O ressentimento e o sagrado em René Girard

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the relation between the concepts of religion and resentment according to the anthropologist René Girard (1923-2015). This analysis intends to comprehend why christianity, as a proposal to overcome violence in Girard's thought, is not enough to overcome resentment. For this work, the comparative method was employed in order to analyse the different narratives of classical literature alongside comparative studies of myths, ethnographic studies and biblical texts. This analysis was made by the anthropology of the persecutory mechanism, as Girard does. With this analysis, it was possible to understand the dynamics of human relations that are mimetic and structured through mediations. There is an ideal imitation that is an external mediation and there is an imitation that leads to the conformation of resentment, which is an internal mediation. From the reality of the conformation of resentment, we have the undifferentiation and spreading of violence that infects a group. This violence, must be expelled from the heart of society with the sacrificial violence through the ritualistic performing of sacrifice. Girard argues that the Gospel texts Mark, Matthew, Luke and John reveal the mimetic contagion of the crowd and the reality of the sacrifice of an innocent victim. For this reason, Christian revelation is an invitation to the disinterested imitation of God, starting from Jesus Christ. However, with the rescue of the concept of resentment, it was possible to realize that even with the Christian revelation there is still a need for a response that comes from a sacrificial institution and/or heir to it, such as the judiciary, as this is the last word of revenge, a feeling that shapes resentment. Christian revelation through the texts of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John present a point of view about a choice of coexistence in mimetic processes, but it still depends on an institution, as in the case of our rationalized society, on the judicial institution for social cohesion. The rupture that Christianity brings and reveal the reality of the conformation of the groups and the innocence of the victim, which, in Girard's thought, is a rupture of the archaic religious. However, even with this rupture, the use of the judiciary is still necessary for the maintenance and social cohesion.