One can apply this strategy to anyone, say, Robert Kegan: Critic: people don’t really progress through the stages Kegan describes in anything like that nicely defined order;
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
Defender: oh, but Kegan doesn’t really claim that. He acknowledges that the stages can overlap in all kinds of messy ways.
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
Critic: but once you really acknowledge that, there really isn’t a coherent theory left, just a bunch of messy observations about different psychological traits people sometimes have.
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
For my own part, I don’t accept Girard as anything like a “theory of everything.” But I also don’t think this means “nothing much of value here.”
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
I don’t take Girard to mean “humans have no desires of their own, only imitative ones,” but rather something like “the social expression of desires is itself strongly socially mediated.”
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
No one has to tell you to be hungry or thirsty. But when people express desires for dry aged beef or expensive French wines, those desires are formed in large part by social communication around those products, not simply by what their taste buds tell them.
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
“Sure, but isn’t that a fairly obvious and commonplace observation?” Yeah, it is.
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Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness
But now apply the observation probingly to the workings of the higher education system and the medical system in the United States. I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Girardian dynamics, far from obvious to many, that strongly contribute to the dysfunction in those fields.
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Replying to @StephenPiment
What would you recommend as a starting point to read? Thanks!
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Replying to @Meaningness
Since the question was raised of how his perspective relates to evolution, I would recommend starting with one his last works, Evolution and Conversion.https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Conversion-Dialogues-Bloomsbury-Revelations/dp/1350018236 …
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