Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads
Written by Gil Bailie
Narrated by Randy Coleman-Riese
4/5
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About this audiobook
This is a Girardian-influenced, engagingly written classic on the nature of violence and the hope for overcoming it in our conflict-ridden world. It is also a literary work, an often miraculous interplay between cultural documents and historical periods.
Gil Bailie wrote Violence Unveiled in the mid-1990s after learning of René Girard’s mimetic theory of human cultural origins. The mimetic theory posits that human interspecies violence posed an existential threat to the continuation of any early human community until the evolution/discovery of a particular kind of directed social violence – scapegoating violence - which in times of social crisis brought peace and harmony to the community at the expense of what would later be understood as a sacred victim or god who becomes a focus of religious awe.
Bailie intertwines various accounts of this phenomenon from history, literature and (then ‘90s) current journalistic sources. The Christian gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the theological reflection on its effects and meaning are understood as the revelatory "unveiling" of the truth of the victim as the source of communal peace.
However, with this new knowledge and its moral implications cultures influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition scapegoating violence has gradually lost its ability to bring people in crisis together. Without a change in the human heart, a conversion, this will eventually lead to apocalyptic forms of violence.
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Reviews for Violence Unveiled
22 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The author's premise is that violence starts with belief in mythology and comes to fruition with uncontrolled desire. Any glorification of violence, either in historical war or fictional entertainment can incite violence because of its mimetic nature. Bailie looks at society's tendency to initiate and imitate behavior, including violence. Events like the Rodney King beating happened because the perpetrators escalated and spectators did nothing to stop the brutality, which caused many wonder how the crowd could have descended to such a neanderthal state. He also analyzes the escalation in the British novel Lord of the Flies. In both historical and fictional stories, he see the pattern of belief in some type of myth followed by escalation through imitation.This writer disagrees with the author's contention that the central message of Jesus' crucifixion was more than substitutionary atonenement. Bailie believes that because the story shows mob violence through the eyes of the victim that the anti-violence message is stronger. He also argues that the first death in the Bible, Cain killing Abel, is a theological indication that condemnation of violence must be the central message of Scripture. While many would agree that it is wrong to murder one's brother, it is inaccurate to redirect the central message of the Scripture toward pacificism. Overall, though, this book is a worthwhile exploration. Looking at violence from an anthropological perspective does yield fresh thinking about violence in television and movies.