Our second Food for Thought of the semester will be next Friday, October 25th from 12-1pm. Professor Trullinger, one of our dear honors faculty, will be discussing his research and the French anthropologist Rene Girard. Reserve a spot for yourself here, and read more about the talk below:
The French anthropologist Rene Girard argued that civilizations are founded on collective murder of a scapegoat, who then became deified into an idol. Thus wherever there is systemic violence, there is an idol, and wherever there is idolatry, there is systemic violence. In the course of reviewing this argument, the following question arises: can there be a way of life for all that is not predicated on death for others? What would it mean to hold that way of life as the highest value? Part of the answer will entail examining how we worship things not normally seen as idols: national security, money, white supremacy, patriarchy, to list a few. This in turn complicates the usual way we conceptualize debates in the philosophy of religion, especially regarding the difference between “false” and “true” deities.
Hope to see you all there!
