“Like all great satirists, Shakespeare must have been besieged with requests for a more uplifting view of mankind. Great mimetic writers are always asked to renounce the very essence of their art, mimetic conflict, in favor of an insipidly optimistic view of human relations, always presented as more gentle and humane, whereas in reality it …
Up to Our Chins in Sensate
“Drawing their data from encyclopedias, histories of art, and museum catalogs, from art journals, scholarly monographs, and other reference sources, the researchers listed art works by the scores of thousands. They classified each item according to its traits, whether ideational, integral, or sensate. Then Sorokin compared changes in the arts to the changes of cultural …
And Narrative Is All the Rage These Days
“MTV’s rock videos tend to be fragmented and surreal, with fast cuts, visual rhythms, and imagery that is striking but does not make a lot of sense. Country videos naturally tend to be narratives, reflecting the storytelling character of the music'” (Gene Edward Veith, Honky-Tonk Gospel, p. 165).
And How Dare They?
“Our mimetic rivals always seem superior to us” (Girard, A Theater of Desire, p. 93).
Pray for Christendom
In 1998, I co-wrote a book with Doug Jones entitled Angels in the Architecture. The subtitle was “A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth,” and at the center of that vision was a robust rejection of modernity. The book begins with the question, “Modernity or medievalism?” (p. 17). To wit: “Medieval Protestantism is not a call …
No Secular Sacred Divide in Bluegrass Anyway
“A similar mixture of sacred and secular numbers can be found on nearly every bluegrass album by nearly every performer. Contemporary bluegrass virtuoso — and country music crossover –Alison Krauss told a reporter, ‘I’m trying to remember a [bluegrass] band that doesn’t play gospel. I just can’t think of any.'” (Gene Edward Veith, Honky-Tonk Gospel, …
Reciprocity in Love
“The desire that speaks first puts itself on display and, as a result, can become a mimetic model for the desire that has not yet spoken. The displayed desire runs the risk of being copied rather than reciprocated. In order to desire someone who desires us, we must not imitate the offered desire, we must …
Got My Pomojo Working
And another thing . . . Whenever I write on postmodernism, I usually get one of four basic responses. The first is a popular one these days with folks who have one remaining screw set firmly in the one remaining hinge. It involves setting up witty websites at my expense, with the wit employed showing …
Perichoretic Singinng
“When people got together to play musical instruments, they also stood in a circle so they could hear each other and blend in—an act of communal, participatory music-making, not a performance before a passive, non-music-making audience. This is still the practice today when people come together to play bluegrass music” (Gene Edward Veith, Honky-Tonk Gospel, …
Hightailing It From the Truth
“Students of conflict devise many theories about the nature and origin of human discord without ever taking mimetic rivalry into account. If no human being is the culprit, then it must be an idea or perhaps some chemical substance — something fundamentally alien to what the friendship and the friends intrinsically are. They look for …