René Girard vs. Claude Lévi-Strauss
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
René Girard
1923 – 2015
René Noël Théophile Girard was a French academic best known for developing mimetic theory, which posits that human desire is fundamentally imitative, leading to rivalry, violence and the scapegoat mechanism as foundations of religion and culture. Holding academic appointments primarily in literature departments in the United States, his interdisciplinary work influenced fields ranging from theology to economics to psychology and cultural studies.
"There is always an attempt to move away from the Cross, that is, to perpetuate man’s misrecognition of his violence and protect his pride from the revelation. W…"
Claude Lévi-Strauss
1908 – 2009
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982, was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973 and was a member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world.
"If we judge the achievements of other social groups in relation to the kind of objectives we set ourselves, we have at times to acknowledge their superiority; b…"