Among the key words in the time of pandemic there is the term ‚social distance‘, which is at the present time understood from the sanitary-social point of view, but has its true origin in anthropology. The word ‚distance‘ is addressed also by the mimetic theory of René Girard, one of the most important contemporary anthropological theories which attributes the origin, development, and direction of human culture to mimetic desire and its mimetic principle. Mimetic desire leads to imitation and competition which are the foundation of progress. Its side effect, however, is violence aiming at apocalyptic violence. In archaic societies, the role of the scapegoat mechanism was to divert mimetic violence; nevertheless, the mechanism lost its power and role in Christianity. Modern society with its Christian roots is therefore directly confronted with the threat of apocalyptic violence. The effect of mimetic desire and imi-tation is a loss of differences and distances; the participants become more and more similar and this results in the rise of violence. To the contrary, Christ renounces mimetic desire. He thus enables the formation of distances and differences which make (apocalyptic) violence powerless. Hölderlin accepted Christ as a model. In the distance that Christ has taken toward the world, he sees a model of relationships which divert violence and open the door to the biblical
idea of the Kingdom.
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