In our Thursday gatherings this season, we are discussing origin stories in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. We recently took a look at the first murder, the story of Cain killing his brother Abel. We had to skip over or just barely mention some of the themes because of our time limitations. Good thing we’ve got nothing but time here on the blog.
The fact that Cain and Abel were siblings deserves a bit more attention. The Hebrew Bible, and the book of Genesis in particular, is sort of obsessed with pairs of brothers: Cain and Abel; Isaac and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and [a bunch of brothers].
There are probably a lot of reasons for this, and I don’t know what they are. What I do know is that sibling stories make a ton of sense for exploring interpersonal dynamics. Most people today have (or at one time had) siblings, and from what I can find, in most cultures at most time on the earth, this has been true for 80 to 95% of people.
But the most salient point about siblinghood is not that it’s common—it’s that it’s so deeply formative. For those with siblings, these relationships are usually the first place we learn friendship, sharing, negotiation, resentment, and a host of other emotions and activities we will continue to navigate for our whole lives. Including conflict.
In our Thursday discussion we briefly mentioned René Girard, a French philosopher who developed a fascinating idea called “mimetic theory” to describe the role of violence in society. The full scope of mimetic theory is beyond even the endless vault of time we have here on the blog (and, more to the point, beyond my abilities). But the gist of it is this:
We covet what others want and what they have because, in fact, we want to be who others are. So we mimic and imitate. The word Girard uses to describe these borrowed desires is mimetic.
These mutual covetings escalate from mimicry to intense rivalry.
As rivalries abound and intensify, they create anxious and violent energy in the system of the society. Anger becomes rage.
People in the society sense the crisis, so a majority unconsciously settles on a person or minoritized group of people to blame. These unfortunate ones become scapegoats, and the people, who have convinced themselves that the scapegoats are really the source of the crisis, will satisfy their rage by enacting violence upon them. This isn’t explained as random crime or arbitrary mayhem, but sanctioned violence because the society is agreeing upon it.
This sanctioned (often ritualized) violence acts as a release valve of sorts, alleviating the buildup of violent energies in the system. This allows people to return to their baseline mimetic desires, starting the cycle over again.
There’s a lot more to this theory, as I said. (For instance, Girard thought that in ancient societies, this cycle was critical in the developments of religion. After the scapegoat was killed, he posited, the gratitude for the newfound peace would be so great that the people would begin to deify the scapegoat. The one they killed!) But for now I think that’s more than enough to land the plane on why sibling relationships are so rich for reflection: they are where we learn envy. And rivalry. And violence.
A pair of siblings is like its own Girardian system, a mimetic theory lived out in two bodies.
Cain was jealous of Abel. He coveted his divine approval. He developed a (sibling) rivalry. He convinced himself that Abel was the reason he didn’t have what he wanted. He became angry, his anger escalated to rage, and his rivalry became violent. He killed the scapegoat.
The sibling context also provides an extra layer of tragedy. Cain and Abel should have had each other’s backs. They should have supported each other. They belonged to each other.
And this is why God’s questions to Cain are so haunting—especially “Where is your brother?” On the literal level, it is of course calling Cain to account for the fact that his brother is in the ground (where his blood cries out to God). But on another level it is reminding Cain of the familial context. Where is your brother?
And so we might ask ourselves, Where is my sibling?
And the more expansively we can answer (all my loved ones are my siblings; all people living in my area; all people who share my religion; all human beings; all living things; etc.), the more tragic all violence becomes. The more important it becomes to embrace nonviolence and to pursue peace.
