Lecture I gives a brief overview of Girard’s life and work. It summarizes the key conclusions of mimetic theory, distilling the most crucial ideas of this 10+ hour long lectures series into a digestible 2 hours. For those who are short on time, this synopsis is sufficient to give you a taste of Girard. For those embarking on the full journey, this lecture is a rough map that will orient you throughout the expansive, tumultuous, and dizzying terrain ahead. Some links to further guide your study:* Join my email list to be notified of future episodes: greatbooks.io* Full transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnathanbi/p/transcript-of-girard-lecture-i Get full access to Johnathan Bi at www.johnathanbi.com/subscribe

In this lecture, we will finish painting the picture of Girardian psychology by understanding mimetic rivalry and negative mimesis. This picture will expose humans as fallen and certain psycho-social pathologies as inevitable: fetishization, alienation, bipolarity, masochism, oppression, and inequity. Girard’s psychology, then, is also a theodicy — an inquiry into the origins of evil. For Girard, evil is not contingent on poorly designed societies but an inevitable consequence of corrupt human nature. We will never escape these pathologies no matter how much social “progress” is made. Girard’s theodicy tampers our expectations of the world and inoculates us against a whole host of, what we can loosely call, critical theories. This is a critique of critique. Some links to further guide your study:* Join my email list to be notified of future episodes: greatbooks.io* Full transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnathanbi/p/transcript-of-girard-lecture-iii Get full access to Johnathan Bi at www.johnathanbi.com/subscribe

Mimesis, mimetic desire, and metaphysical desire are the fundamental building blocks of Girard’s psychology. They will show us how even the most intimate aspects of our identity can be radically shaped by others and how to distinguish vanity from authenticity. These psychological fundaments are what make humans social animals, why prestige and recognition matter so much to us, and how we are able to form cultures and even language itself. They are responsible for humanity’s greatest achievements, but they also render us helplessly fallen. Under scrutiny, metaphysical desire will reveal itself to be none other than original sin. Some links to further guide your study:* Join my email list to be notified of future episodes: greatbooks.io* Full transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnathanbi/p/transcript-of-girard-lecture-ii Get full access to Johnathan Bi at www.johnathanbi.com/subscribe

French philosopher René Girard discusses the prevalence of victim politics, his theory of collective violence and scapegoating, the impact of culture on politics, the role of narrative and myth in victimhood, the influence of social media, and the portrayal of victimhood on Instagram.

For Girard, Christianity is radically different from all other religions in one crucial aspect: it takes the side of the innocent victim and, in doing so, exposes the violence and deceit of worldly order. We will explore how this intuition of innocence begins to take root in the Hebrew bible and blossoms into a resounding declaration in the Crucifixion. Girard presents us with an anthropology of the Cross: a translation of Christian phenomena into this-worldly, humanistic language. Girard’s success in placing this world in the foreground, however, forces the other world and even God himself to retreat into the background. In Girard’s unorthodox Christianity, God’s absence is just as loud and jarring as humanity’s presence.Some links to further guide your study:* Join my email list to be notified of future episodes: greatbooks.io* Full transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnathanbi/p/transcript-of-girard-lecture-v Get full access to Johnathan Bi at www.johnathanbi.com/subscribe