Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Interesting Girard Interview

The following is an excerpt of an interview with René Girard, French historian, philosophical anthropologist and emeritus professor of anthropology at Stanford University.

NPQ: Even Jean Baudrillard once agreed that "the whole world, including China and Japan, is implicated in the postmodern fragmentation and uprootedness that leaves values behind. There is one exception: Islam. It stands as a challenge to the radical indifference sweeping the world. Isn’t it true that Islam remains the only civilization fully based in faith, and thus is in conflict with our secular postmodern culture the same way Ratzinger is? After all, despite Pope John Paul II’s determined efforts, the drafters of the EU Constitution rejected any mention of the Christian heritage of the West. Every state in the Islamic world mentions Islam as its cultural foundation.

Girard: Western civilization is, no doubt, predominantly on the side of secular relativism. That is not true in the Islamic world, where faith dominates. This victory of relativism is precisely why Pope Benedict has made defending the Christian Truth his central mission.

Having said this, I should also say that American secularism—which arose in defense of freedom of religion—and French laicite—which arose from the Jacobin opposition to the Church—are more similar than most people recognize because they are experienced in the same way at the personal level.