(referred via Corrigenda)

"What Is Occurring Today Is a Mimetic Rivalry on a Planetary Scale": Rene Girard on September 11th

For decades now, Rene Girard's theories on the cycles of retributive violence, religious sacrifice and mimetic desire -- published in works such as the seminal Violence and the Sacred,Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, The Scapegoat and more -- have found a home not only in universities across the world, but in the sociopolitical events that have inspired and moved their students to activism.

Confessing that the September 11th attacks left him feeling "numb", Girard's considerations of the mimetic rivalry between Muslim extremist Osama bin Laden and his chosen infidel, the United States -- expressed in this interview by Henri Tincq of LE MONDE and translated by the Girard-chaired Colloquium on Violence and Religion -- are sober reminders that one should always consider oneself from the outside as well as within.

(from this article)