Narrator: What if the most fundamental human drive isn't hunger, sex, or survival, but imitation? What if our desires aren't our own, but are borrowed from others, trapping us in a vast, invisible net of rivalry? This simple act of wanting what another wants, when multiplied across a community, can escalate into a chaotic storm of violence, a crisis where all distinctions dissolve and every person becomes a rival to their neighbor. How could any society survive such a self-destructive impulse? And what if the answer lies in a dark, secret event—a collective murder—that is both the origin of violence and the foundation of peace, religion, and all human culture?

In his groundbreaking work, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, the philosopher and anthropologist René Girard unearths this foundational mechanism. He argues that a single, powerful theory of human behavior can explain the emergence of myth, the function of ritual, the basis of law, and the unique, world-altering message of the Judaeo-Christian scriptures.

Narrator: Girard begins with a radical re-evaluation of human desire. He argues that unlike animal appetite, which is directed at objects, human desire is triangular. We desire an object not for its intrinsic worth, but because it is desired by another person, who acts as a model. This is "mimetic desire." This simple dynamic explains everything from fashion trends to stock market bubbles, but it also contains the seeds of conflict. When two people desire the same object because they are imitating each other, the model inevitably becomes a rival and an obstacle.

Girard uses a poetic image from Robinson Jeffers to describe this condition: humanity is like a net full of fish, "all matted in the one mesh," where everyone "sought the eyes of another that another should praise him; sought never his own but another's." This "net of desire" means that human conflict isn't an aberration; it's the logical outcome of our most fundamental social instinct.

Narrator: When mimetic desire runs unchecked, it leads to what Girard calls a "mimetic crisis." Rivalries multiply, differences between people collapse, and society descends into a war of all against all, a cycle of reciprocal violence like a blood feud that has no end. At the peak of this chaos, a miraculous solution emerges. The warring community, exhausted by its internal conflict, spontaneously and unanimously redirects its collective rage onto a single, often arbitrary, individual or group.

This is the victimage mechanism, or scapegoating. The collective murder of this victim brings a sudden, shocking peace. The community, reconciled by its shared act of violence, then misinterprets what happened. They believe the victim was a monstrous being responsible for the crisis, but also a divine figure whose death brought about the miraculous return to order. This murdered victim becomes the first "sacred" being, the foundation of religious thought.

Narrator: According to Girard, all human culture is an elaborate system designed to manage the threat of mimetic violence. Following the first founding murder, two primary institutions arise. First are prohibitions. These are rules against the things that spark mimetic crisis—violence, incest, and even things that represent undifferentiated doubles, like twins. Second are rituals. Rituals are controlled, communal re-enactments of the original crisis and its violent resolution.

Animal sacrifice, for example, is a way to repeat the unifying violence of the founding murder without killing a member of the community. Girard even argues that animal domestication began not for economic reasons, but to ensure a ready supply of sacrificial victims. Similarly, he traces the origin of sacred kingship to the scapegoat. The first king was a victim with a suspended death sentence, whose potential sacrifice was believed to hold the community together. Over time, this ritual victim accumulated real power, institutionalizing the mechanism that created him.

Narrator: If culture is built on a founding murder, where is the evidence? Girard argues that it is hidden in plain sight, within the world's myths. Myths, he contends, are accounts of the founding murder, but they are always told from the perspective of the persecutors. They are stories that justify the collective violence by portraying the victim as guilty.

Consider the myth of Oedipus, who is blamed for the plague in Thebes because of his crimes of incest and parricide. His expulsion restores order. Or take the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus. Romulus kills his brother Remus for transgressing a sacred boundary, and this act is presented as a necessary, foundational moment for the city of Rome. In these stories, the victim is always guilty, and the collective violence is always righteous. Mythology is the propaganda of the reconciled mob, a brilliant cover-up of its own violent origins.

Narrator: Girard argues that the Judaeo-Christian scriptures are unique in human history because they begin to tell the story from the other side: the perspective of the victim. While early biblical stories like Cain and Abel share the structure of a founding murder, the text does something revolutionary. Unlike the myth of Romulus, which justifies the murder, the Bible condemns Cain and hears the blood of the innocent victim, Abel, crying out from the ground.

This revelation intensifies throughout the Bible. The story of Joseph and his brothers is a clear exposé of collective persecution against an innocent victim. The prophets, especially in the "Songs of the Servant of Yahweh" in Isaiah, describe a figure who is "despised and rejected," yet suffers for the sins of the community, explicitly revealing his innocence. The Bible, in stark contrast to mythology, is a text that slowly and progressively unmasks the scapegoat mechanism and sides with the victim.

Narrator: This process of revelation culminates, for Girard, in the Gospels. He argues that the Passion of Christ is the ultimate, complete unveiling of the founding murder. Jesus is the perfectly innocent victim, condemned by a mimetic mob composed of all sectors of society. His death, however, is not a sacrifice demanded by a violent God to appease His wrath. Instead, it is a revelation of a non-violent God and a demonstration of humanity's universal mechanism of sacrificial violence.

When Jesus says he has come to reveal "things hidden since the foundation of the world," he is referring to this scapegoat mechanism. The Cross exposes the lie at the heart of all human cultures. It shows that the sacred is not built on a guilty monster, but on an innocent victim. By imitating Christ—the model who does not become a rival and who forgives his persecutors—humanity is offered a way out of the endless cycle of violence.

Narrator: Girard applies this framework to psychology, arguing that many modern pathologies are simply the mimetic crisis playing out on an individual level. In a world where traditional rituals for resolving conflict have faded, the pressure builds within what he calls "interdividual" psychology.

He reinterprets concepts like masochism not as a desire for pain, but as the logical endpoint of a desire that becomes obsessed with an unbeatable rival-model. The subject seeks to connect with the model's perceived power by embracing the position of the victim. He offers a similar mimetic reading for Dostoevsky's "morbid jealousy" in The Eternal Husband, where the husband is so fixated on his rival that he cannot desire a new wife unless the rival desires her first. For Girard, these are not separate pathologies but different stages of a single, underlying mimetic process.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from René Girard's Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World is that human society is built upon a foundational, collective violence that it simultaneously denies and endlessly repeats. Our religions, our cultures, and even our psychological makeup are all shaped by the hidden mechanism of the scapegoat. Yet, the book is not a declaration of doom. Girard argues that the Judaeo-Christian revelation has let this secret out, and we can no longer hide from it.

This knowledge presents humanity with its ultimate challenge. As the old sacrificial systems lose their power, we see mimetic violence escalating on a global scale, armed with apocalyptic technology. Girard forces us to ask: now that we understand the mechanism of our own self-destruction, can we finally choose a different path? Can we consciously renounce the cycle of rivalry and blame, and instead imitate the one model who offers a way beyond violence?