The Foundation Of The World

The Foundation of the World

People do not wish to know that the whole of human culture is based on the mythic process of conjuring away man's violence by endlessly projecting it upon new victims. All cultures and all religions are built on this foundation, which they then conceal, just as the tomb is built around the dead body that it conceals. Murder calls for the tomb and the tomb is but the prolongation and perpetuation of murder. The tomb-religion amounts to nothing more or less than the becoming visible of the foundations, of religion and culture, of their only reason for existence.

Violence and the Sacred, René Girard (1972), quoted in The Girard Reader, James G. Williams ed. (2000)

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philosophy rene girard

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