Prometheus of a scapegoat? Humans in the discourse of the anthropocene and the concept of mimesis and persecution pattern by René Girard: attempts at pedagogical reflection

• Published in: Studia z Teorii Wychowania Vol. XIV; no. 2 (43); pp. 199 - 218
• Main Author: Humeniuk, Monika
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wydawnictwo Naukowe ChAT 28.09.2023; ChAT University Press; Wydawnictwo Naukowe Chrześcijańskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Warszawie (Scientific Publishing House of the Christian Academy of Theology in Warsaw)
• Subjects: anthropocene; anthropos; climate crisis; Contemporary Philosophy; mimesis; Pedagogy; René Girard; scapegoating; Social Philosophy; Studies in violence and power; anthropos; scapegoating; René Girard; nonatropocentric pedagogy; mimesis; climate crisis; anthropocene; antinatalism
• ISSN: 2083-0998; 2719-4078
• DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0053.9082

The discourse of the Anthropocene expresses an interesting tension in the way human causation and guilt are framed. On the one hand, the Anthropos is a unique species, making historical, geographical and geo-logical conquest single-handedly (to the exclusion of non-human subjects). A triumphant and increasingly dominant coloniser of a planet that ultimately falls very low, indeed. In the light of the impending climate catastrophe, the “age of man” no longer sounds so noble today. On the contrary, it becomes a testimony of discredit and decline, a sign of egoism and planetary destruction by one species. Among the many approaches and attempts to address and nuance the discourse and amidst the search for the most appropriate labels (e.g. Capitalocene, chtchulucene, ecozoic, etc.), it is the Anthropocene or post-Anthropocene that seem to remain the ones most frequently referred to in colloquial or journalistic discourse. A need arises to clearly identify the one to blame for the impending climatic apocalypse. Under conditions of crisis, during what Girard call undifferentiation, the Anthropos selects itself as the scapegoat, becoming both the unfortunate, guilt-ridden OTHER and the ruthless, violence-hungry MOB. Could René Girard’s concept of mimesis and scapegoating help to understand the pattern of this dialectical, subversive strategy? If so, then perhaps it is to be expected that the stage of sacralisation of the victim, which crowns the logic of scapegoating, instead of overcoming it, will only perpetuate the apotheosis of human agency, dangerous from the point of view of the actual state of the planet. This time, these will be essentially anthropocentric and technologically advanced “escapes forward”, such as exploitation of the moon or other planets, invasive prevention of further ice and greenhouse ages, deflecting asteroids so that they do not collide with Earth, and other, hardly predictable spectacular gestures of the triumphant Anthropos. Th e above questions are the subject matter of this article and a pretext for pedagogical reflection.