La violenza di massa in Elias Canetti e René Girard

The essay proposes a comparison between the representations and interpretations of mass violence in Elias Canetti and in René Girard. Girard in part depends on Canetti, and some pages of the two authors are surprisingly similar. In the substance, however, this similarity is misleading. According to Canetti, the collective violence characteristic of the “sicked mass” achieves a momentary liberating non – discrimination between the individuals, but the disintegration of mass in front of the terror aroused in it by its own deadly work in a very short time vanifies its purposes. In Girard’s opinion, collective violence takes essentially the form of sacrifice, and, just on the contrary that in Canetti’s one, overcomes non – discrimination and effectively restores the peaceful order of differences, at the price of death of an always innocent victim. According to Canetti, the role of sacrifice is absolutely marginal, and consists of the offer or the dereliction, wanted or casual, of a member or a part of the social group to a menacing external violence, of which the group is not responsible. The collective violence internal to the group, in the form of the “sicked mass”, has rather a penal function and is perceived as an act of justice against an alleged guilty who could be a real guilty. The innocence of the victim is not taken for granted and, unlike that in Girard’s opinion, it is not an essential part of the mechanism. According to both the authors, collective violence plays a very important role in the process of human evolution, because it determines the border between animal and human sociability. Within the violence and tanks to the violence the first structures of properly human order are established. According to Girard, however, the sacrifice is once more the origin and the model of every next cultural creation: therefore, violence pertains to the very nature of human being and may be exceeded only by a metaphysical or religious way. In Canetti’s opinion, violence is consequential to human fragility, originates from the continuous unbearable exposure of man to death, but, like the death self, it is not inescapable and makes room for effective chances of a symbolic overcoming. Two partially overlapping anthropological perspectives which are, in substance, really opposing and scientifically important to be distinguished.