92 definitions
Cannibalism (n.) among the Tupinamba was sacrifice: war prisoners joined the community, married, had children, were pushed to transgress, honoured and insulted, then killed and eaten.
Cultural Platonism (n.) is the unexamined belief that human institutions are what they have always been, with no need to evolve and none to be engendered.
Discovery (n.) favours the prepared mind; facts alone rarely dislodge a settled prejudice — as Marcel's aunt goes on seeing in Swann only a stockbroker's son.
Exegesis (n.) that hunts only for differences between the Gospels will never see the single thought the four of them share.
Fear (n.) of mimetic rivalry and endless violence is what first made the hominid defer its needs and look past the nearest objects to distant ones.
A Foundation sacrifice (n.) buries a victim under a temple, fortress or palace to make it last — proof that such buildings are only transfigured tombs.
Hominization (n.) is made of factors each of which could have destroyed the species — stones, hunting, war, helpless infants — and some "mysterious alchemy" turned each into a resource.
An Institution (n.) such as law or politics is a ritual that has hidden itself, as ritual is a murder that has hidden itself.
Mimesis (n.) is the condition of intelligence: without it there could be neither human thought nor the passing on of culture.
Mimesis (n.) is never innocent: one cannot ritually act out the crisis of doubles without risking the real violence.
Mockery (n.) begins as plain imitation: children are irresistibly drawn to copy a classmate's stutter or limp, and only the model's reaction turns it into ridicule, then persecution.