[Buddha-l] Ethical Dilemmas

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 13-06-10 15:08, Alex Wilding schreef:
> Might I raise my head long enough to ask whether there is a shred of
> anything more substantial than sheer speculation in this? Is it anything
> more than the proverbial "French philosophy"?
> AW
>
>    
Well, the anthropological examples that Girard gives in order to 
substantiate his hypothesis are rather one sided. It is true of course 
that competition is a very common cause for war, but this is not always 
based on jealousy, but also on scarcity of important goods. If you take 
for instance the Trojan war, according to the epos it was caused by 
jealousy, investigations showed that it was probably about economic 
hegemony and the trade on tin.
Girard writes as if his logic is the universal essence of any war in any 
culture and his anthropological knowledge often falls short to check the 
details, so he cannot imagine he could be wrong.

erik