Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam > Blaise Pascal Instituut > Girard Studiekring > COV&R 2007 > Abstracts Papers 

Jesús Salazar Velasco

Staging in desire: an ethic for extremely vulnerable subjects

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ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to show the mediation that desire imposes to a subject, simultaneously as an agent and an actor. Thus, blurring the line that delimits an ethic that takes into account mimetic desire. Furthermore, the vulnerability of a subject that considers itself and the other is underlined.  

Our starting point is a dramatic reading of Girard’s thesis in which a first problem appears, mainly the question of whether mimesis needs mediation or if it is spontaneous. This problem arises when we assume that mimesis is the essence of desire. Spontaneity implies that subject A desires through B in a simpliciter form. If there’s no spontaneity, then subject A desires through B imitating C. If a new mediation is needed then an infinite chain of mediations is created, making us impossible to clarify mimesis. This would leave the subject in an extreme vulnerability: for he is unable to comprehend his desires and to orientate his actions. On the other hand, if mimesis is spontaneous, the subject is no longer abandoned in an extreme vulnerability (although he is still vulnerable). In this case, mimesis would limit its origin to the subject himself, but then, how do we justify our acts? From which background would this ethic be proposed? The role of conscience is questioned in both cases because, as Girard affirms, mediation diminishes our sense of the real and judgment becomes paralyzed.  

The subject is not liberated of vulnerability by acquiring consciousness of the mediation of desire. The spontaneity of mimesis makes it impossible to submit it to an objective trial of consciousness. This spontaneity implies that the free and conscious action takes place accompanied by a staging dictated by the spontaneous mimesis that lies within every action. This staging is originated by the fact that the spontaneity of mimesis is impossible to be adjusted or foreseen: mimesis gives place to action even before the subject is able to propose limits to his own acting: in this moment, the subject is completely vulnerable.

Furthermore, the staging provoked by spontaneity of the mimesis cannot be completely understood by consciousness, and the judgment of actions themselves cannot include it completely. Even in the most lucid moments, the spontaneous representation turns the subject vulnerable to itself and to others.  

If the representation of the mimesis gives way to vulnerability, then, even from the theory of mimetic desire, action cannot be comprehended exclusively from the teleological point of view, for maximum vulnerability occurs at the beginning of the action, when an objective still hasn’t been rationally delimited. Vulnerability needs to be comprehended through a different approach. It cannot be teleological, for it needs a narrative type of comprehension. To understand mimetic and represented desire on needs to have a dramatic horizon, or even more, a tragic point of view. A more realistic ethic should recognize this two elements, impossible to be objectivized, and assume the representational essence of mimetic desire.  

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Jesús Salazar Velasco