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Rene Girard has been called the “Darwin of the Human Sciences.” A historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science, he made contributions to literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy– most prominently, his psychology of desire: mimetic theory. But relatedly, he also developed a powerful interpretation of human culture and its use of what he called the “scapegoat mechanism.”

His thought has impacted scholarship, and also more worldly endeavors like marketing and sales, even online influencing.

But perhaps most saliently in our moment, it has informed and animated the thought and efforts of the techno-right. Here, a fascinating “intellectual history”– and critique– of the appropriation of Girard by Peter Thiel, J. D. Vance, and their fellow travelers…

This past summer, I was surprised to encounter a face I knew in two most unexpected places. The first was in a photo montage accompanying an article written by Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo in the wake of J.D. Vance becoming the Vice Presidential nominee, entitled “A Journey Through the Authoritarian Right.” Arranged in the collage among images of a ripped man with lasers shooting from his eyes, of anti-democracy blogger Curtis Yarvin, and of Peter Thiel rubbing Benjamins between his thumb and forefinger, was my former professor and friend from Stanford University, René Girard. I was in France at the time; mere hours after reading Kovensky’s piece, I saw through the window of a taxi René’s face again—this time in the form of a larger-than-life decal on a light rail car in Avignon, where as it happens he is one of a dozen local heroes permanently celebrated on the new transit system. What do the medieval, culturally-rich, Provençal city of Avignon and the American authoritarian right have in common? Both claim a bond with this influential philosopher and member of L’Académie Française, who died in 2015. Only one of the claims is legitimate. The misappropriation of Girard’s ideas by the American right is not just a matter of academic concern; it has significant implications for our political discourse and society.

As it turns out, I know exactly where this illegitimate claim to Girard’s legacy started. For several years in the 1990s, I was part of a small reading group that met bi-weekly on the Stanford campus in a trailer left over from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The group—a kaleidoscope of visiting scholars, a few former students [the author had been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford] and some of Girard’s campus friends—was led by Girard himself, and though he was already an influential thinker at the time, and though his theories and ideas pervaded our discussions and were the reason we gathered, one member of that intimate group of ten or so has gone on to eclipse Girard in terms of visibility and political influence: Peter Thiel.

That Thiel participated in this study group has been noted in a small subset of the countless articles that reference his connection to Girard. Journalists, podcasters, and young entrepreneurs alike have hoped to find in Thiel’s acknowledged devotion to Girard’s work a master key that, properly handled, could unlock the mystery of Thiel and explain everything from his success as a venture capitalist to his 2016 endorsement of Donald Trump. That some wannabe billionaires have ordered Violence and the Sacred or Deceit, Desire and the Novel from Amazon and scanned its chapters in search of an “open sesame” to affluence is as surreal a proposition as it is doubtless something that actually occurs—the aspiring mogul’s equivalent of clicking on one of those “one weird trick” links that promise a hack to making money and improving your health.

A mirror image of this shortcut-thinking is visible in those who scan Girard’s books with the opposite goal: to demystify and discredit Thiel. “Girardianism has become a secret doctrine of a strange new frontier in reactionary thought,” exclaimed Sam Kriss in Harper’s, in an essay referenced in a ninety-minute discussion between the co-hosts of the “Know Your Enemy” podcast and essayist John Ganz, entitled “René Girard and the New Right.” This podcast discussion stands out as an informed, thoughtful, and wide-ranging presentation of Girard’s work. Nevertheless—like Sam Kriss in Harper’s—the trio are unconvincing when they suggest a causal link between Girard and Peter Thiel’s right-wing politics. Indeed, all the critical discussions I have seen regarding Thiel’s reverence for Girard share a single pattern; they seek an opportunity for a negative judgment of Girard—believing this will help them cut Peter Thiel down to size and further their efforts to obliterate the reactionary right. Just like Thiel’s followers, these critics have followed Thiel to Girard. Only the one weird trick they hoped to pull off was not getting rich, but getting reassurance—confirmation that an assumed pillar of Thiel’s worldview was as shaky as they assumed it must be.

However, the real concern isn’t about misreadings from afar but about how Girard’s ideas are actively distorted by Thiel and other influential figures within powerful right-wing circles. This manipulation carries real-world consequences. Thiel’s profound engagement with Girard’s work has been instrumental in shaping his worldview, yet he selectively twists Girardian concepts in ways that distort their original meaning. This extends beyond Thiel to figures like his political protégé, J.D. Vance. Examining how both Thiel and Vance misconstrue Girard’s themes shows how their misreadings shape the way power is understood and exercised, affecting not just academic debates but the actual conduct of political life…

Eminently worth reading in full: “From Philosophy to Power:The Misuse of René Girard by Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance and the American Right,” from Salmagundi.

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* Rene Girard… who also said: “Instead of blaming victimization on the victims, the Gospels blame it on the victimizers. What the myths systematically hide, the Bible reveals” and “Why is our own participation in scapegoating so difficult to perceive and the participation of others so easy? To us, our fears and prejudices never appear as such because they determine our vision of people we despise, we fear, and against whom we discriminate.”

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As we practice what we preach, we might contemplate the ultimate consequences of these kinds of “misunderstandings”; one grim example (on the more benign end of the scale): on this day in 2013, Dominique Venner took his own life. A journalist, essayist, and historian, Venner was instrumental in founding founding the neo-fascist and white nationalist Europe-Action, before withdrawing from politics to focus on a career as a historian. Outraged by the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in France, which he believed would result in a white genocide, he killed himself inside the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. In a suicide note, he said his death was an act in “defence of the traditional family” and in the “fight against illegal immigration.” 

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