Two New Titles
This weekend served as the anniversary of our local independent bookstore, Prairie Lights, and they offered 20% off everything, so time for a couple of new titles. It’s fun to browse there, and since my spouse and I, not to mention offspring, are well known there, we get plenty of recommendations. On this trip, I went with two familiar authors with new titles. The first is Rene Girard, with Pierpalo Anotnello and Joao Cezar de Castrol Rocha, Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture (2007). This title was new to me, and it looked good. Like a bloodhound with a new scent, I was off into it (notwithstanding the fact that I have a pile of unfinished books already). The book is an extended interview with Girard after a short summary introduction. The first chapter recounted Girard’s career. He was trained initially as a librarian-archivist, came to the U.S. (from his native France), received a Ph.D. in history from Indiana, then to John Hopkins, while along the way moving his attention to literature. From there, he went on to develop a very unique theory of culture and religion. He completed his career (at least as far as academic appointments go) at Stanford in the Department of French Language, Literature and Civilization. It’s interesting how this inquisitive and original thinker broke academic boundaries.
Girard is a hedgehog (in the Isaiah Berlin sense); only he has two big ideas: mimetic desire and scapegoating. In short, we learn from one another, often to the point where we mimic the desires of another, thereby establishing conflict (most easily recognized as envy). When social cohesion becomes frayed through rivalry, societies resort to scapegoats, a sacrifice to placate the social (or religious) order. Fascinating stuff, as I’ve read some of this stuff earlier. A theory of human culture and relations that is profoundly intriguing. The interviewers believe him to be the “Darwin of the human sciences”. Well, I’m not sure about that, but he is profoundly interesting. BTW, he came across his insight while reading the great 19th and early 20th century novelists, Stendahl, Dostoevsky, and Proust, among others, which he published as Deceit, Desire, and the Novel.
The other new title is B. Alan Wallace’s Mind in the Balance: Mediation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity (2009). Wallace is a former Buddhist monk, translator for the Dalai Lama and of Tibetan texts, a Ph.D. from Stanford in religious studies, and an undergraduate major in physics. With this combination, he’s an excellent conduit of perspectives between East and West, more specifically, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and Western science. This book, as he explains in the beginning, has an interesting genesis. He reports that his stepdaughter, a practicing Christian, wanted some guidance on going deeper into her tradition. He wrote this book for her, which includes not only history and theory behind Western and Eastern meditation traditions but also alternating chapters on meditation techniques and practices. I’m not quite halfway through, but the meditation guidance is some of the best that I’ve read (and I’ve read some of his other books). The combined tour of the traditions with the additional insight from Western science makes for a great learning experience, and it certainly serves as an aid to practice.
