Girard and Nietzsche's phenomenology of victims

Abstract

In this paper I argue that Nietzsche and Girard provide, for the first time, a phenomenology and genealogical account of the victim as both an ontological and moral category. First, I lay out Girard’s mimetic theory and show how it culminates in a phenomenology of victims and victimization. I then turn to Nietzsche, in particular Girard’s consideration of Nietzsche as the most important theologian of recent past, to show that Girard’s phenomenology – of victims, violence, and scapegoating – already exists within Nietzsche’s philosophical framework, albeit with a significantly different interpretation. It is my hope to problematize the seemingly self-evident and axiomatic character of the category of the “victim” by highlighting its specific genealogy within the Judeo-Christian tradition in order to further a much broader discussion on the hermeneutics of violence in general.