JD Vance | The true heir of the Catholic philosopher René Girard?

Vice President-elect JD Vance invokes the legacy of a Catholic philosopher in his fight against liberal elites. But specialists of the thinker René Girard accuse the politician of having misunderstood him. A story of compassion.

“I don’t know what Vance understood about Girard,” explains Paul Dumouchel, a Quebec specialist in the thought of the French philosopher who died in 2015. “It’s difficult to identify with Girard, who thinks that fundamentally violence is linked to exclusion, and at the same time accusing Haitians of eating dogs. Either we didn’t understand Girard, or we’re lying. »

A French Jesuit magazine, Espritlaunched hostilities in September. “Girard sees a world populated by rivalries, with democracies that are fragile,” said Bernard Perret, the economist who wrote the essay denouncing Mr. Vance in Esprit.

“These rivalries can be used by politicians or social actors who fuel crowd violence by designating a scapegoat. Vance believes that the left-liberal elite looks down upon and scapegoats less well-educated people because they are religious and conservative. But Trumpism itself designates scapegoats, immigrants, the Haitians of Springfield. »

Mr. Perret, who published the book in 2023 Violence of the gods, violence of man on the subject of René Girard, dissected an essay on Girard published by JD Vance in 2020 in the American Catholic Review The Lampwhere the future vice president explains his conversion to Catholicism. Of note, Mr. Vance denounced Mr. Trump during his first term and became closer to him when he campaigned for a Senate seat in 2022.

Born in 1923, René Girard spent his entire university career in the United States. “He sees the world in an apocalyptic way,” says Mr. Perret. Only faith can avoid crowd violence. His thinking is particularly important for understanding today’s violence, fueled by fake news and the contagion of social media. »

Compassion

For Girard, only one thing can save humanity from the apocalypse: compassion, a Christian virtue that is also found in other religions, explains Martha Reineke, a philosopher at the University of Northern Iowa. M^me Until last year, Reineke chaired the Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R), an association devoted to the thought of René Girard.

“Compassion is suffering with the scapegoat, as Christ suffered to save us,” says M.^me Reineke. For example, when Jesus said: “Let him who has never sinned cast the first stone,” facing the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned, he is not asking us to suspend our judgment. He asks us to choose: either we join the group that wants to stone, or we join the adulterous woman, and we suffer with her. »

Compassion according to JD Vance is coupled with accountability.

This passage from Mr. Vance ignores the great poverty, according to Mr.^me Reineke. “When you are hungry, when you do not have a roof over your head, it is difficult to take responsibility and escape your victim status. »

It is true that René Girard criticized excessive victimization, says M^me Reineke. “The victim must not become all-powerful and oppress his former oppressors. »

A billionaire also a fan of Girard

Mr. Perret’s essay also attacks Peter Thiel, a Californian tech billionaire who financed Mr. Vance’s campaign for the Senate in 2022, as well as Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 (he did not supported no candidate in 2024). Mr. Thiel is the principal philanthropist of René Girard’s study associations.

“There is a certain discomfort with the idea that Girardian studies are mainly financed by Thiel,” says Mr. Perret, who analyzed in his text in Esprit an essay by Mr. Thiel published in 2009 on the anonymous site Gwern, The Straussian Momentwhere he cites Girard among others.

M^me Reineke admits this “discomfort” with Mr. Thiel’s largesse. “But it’s crucial that Girard’s ideas become better known among the population, so I think Thiel’s funding, ultimately, is a good thing. »

Emperor Constantine

To complicate matters, Peter Thiel regularly gives philosophical-religious speeches where he addresses the themes of the apocalypse and the antichrist. In 2023 at the annual COV&R conference in Paris, he declared his wish for a return to a “Constantinian Christianity”. Constantine was the Roman emperor who, in 313, ended the persecution against Christianity, which subsequently became the state religion.

“I would never have believed that in the 21st century^e century, there would be demands in the West for an end to the separation between state and religion,” said Wolfgang Palaver, a theologian at the University of Innsbruck who published an essay condemning Mr. Thiel’s Constantinian Christianity.

Encouraging religion and compassion is a good thing, according to Palaver. “But the State must not itself impose a religion. »