A “theoretical double”: violence, religion and social order in Schmitt and Girard

The contribution aims to compare Girard’s cultural anthropology with Schmitt’s political theory. Conceptual support for a parallel reading can be found in the key concepts and the social perspective shared by the two authors. In particular, Girard and Schmitt share the general view that the widespread violence which is at the origins of any social context can be effectively restrained (but never totally eliminated) only by (re-)directing violence against people who are considered, by the whole community, as the sole guilty party in an xtremely dangerous situation. The contribution is divided into four parts, each dedicated to a particular aspect of the parallel reading proposed: the problem, the solution, the danger, the resolution. The first part focuses on the original condition of widespread violence that characterises any given community, by comparing the polemological perspective put forward by Schmitt with the mimetic theory advanced by Girard. The second part considers the ways out of the undifferentiated original reality: Schmitt’s political decision and Girard’s scapegoat mechanism. The third part dwells on what the authors respectively consider as the ever-present danger lurking in any (reiterated) attempt to preserve social order (the neutralisation of the political in Schmitt and the sacrificial crisis in Girard) and the different interpretations of the Pauline concept of katechon they give.In the fourth and final part, the analysis focuses on the role of the theorist, according to both the authors, in order to unmask, reveal and (partially) neutralise the essentially violent nature of any process of institutionalisation.