Discourses of Violence (Girard) - as an aside

[colkitto]

In this discussion the very name, Ljutov may be significant, and there may 
be an interesting  ancient etymological connection with strength or violence 
which Babel would have been unaware of.

The name, based on ljut? 'fierce' may be related to l?v? etc. 'lion', 
traceable back to a root *leu-, reconstructible for IE, cf. Latin leo, Greek 
leon, German Leu etc.
It should be recalled, though it is often forgotten, that the range of the 
lion was formerly much greater than it is now (e.g., lions survived 
comparatively late in Europe, only becoming extinct in Greece ca. 100 BC), 
and therefore the lion might have been known natively to a wider range of 
European peoples than is the case today, and thus possibly traceable to IE, 
see Ivanov and Gamkrelidze (Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, Nichols 
J., tr.,Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 1995: 427-431)

>>> Bob, I was referring to Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred, which
>>> argues that violence is an essential manifestation of the sacred, a
>>> way traditional societies achieve transcendence, and that this
>>> violence is often expressed through sacrifice. The sacrifice of
>>> victims/scapegoats purifies the community and, just as importantly,
>>> unifies it.  Think of Pavlichenko's apprehension of life, "really
>>> getting to know it," through trampling his master, or Lyutov's sacrifice 
>>> of the goose, the cossacks sitting like heathen idols,
>>> their invitation to Lyutov at the end and so on. But please look at
>>> the Girard book rather than going by my superficial summary.
>>
>> I certainly don't pretend to be an expert on Girard's book or his theses 
>> (I haven't read them), but the views described above seem thoroughly 
>> misguided. In some Western societies, violence against outsiders has been 
>> used as a unifying force, but it has always led to the destruction of the 
>> warmonger and much of his society; similarly, dictators who repress their 
>> own people through violence achieve no purification except to the extent 
>> that they provoke the development of a unified opposition to their 
>> crimes.
>>
>> Voluntary sacrifices for a cause can be a wonderful gift, but compulsory 
>> sacrifices are criminal acts of theft or murder. Anyone with even a 
>> cursory knowledge of Russian history should understand that. And anyone 
>> familiar with the recent history of the Roman Catholic Church will know 
>> that there is nothing sacred in the violence perpetrated against these 
>> innocent children.
>>
>> -- 
>> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>> --
>> Paul B. Gallagher
>> pbg translations, inc.
>> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
>> http://pbg-translations.com
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------