What role does ritual play in mimetic desire, sacrifice and the formation of culture?
Ritual sacrifice is the unconscious repetition and remembrance of the original murder that brought order from chaos. That is, once scapegoating resolved problems associated with mimetic rivalry, it was only a temporary peace. The sacrifice needed to be repeated – and thus became ritualized – to squelch the conflict and violence that inevitably re – emerged as the problems underlying mimetic rivalries were never addressed head on.
