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Can someone please find a way to either confirm or debunk this. My working hypothesis was that people in power did actually take the time to read René Girard, a

Can someone please find a way to either confirm or debunk this. My working hypothesis was that people in power did actually take the time to read René Girard, and not just mention him to appear enlightened... Anyway, never too late, at least one Stamford documentary on YouTube... Please check him out.

tim333 7mo ago
I'd never heard of René Girard and would be very surprised if Trump or Hegseth had read him, or probably even heard of him. His basic ideas from the top of his Wikipedia page seem interesting though: >...that human desire is fundamentally imitative, leading to rivalry, violence and the scapegoat mechanism as foundations of religion and culture. I guess applying that here Hegseth not having so many ideas of his own got the Armageddon and Jesus ideas from others and scapegoats the islam guys leading to violence etc.?
- carefree-bob 7mo ago
  Girard is pretty famous and was well known at Stanford when he was there. He is a major thinker and deserving of individual attention rather than being pulled into partisan political debates. Even Peter Thiel, who attended a seminar taught by Girard at Stanford, has a fairly good understanding of Girard's views, one that is not amenable to cliches. If you are interested in learning about Girard, start with "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning".
  - AnimalMuppet 7mo ago
    There used to be a page on arcade.stanford.edu that was a takedown of Girard. It seems to have disappeared, or I would point you to it. Girard writes beautifully. The problem is with his evidence. He says things like Jesus being an instance of the scapegoat, which is true, but he also says that the disciples were in on it. Never mind that the gospels say that they didn't understand until after Jesus rose from the dead; Girard says that those who are scapegoating someone won't say that that's what they're doing. And viola, evidence against Girard's position magically becomes evidence for it. Same with Oedipus, and literally dozens of other examples that the article gave that I don't remember what they are. It goes on and on and on, giving examples where Girard's "evidence" does not say what he says it says. So if you actually read Girard, look carefully at his examples. Don't get carried away by the beautiful writing; think about what the example says and what Girard says it says. [Edit: Found a link. https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/publications/rofl/issues/volume-3-issue-1/deceit-desire-and-literature-professor-why https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/publications/rofl/issues/vol... It's worth a read.]
    - carefree-bob 7mo ago
      I am not really interested in things like "evidence" that the gospels are consistent with Girard's examples, nor of "takedowns". That's not really how things work in comparative literature. What you are doing in this field is re-interpreting works of literature to find common themes and shed insight on human nature by looking at these themes. The fundamental assumption here -- which is a radical assumption -- is that works of literature that are considered classic or great works of literature -- contain within them information about human nature, that is, hidden information, and this applies even to, or especially with respect to, fictional works such as Don Quixote. As an example, you can claim children desire power. And as evidence of this, point to children's stories, reintepreting them as power fantasies. Which is basically correct. Now let's say that you are talking about Lord of the Rings, and arguing that here we have the lowly hobbit that ends up saving the whole world and Kings bow to him, you can use that as one piece of data. But now comes the "takedown", and the critic says "No! You have it wrong! The point of destroying the ring is to get rid of power! You have it all backwards". But the critic is missing the point. I hope everyone can see that. Tolkien might have been consciously warning readers about the dangers of power, but it would not have been a successful children's book if it did not involve the lead character starting out powerless, acquiring power, and being someone the child reader identified with. Or at least the odds of it being successful would be much lower. In most children's books, you are acquiring power -- because children fantasize about that, it is human nature. It does not matter what moral lesson the author is trying to get across, his human nature finds a way of expressing itself in the work. Now, you can reject the core assumption that literature reveals aspects of human nature, it's fine, but there is no point in arguing that core assumption. If you reject it, then don't read Girard. But if you don't reject it, then because you are re-interpreting works and looking for overlooked themes, the name of the game is to accumulate a large body of examples, not to debate a single example. And you judge the success of your examples primarily by their explanatory power, not because you think the original author intentionally made a certain theme that heretofore was overlooked. But because you are providing novel interpretations of existing works, you can always find plenty of arguments that the original works were intended to be interpreted differently. It's trivial, but not a compelling critique. It is up to the reader to decide whether interpreting the work through this lense sheds more light on the work in the sense that applying the same interpretation to the large body of works cited results in something that "makes sense", as Girard is building a case that a certain theme in human nature occurs in works of literature over and over again, and having this theme available helps you to better understand the work. This is very different from theology, or legalism, where people focus on debating a single verb tense in a specific verse. Because Girard is not doing theology or legalism, he is doing comparative literature, so he provides a hundred examples of common themes, and after you read him, the next time you read literature your mind is trained to look for these themes and you can identify them and interpret what you are reading in a different way. Now going back to the original sharp assumption, this means that you do not only know something new about literature, but something new about human nature.
sph 7mo ago
> Anyway, never too late, at least one Stamford documentary on YouTube... Please check him out. I don’t know what you’re talking about, surely you can share the link with us.
- aaron695 7mo ago
  [dead]
- polotics 7mo ago
  https://googlethatforyou.com?q=rene%20girard%20stanford%20documentary%20 https://googlethatforyou.com?q=rene%20girard%20stanford%20do... Sorry I thought the Girard Thiel Vance timeline courtesy of Yeats https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi... was common knowledge here. I will see myself out now.
  - tim333 7mo ago
    You mean "Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard | Full Length Documentary"? Youtube is full of Girard stuff and it's not clear which of the many you were thinking of.
    - polotics 7mo ago
      Yes Stanford documentary there is one.
  - fragmede 7mo ago
    Explain it to me like I'm 5, please?
    - polotics 7mo ago
      At 5 you should not be told about mimetic violence, you would not understand.
    - tim333 7mo ago
samizdis 7mo ago
The MRFF, which seems to be above board and its existence widely known by military personnel, is quoted directly in the article as having received the complaints as described. An article in The Guardian [1] tells the same story, but adds another MRFF quote: “Anytime Israel or the US is involved in the Middle East, we get this stuff about Christian nationalists who’ve taken over our government, and certainly our US military,” Mikey Weinstein, MRFF’s president, who is an air force veteran, told the Guardian. “Military members are not really able to stand up for themselves, because your military superior is not your shift manager at Starbucks,” This doesn't really confirm or debunk, but it's surely a solid nudge towards confirmation. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran... -- Edited to add: Another commentator, who takes the story with a pinch of salt, casts aspersions at the MRFF. [2] The penultimate paragraph should really be far higher up. [2] https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-story-about?action=share https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-stor...

tim333 7mo ago

I'd never heard of René Girard and would be very surprised if Trump or Hegseth had read him, or probably even heard of him. His basic ideas from the top of his Wikipedia page seem interesting though: >...that human desire is fundamentally imitative, leading to rivalry, violence and the scapegoat mechanism as foundations of religion and culture. I guess applying that here Hegseth not having so many ideas of his own got the Armageddon and Jesus ideas from others and scapegoats the islam guys leading to violence etc.?

carefree-bob 7mo ago
Girard is pretty famous and was well known at Stanford when he was there. He is a major thinker and deserving of individual attention rather than being pulled into partisan political debates. Even Peter Thiel, who attended a seminar taught by Girard at Stanford, has a fairly good understanding of Girard's views, one that is not amenable to cliches. If you are interested in learning about Girard, start with "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning".
- AnimalMuppet 7mo ago
  There used to be a page on arcade.stanford.edu that was a takedown of Girard. It seems to have disappeared, or I would point you to it. Girard writes beautifully. The problem is with his evidence. He says things like Jesus being an instance of the scapegoat, which is true, but he also says that the disciples were in on it. Never mind that the gospels say that they didn't understand until after Jesus rose from the dead; Girard says that those who are scapegoating someone won't say that that's what they're doing. And viola, evidence against Girard's position magically becomes evidence for it. Same with Oedipus, and literally dozens of other examples that the article gave that I don't remember what they are. It goes on and on and on, giving examples where Girard's "evidence" does not say what he says it says. So if you actually read Girard, look carefully at his examples. Don't get carried away by the beautiful writing; think about what the example says and what Girard says it says. [Edit: Found a link. https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/publications/rofl/issues/volume-3-issue-1/deceit-desire-and-literature-professor-why https://shc.stanford.edu/arcade/publications/rofl/issues/vol... It's worth a read.]
  - carefree-bob 7mo ago
    I am not really interested in things like "evidence" that the gospels are consistent with Girard's examples, nor of "takedowns". That's not really how things work in comparative literature. What you are doing in this field is re-interpreting works of literature to find common themes and shed insight on human nature by looking at these themes. The fundamental assumption here -- which is a radical assumption -- is that works of literature that are considered classic or great works of literature -- contain within them information about human nature, that is, hidden information, and this applies even to, or especially with respect to, fictional works such as Don Quixote. As an example, you can claim children desire power. And as evidence of this, point to children's stories, reintepreting them as power fantasies. Which is basically correct. Now let's say that you are talking about Lord of the Rings, and arguing that here we have the lowly hobbit that ends up saving the whole world and Kings bow to him, you can use that as one piece of data. But now comes the "takedown", and the critic says "No! You have it wrong! The point of destroying the ring is to get rid of power! You have it all backwards". But the critic is missing the point. I hope everyone can see that. Tolkien might have been consciously warning readers about the dangers of power, but it would not have been a successful children's book if it did not involve the lead character starting out powerless, acquiring power, and being someone the child reader identified with. Or at least the odds of it being successful would be much lower. In most children's books, you are acquiring power -- because children fantasize about that, it is human nature. It does not matter what moral lesson the author is trying to get across, his human nature finds a way of expressing itself in the work. Now, you can reject the core assumption that literature reveals aspects of human nature, it's fine, but there is no point in arguing that core assumption. If you reject it, then don't read Girard. But if you don't reject it, then because you are re-interpreting works and looking for overlooked themes, the name of the game is to accumulate a large body of examples, not to debate a single example. And you judge the success of your examples primarily by their explanatory power, not because you think the original author intentionally made a certain theme that heretofore was overlooked. But because you are providing novel interpretations of existing works, you can always find plenty of arguments that the original works were intended to be interpreted differently. It's trivial, but not a compelling critique. It is up to the reader to decide whether interpreting the work through this lense sheds more light on the work in the sense that applying the same interpretation to the large body of works cited results in something that "makes sense", as Girard is building a case that a certain theme in human nature occurs in works of literature over and over again, and having this theme available helps you to better understand the work. This is very different from theology, or legalism, where people focus on debating a single verb tense in a specific verse. Because Girard is not doing theology or legalism, he is doing comparative literature, so he provides a hundred examples of common themes, and after you read him, the next time you read literature your mind is trained to look for these themes and you can identify them and interpret what you are reading in a different way. Now going back to the original sharp assumption, this means that you do not only know something new about literature, but something new about human nature.

sph 7mo ago

> Anyway, never too late, at least one Stamford documentary on YouTube... Please check him out. I don’t know what you’re talking about, surely you can share the link with us.

aaron695 7mo ago
[dead]
polotics 7mo ago
https://googlethatforyou.com?q=rene%20girard%20stanford%20documentary%20 https://googlethatforyou.com?q=rene%20girard%20stanford%20do... Sorry I thought the Girard Thiel Vance timeline courtesy of Yeats https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi... was common knowledge here. I will see myself out now.
- tim333 7mo ago
  You mean "Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard | Full Length Documentary"? Youtube is full of Girard stuff and it's not clear which of the many you were thinking of.
  - polotics 7mo ago
    Yes Stanford documentary there is one.
- fragmede 7mo ago
  Explain it to me like I'm 5, please?
  - polotics 7mo ago
    At 5 you should not be told about mimetic violence, you would not understand.
  - tim333 7mo ago

samizdis 7mo ago

The MRFF, which seems to be above board and its existence widely known by military personnel, is quoted directly in the article as having received the complaints as described. An article in The Guardian [1] tells the same story, but adds another MRFF quote: “Anytime Israel or the US is involved in the Middle East, we get this stuff about Christian nationalists who’ve taken over our government, and certainly our US military,” Mikey Weinstein, MRFF’s president, who is an air force veteran, told the Guardian. “Military members are not really able to stand up for themselves, because your military superior is not your shift manager at Starbucks,” This doesn't really confirm or debunk, but it's surely a solid nudge towards confirmation. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran... -- Edited to add: Another commentator, who takes the story with a pinch of salt, casts aspersions at the MRFF. [2] The penultimate paragraph should really be far higher up. [2] https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-story-about?action=share https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-stor...