“Since modernity is practically defined by its reluctance to recognize the degree to which we humans are imitative, Girard’s insistence on the central role of mimesis in human affairs goes against the grain of much of today’s popular cultural discourse” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 51).
911 Stumpers Both Ways
If you haven’t already checked them out, here are some places where you can go to satisfy whatever itch it is that web sites like this satisfy. Debunking the “inside job” take would be the task of the folks here, here, and here. Oh, and another one here. And here. And some sites that question …
Yeah
“If television has no impact, then why would the bisexual writer care how homosexuals are portrayed?” (Robert Knight, The Age of Consent, p. 63.).
Staying Power
“What is distinctive about the contest between myth and gospel, therefore, is that myth is fragile and survives only when its premises are accepted uncritically, while the gospel can be trashed and betrayed and corrupted almost beyond recognition without fatally compromising its inherent demythologizing power. Time and again, the gospel has been turned into a …
Making the World Safe for Fornication
“Peggy Noonan concluded after looking at public policy crusades during the twentieth century, that the real goal of every liberal movement is to ‘make the world safe for fornication.’ Get enough fornication going and you get a lot of people too frightened to approach God because of their guilt . . . As with the …
The Blinders of Myth
“Fundamentally, human history is a struggle between myth and gospel . . . Myth — and the primitive religious cosmology it narrates — mutes the victim’s voice. It fills the eyes and nose with incense and the ears with incantations. When the myth is firmly in place, even those closest to the victims, the ones …
Brazenly Lied About
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the world’s richest civil rights organization, puts out an unfortunately named publication called the Intelligence Report. In a recent version of that report, they decided that it was now important to talk about me. Given the nature of the case, I thought I should take snippets from their article and …
Sensation Baths Instead of Stories
“Movies are being made that tell us nothing about the struggle of the human soul. Sex, violence, bright colors, and lush sound take center stage, subordinating plot, character, and allegory to secondary roles” (Robert Knight, The Age of Consent, p. 18.).
Sacred Violence No More
“On the contrary, by arousing empathy for victims, the biblical tradition has destroyed the kind of peace and social consensus that conventional cultures were once able to achieve at the victim’s expense. In clogging the gears of the scapegoating machinery, the gospel revelation brings not peace but a sword. This is purely and simply because …
Our Cultural Mechanics
“Today’s relativists could not have gotten away with their double standards in a culture that prized truth. But a gradual, sustained assault on truth has been carried out through the soft underbelly of Western culture: the arts. In film, music, and television, the themes of sensual pleasure and individual choice have drowned out the tried-and-true …