[fwdbureau]

I'm going to over-simplify, but according to Girard, the greatest social attempt to avoid scapegoating and civilize human nature has been christianity. The figure of the Christ, and his sacrifice, was a smart operation to replace real scapegoats by a symbolic one, allowing the community to unite against an innocent without having to kill anyone. This has been successful for centuries, but it's interesting to note that in his latest books, Girard sounds pretty disillusioned about this. "Achever Clausewitz" (strangely translated in english by "Battling to the end") is quite a frightening apocalyptic book that I would recommend to anyone interested in Girard's work.

[binarymax]

I challenge that it has been successful. Many people have been slain in the name of christ.

[coldtea]

It's not about people not being slained anymore. Obviously that's always going to happen in some degree.

It's about how they're slain and why.

An pre-Christian society did not need pretenses like "bringing democracy", "fighting for good", "civilizing" etc to attack their enemies. Merely their interests and wanting to plunder was enough -- and nobody would ask for a justification anyway.

Before Christianic ideas spread nobody (or very few) in the ancient world would bat an eye for slavery, slaining captives, eradicating whole villages and cities etc. Afterwards these things continue to happen, but with strong voices and agreement against them as immoral / inhuman etc.

For an ancient, Greek, Persian, Roman etc, war and killing was on the contrary not inhuman but all too human -- and they didn't even need to formulate theories like the Europeans and Americans that blacks are inferior, etc to justify that (like we justified colonialism and slavery). They just accepted slavery as part of life for the losers.

It's also interesting to note that possibly the worst offender regarding war crimes et al, the Nazi regime, was influenced by an open attempt to annul Christian morals (e.g. with "ubermensch" mentality). Nietzsche and other thinkers popular in Germany at the time were quite open about this.

[j2kun]

> Before Christianic ideas spread nobody (or very few) in the ancient world would bat an eye for slavery, slaining captives, eradicating whole villages and cities etc. Afterwards these things continue to happen, but with strong voices and agreement against them as immoral / inhuman etc.

IIRC the Christian bible doesn't bat an eye at slavery either or voice any dissent, rather upholding it as a moral virtue.

I don't see a big difference between justifying enslavement and murder because the bible tells them it's okay, and justifying it because it's what everyone else does. They're the same thing at the core but one has a superficial narrative that lasted.

[coldtea]

>IIRC the Christian bible doesn't bat an eye at slavery either or voice any dissent, rather upholding it as a moral virtue.

The Christian Bible is not that much christian -- it's basically the old jewish religious texts repackaged. As such it existed for centuries without any external adoption outside Israel (not that it's practitioners meant it for other peoples anyway).

What caught on in Roman times, and was revolutionary, was the New Testament. That was the "good (new) message" (the Gospel) that caught on, and that's where the fundamental change in mores is contained in.

Unfortunately there are a lot of "Christians" these days that are more for Old Testament than the New Testament part of the bible (as did the most conservative people in previous centuries too).

Consider Jesus treatment of outsiders, thieves, low-ranking people, beggars, prostitutes, criminals etc. (as portrayed in the gospels, I'm not saying it happened as such in real life), and how e.g. church-going "christians" think of and treat such people.

[Add.] Now, as to what you said about "batting an eye", actually there were several advocates for the abolition of slavery in christianity, and a long-going internal discussion about the issue. At worst, christian thinkers were for the humane and brotherly treatment of slaves (as opposed to downright abolition of slavery), which is still improved than the older views on the rights of masters. They also accepted slaves as saints (something that would sound preposterous to Romans before).

In fact a lot if not most of the early adopters, so to speak, of the new religion in Rome were slaves themselves -- not talking openly about abolition was to protect themselves and because it was an ancient and accepted institution that took ages to erode, one which not everybody (slaves included) thought unnatural at the time. Not unlike sweatshop labor today (which you see well educated libertarians and the like accepting still, as better than poverty).

Heck, slavery was still practiced by open minded, modern, post-industrial revolution and enlightenment countries, not just in the US until the Civil War, but in most of European countries that had colonies until the '50s (and even in the US, the same tradition carried on in the form of officially sanctioned Jim Crow and segregation laws).

[boxy310]

The New Testament also has several verses admonishing freshly-converted Christian slaves to obey their masters (Eph. 6:5, 1 Peter 2:18). Christianity at that time was controversial enough that they didn't want to add abolitionism to the mix.

Even in Medieval/Renaissance Europe there was a healthy slave trade centered around filling galleys with oarsmen who were understandably not happy with such repetitive work under terrible working conditions. Genoese traders in Italy even collaborated with the Crimean khanate in enslaving Eastern European Orthodox Christians so they could fill out their galleys. Also, taking of Moorish slaves during the back-and-forth of Mediterranean maritime politics.

[j2kun]

Much of this sounds like speculation. How exactly, do you know what religious beliefs the slaves in Rome had, and why they chose not to talk about particular aspects of their beliefs?

[coldtea]

From historians and accounts of the era -- you do know that there are several volumes of scholarly studies on the matter, right? Check out especially Rodney Stark and Jennifer Glancy (but you can also read accounts from that very era too -- up to the early Byzantine era, including from founding figures of the church).

[bambax]

Very Christian and Catholic societies fought one another with absolutely no other motive than territorial gain. That's the whole history of Europe from 450 AD to WWI.

Also, the Nazis thought they were doing God's work; they had written on their belt "God is with us" (Gott mit uns), which they did not invent (the origin is ancient) but did not suppress either.

And of course, the original idea of the "chosen people" and the "holy land" is found in the scriptures, that the Nazis subverted for their own use.

[coldtea]

>Very Christian and Catholic societies fought one another with absolutely no other motive than territorial gain.

Sure. Like they did for millenia before that too. Having adopted christianism doesn't mean people get perfect or all good or something.

It's more of a moral compass than actual everyday conformance. We might point the "hypocrisy" but then we ignore the importance of having a moral compass, even if don't follow it all the time, which is that it helps shape mentalities, laws and practices.

And that's something that doesn't happen in a day -- it takes centuries of slow progress, while the new values kick in, to the point that their nominal carrier isn't even needed anymore (e.g. we now have codified christian originated values in non-religious forms, including in the Declaration of Independence).

>Also, the Nazis thought they were doing God's work; they had written on their belt "God is with us" (Gott mit uns), which they did not invent (the origin is ancient) but did not suppress either.

They never had any special relationship with the church -- only attempted to keep it to not alienate the huge christian population, but first cleaning it of jewish influence (including lots of new testament). The "Gott mit uns" is just a relic, not a central tenet of their philosophy.

Which is not exactly tied to the christian god's either, it has more to do with the pagan gods of the past, the kind Wagner also celebrated. Early tendencies in 20th century Germany, that later turned pro-nazi, were in favor of such a pagan revival, including naked dances/rituals in the forests, occultism, and other such BS.

The fact that Jesus was jewish itself is enough of an issue for most top nazi's to avoid christianity altogether (although they also maintained that he wasn't, in an attempt to keep the devout masses with them).

See also: http://www.amazon.com/New-Religions-Nazis-Karla-Poewe/dp/041...

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sun-Esoteric-Politics-Identity/d...

and especially: http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Alliance-History-Involvement-Oc...

[marincounty]

Yea, you're right. I just wonder what society will look like without all the oral literature, mythology, folklore, fact-- for some, becomes really fashionable? I just don't think human beings are born moral, and I've met more than a few individuals who should spend a Sunday in church, and leave the filthy lookers club--just for a few Sundays. Just kidding with the lookers; not kidding about dudes who pride themself's on making it to the top of the shit pile, at any cost. And I've meet too many of those guys lately. I don't find them clever, cool, or hip.

I sometimes visualize a Roman Emperor, like Constantine, looking over society, and thinking, 'I need to control the debachery that's getting out of hand.' (Just found out that Emperor Constantine had nothing to do with the formation of the canon. I always though he did?)

[binarymax]

Humans are not born moral because morality is a human intellectual construct and is taught. Nature, without humanity, is neither moral nor amoral, it is just nature.

I agree with Girards postulation that sameness begets violence because there is always non-uniformity, and those who seek to control and organise want uniformity (sometimes violently). I do wonder if there would be less violence not with the abolishment of all religion, but with the abolishment of all but one.

[coldtea]

>umans are not born moral because morality is a human intellectual construct and is taught. Nature, without humanity, is neither moral nor amoral, it is just nature.

That's not exactly accurate. For one, animals are also capable of handling "intellectual constructs" (even if less complex) and teaching them to their offspring or herd.

Some starters: http://www.amazon.com/Can-Animals-Moral-Mark-Rowlands/dp/019...

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Lives-Animals-Dale-Peterson/dp/1...

[keane]

While both humans and animals may practice empathy, cooperation, or other behaviors that help them as individuals or groups to survive or thrive, this falls short of 'morality'.

Morality is positions about what one should do: eg "one should not murder humans for sport". Hume's observation of the Is-Ought problem shows us that we cannot reason "humans practice X therefore humans should practice X" as we similarly cannot reason "humans believe X therefore X is objectively the case".

Saying that animals or humans practice empathy is merely observing something they do, the "Is". We can't say "humans sometimes practice empathy therefore humans should practice empathy" like we can't say "humans sometimes practice violence therefore humans should practice violence".

You could add a condition, such as "If humans do not want to be put in jail by society, then they should not murder (or at least get caught having murdered)". But this is known as Hypothetical Morality, and with dependence on the conditions it becomes merely advice about cause and effect and is to be ignored by those who don't find the conditions compelling.

[agumonkey]

More a social construct then ?

[agumonkey]

Very interesting, I tried to theorized the Christ idea, but never thought of it as a safety valve. So far all I got was the 'took our sins' as quick path to an everloving alter ego that can empathize with anybody since he sinned too.

ps: Achever clausewitz sounds like a bad portemanteau. I guess on purpose.