I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

by René Girard

The more unbearable their personal scandals become, the more the desire to extinguish them in some huge scandal seizes the scandalized. This phenomenon can be seen quite clearly in political passions or in the frenzy of scandal that now possesses our “globalized” world. When a really seductive scandal comes near, the scandalized are irresistibly tempted to “profit” from it and to gravitate toward it. The condensation of all the separated scandals into a single scandal is the paroxysm of a process that begins with mimetic desire and its rivalries. These rivalries, as they multiply, create a mimetic crisis, the war of all against all. The resulting violence of all against all would finally annihilate the community if it were not transformed, in the end, into a war of all against one, thanks to which the unity of the community is reestablished.