O możliwym końcu kultury: Apokaliptyka René Girarda (Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie, 2021)
The subject of this book is the possible end of culture as it is described by the French anthropologist of culture and religion, René Girard. The presented research is based on Girard's apocalyptic, which he developed in his last publication, Battling to the End. Conversations with Benoît Chantre. My main purpose is to show that the whole oeuvre of René Girard is apocalyptic in nature. Therefore, the apocalyptic – understood as a way of thinking about culture (Introduction) – is the main theme of the book. Girard's works in Poland are little known. The reception of his research among Polish scholars is far behind the international reputation he has gained. That is why I think it is important to outline Girard's apocalyptic vision on the background of the mimetic theory, the final stage of which is the theory of the apocalypse. Girard's concept of mimetic desire is the foundation of his apocalyptic, for it is mimetic desire that causes all violence in human societies. However, while archaic societies could come to existence (or evolve from animal to human: hominization) because they have learned to control social violence through the scapegoat mechanism, modern societies no longer have such mechanisms and, therefore, in contemporary culture violence takes on an extreme form. The belief that today violence can no longer be checked allowed Girard to put forward a thesis about the possible end of culture and the world as we know it.
Keywords: nauki o kulturze i religii; Russian language; sociolinguistics; language commodification; language policy; politics of language