Imitation and the Christian Life

The Catholic Thing

By Fr. Elias Carr, Can. Reg.
Remember your first day in a new school or at a new job? The excitement of embarking on a new adventure, but the fear of wondering: Will I make friends? What will people be like? Will I fit in? In his brilliant book, Wanting, Luke Burgis coins the term "Freshmanistan" to capture the everyday experience.
Burgis connects that experience with the concept of "mimesis" (imitation of a special sort) as elaborated by the great Catholic philosopher and professor of literature René Girard. Mimesis typifies humanity according to Girard. Like other animals, we share instincts that govern basic urges for the promotion of our lives, but we also have something more: human desires. The latter are open and undetermined. How do we decide what we want? Girard argues we learned them from observing other people.
For example, I go out with friends to eat but nothing catches my eye. I ask the others what they are ordering. Suddenly I find that I want something I never wanted before: this is mimetic desire in operation. I imitate the desires of others without realizing it. This is a feature of human life from earliest childhood throughout adulthood. We learn to speak and much more from others around us. (Curious? Have a look at my new book, I Came To Cast Fire: An Introduction to René Girard. Warning: It may change your life.)
So long as there is enough for everyone or people are not in immediate competition and nothing vital is at stake, there is no need for conflict over what they desire. But when the supply of something is short, however, or life is threatened, rivalries arise, tempers flare, and violence ensues.
Girard argues that Bible reveals the role of mimesis, the rivalry it causes, and the scapegoating that counters it. This knowledge makes it possible for Christians to make good choices because they understand that not everything one wants is really worth wanting. Is this not what the often-experienced post-Christmas malaise signifies? We are looking for something more than still greater material possessions. We are looking to be more. And we find that "more" in Christ and his friends, the saints.
St. Gregory Nazianzus (329-389) provides a wonderful example of the positive kind of mimesis, even as he is aware of the perils of negative mimesis, in a sermon about his friendship with St. Basil (330-379).
These Greek Fathers - whose feast it is today - tirelessly safeguarded the truth of the incarnation of the Eternal Word (against the Arianism that denied it) and defended the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps because of their famous friendship, the current calendar of the Roman Liturgy commemorates them on the same day.
The aging Gregory was not able to attend his friend's funeral, but he was able to write a beautiful and detailed funeral oration.
Both came from Cappadocia (in modern-day Turkey), along with St. Basil's younger brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 - c. 395). They are usually referred to as the Cappadocian Fathers. Gregory describes the extremely "mimetic" nature of tutors and students in Athens, the usual intellectual and social ambitions, as "absolutely absurd and silly." And whereas hazing was the order of the day for freshmen, Gregory protected his friend from this ordeal, persuading his classmates instead to honor newly arrived Basil.
The saintly friends came to Athens in pursuit of true wisdom (sophia), but often found vain professors and envious students bent more on winning disputes and gaining prestige rather than following out rational arguments. Their decision to withdraw from those conflicts strengthened their resolve to do all things in common: "When, in the course of time, we acknowledged our friendship and recognized that our ambition was a life of true wisdom, we became everything to each other: we shared the same lodging, the same table, the same desires, the same goal. Our love for each other grew daily warmer and deeper."
The love of God is capable of transforming mimetic ...