Original fraternity: from the mimetic violence to the responsibility for the other

Abstract

Simultaneously Based on the biblical story of Genesis, which recounts the violent relationship between Cain and Abel, and on the reading made by Rene Girard on the relationship between religion and violence, it is proposed an hermeneutics of original inter-human relationship as a relationship of responsibility for the other expressed in the fundamental question “Where is your brother?”. This relationship, combined with the relationship of parenting and filiation, takes place especially in fraternity, which shall be understood as originally not fratricide. This will be the relationship potentiating all peaceful and creative social relations, that is, not self-destructor of social life, either by indiscriminate violence or by organized violence.