René Girard on the Puritanism of Meaning

I’ve been rereading some of Girard’s challenging and thoughtful writing in the wake of his passing, and found this to be especially poignant:

“We are getting away from one form of Puritanism, only to fall into another. It is now a matter not of depriving mankind of sexuality, but of something we need even more—meaning. Man cannot live on bread and sexuality. Present-day thought is the worst form of castration, since it is the castration of the signified. People are always on the look-out to catch their neighbours red-handed in believing something or other. We struggled against the Puritanism of our parents only to fall into a form of Puritanism far worse than theirs—a Puritanism of meaning that kills all that it touches. This Puritanism desiccates every text and spreads the most deadening boredom even in the newest situations.”

—René Girard, ‘Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World’