Here are a few of my thoughts and questions (esp. questions) in response to Chapter 2 (I’m probably going to be pretty busy over the next several days, so I’m hurrying to at least write something up):
First, before talking about sameness, difference, and the system/structure underlying community which Girard seems to discuss in the bulk of the middle of the chapter, I’d like to think a bit more about this notion of exchange as it pertains to violence, or as we commonly say, the cycle of violence. On page 13 Girard writes,
The reciprocity of negative rather than positive exchanges becomes foreshortened as it becomes more visible, as witnessed in the reciprocity of insults, blows, revenge, and neurotic symptoms. That is why traditional cultures shun a too immediate reciprocity.
