wall in a “Museum of Art”, superimposes itself onto the placeholder for “art”, thereby becoming “art”.

Since any number of fools would sacrifice themselves for “art”, one cannot deny the necessity of experts; that is, of theoretical men (specially trained as to not appear to be co-opting the Platonic tradition), to ensure that the “objects” on display are never so evocative as to provoke impetuous action.

We cannot allow just anyone willy-nilly inadvertently superimposing ‘himself’ onto Nothing.  Only the anointed need apply.

Ironically, last blog described precisely how Girard depicts “conflictual mimesis”.  The rivalry itself becomes the “object that brings all into relation”.

Yet, from all appearances, the rivalry has no content.  The fight is over Nothing.

Thus, mimesis^constrained becomes mimesis^{unconstrained}.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Secularists do not deny the triune God for nothing.  Or do they?

Can Nothing be worshipped (44-46)?

Does not “the positive form of Nothing” act as both necessity (the point of transcendence, the “object that brings everyone into relation through mimesis^constrained”, so that everyone imagines that “they want to sacrifice themselves for Nothing”, because they sense that everyone else holds the same desire) and impossibility (after all, their sacrifice will be for Nothing)?

That is to say: Does the positive form of Nothing act as both transcendence and inevitability?

Any reasonable expert will retort:

Why sacrifice if your sacrifice will be redeemed by Nothing?

The question even applies to manners (47):

Why have good manners when good manners are redeemed by Nothing?

The answer has to be:

Nothing is not nothing.  Or rather, “the positive form of Nothing” is “Everything”

By “everything”, I point to “some thing capable of stimulating mimesis^constrained”.

“The object that brings us all into relation” is both transcendent and inevitable.

The divide between the “secular” and the “sacred” is not a divide between “no religion” and “religion”.  It is a divide between two symbolic orders, that is, two “religions”.  This is confusing, since God appears to have been forgotten in secular writing.  Perhaps, another word for “forgotten” might be “under erasure”.

Beneath the surface of Rousseau’s ploy lurks a vital lesson:

“The object that brings the group into relation” both defines and is defined by a symbolic order, that is, an apparently closed set of symbols (that excludes other symbolic orders).

Alberg convincingly demonstrated that Rousseau’s symbolic order derived its authority from the exclusion of the Christian symbolic order.  Without the Christian symbolic order, Rousseau’s symbolic order would rattle apart.

Even if the secular experts disagree on what the object should be, they all agree on this: “The ‘Son of Man’ should not show his face in any bureaucratic office and disturb their expert delineations of the multitudinous objects that bring us all into … relation?  … no … ‘organization’ is a better word”.

As long as that possibility remains, Rousseau’s admirers will not have to ask for forgiveness, despite the consequences.  Oh, I meant to say, the corpses.