Free The Girard Reader by René Girard Page B

Trans .
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    Jealousy and envy imply a third presence: object, subject, and a third person toward whom
    the jealousy or envy is directed. These two "vices" are therefore triangular; however, we
    never recognize a model in the person who arouses jealousy because we always take a jealous
    person's attitude toward the problem of jealousy. Like all victims of internal mediation, the
    jealous person easily convinces himself that his desire is spontaneous, in other words, that it
    is deeply rooted in the object and in this object alone. As a result he always maintains that his desire preceded the intervention of the mediator. He would have us see him as an intruder, a
    bore, a terzo incomodo who interrupts a delightful têteà-tête. jealousy is thus reduced to the irritation we all experience when one of our desires is accidentally thwarted. But true
    jealousy is infinitely more profound and complex; it always contains an element of
    fascination with the insolent rival. Furthermore, it is always the same people who suffer from
    jealousy. Is it possible that they are all the victims of repeated accidents? Is it fate that creates for them so many rivals and throws so many obstacle in the way of their desires? We do not
    believe it ourselves, since we say that these chronic victims of jealousy or of envy have a
    "jealous temperament" or an "envious nature." What exactly then does such a "temperament"
    or "nature" imply if not an irresistible impulse to desire what Others desire, in other words to imitate the desires of others?
    Max Scheler numbers "envy, jealousy, and rivalry" among the sources of ressentiment . He defines envy as "a feeling of impotence which vitiates our attempt to acquire something
    because it belongs to another." He observes, on the other hand, that there would be no envy,
    in the strong sense of the word, if the envious person's imagination did not transform into
    concerted opposition the passive obstacle which the possessor puts in his way by the mere
    fact of possession. "Mere regret at not possessing something which belongs to another and
    which we covet is not enough in itself to give rise to envy, since it might also be an incentive
    for acquiring the desired object or something similar. . . . Envy occurs only when our efforts to acquire it fail and we are left with a feeling of impotence."
    The analysis is accurate and complete; it omits neither the envious person's self-deception
    with regard to the cause of his failure, nor the paralysis that accompanies envy. But these
    elements remain isolated; Scheler has not really perceived their relationship. On the other
    hand everything becomes clear, everything fits into a coherent structure if, in order to explain
    envy, we abandon the object of rivalry as a starting point and choose instead the rival himself,
    i.e., the mediator, as both a point of departure for our analysis and its conclusion. Possession
    is a merely passive obstacle; it is frustrating and seems a deliberate expression of contempt
    only because the rival is secretly revered. The demigod
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    seems to answer homage with a curse. He seems to render evil for good. The subject would
    like to think of himself as the victim of an atrocious injustice but in his anguish he wonders
    whether perhaps he does not deserve his apparent condemnation. Rivalry therefore only
    aggravates mediation; it increases the mediator's prestige and strengthens the bond which
    links the object to this mediator by forcing him to affirm openly his right or desire of
    possession. Thus the subject is less capable than ever of giving up the inaccessible object: it
    is on this object and it alone that the mediator confers his prestige, by possessing or wanting
    to possess it. Other objects have no worth at all in the eyes of the envious person, even
    though they may be similar to or indeed identical with the "mediated" object.
    Everything becomes clear when one sees that the loathed rival is actually a mediator.