Gil Bailie

Twenty years ago, Gil Bailie's book "Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads", revolutionised my thinking about violence, society and religion. I've subsequently met with Gil a half dozen times and each encounter has contained a new challenge to taken-for-granted, or never examined, assumptions.

This new book is an outstanding work. I've taken six months to read it slowly. I will take years to read it more. Gil's way of writing has an attractive and erudite literary bent. It's a joy just to read his sentences. In this book, inter alia, Gil explores the meaning of Easter Saturday, the possibility of universal Salvation, and the place of the Eucharist in our life "abiding" in Christ. Woven throughout are connections with the work of René Girard, and Gil's personal commitment to Roman Catholicism.… (altro)

The author's premise is that violence starts with belief in mythology and comes to fruition with uncontrolled desire. Any glorification of violence, either in historical war or fictional entertainment can incite violence because of its mimetic nature.

Bailie looks at society's tendency to initiate and imitate behavior, including violence. Events like the Rodney King beating happened because the perpetrators escalated and spectators did nothing to stop the brutality, which caused many wonder how the crowd could have descended to such a neanderthal state. He also analyzes the escalation in the British novel Lord of the Flies. In both historical and fictional stories, he see the pattern of belief in some type of myth followed by escalation through imitation.

This writer disagrees with the author's contention that the central message of Jesus' crucifixion was more than substitutionary atonenement. Bailie believes that because the story shows mob violence through the eyes of the victim that the anti-violence message is stronger. He also argues that the first death in the Bible, Cain killing Abel, is a theological indication that condemnation of violence must be the central message of Scripture. While many would agree that it is wrong to murder one's brother, it is inaccurate to redirect the central message of the Scripture toward pacificism.

Overall, though, this book is a worthwhile exploration. Looking at violence from an anthropological perspective does yield fresh thinking about violence in television and movies.… (altro)