Freud, Moses and Monotheism, and the Conversation Between Mimetic Theory and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Girard and Freud began their projects by focusing on micro-level, interpersonal interactions, but both were swayed by a Darwinian-scale reach toward explaining broader sociocultural aspects of human conflict. Girard’s explication of mimetic desire, already well developed in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, was advanced in Violence and the Sacred and serves as the lynchpin for an ontological reorganization of the Freudian subject. And yet, it was Girard’s reinterpretation of Freud’s Totem and Taboo and Moses and Monotheism through the lens of mimetic desire that enabled Girard to envision the power of the generative scapegoating mechanism and its role in human origins.