The ruler sets the rules. He rules over his fellow by the rule, the ruler, measurement of men and their deeds, their work, their time at tension, where and how they ply their attention, the labor to which they are cursed as the conscious animal, the animal that blushes and needs to—at his shame for something he cannot even put his finger on. He calls it Original because it is his origin. He has committed the murder that his father has. He perpetuates a lie for which he knows no Truth that may stand against it, and thus he is cursed by this lie, and cursed to time. And thus the rule of man persists in his construct, his crumbling City. Man’s historical law, the Decalogue; ten rules, while god need only one—Love as willing wane to the waxing sun and son, a graceful retirement for sake of peace.
There are two parts to the having, for Girard anyhow. They are possession, the nine tenths of the law, because the law being the rules of the ruler, are nine tenths in his favor by decree, brawn, and brains—all, inheritance; and desire, the shiny toothed hungry man’s grinning gaze, the daemon, his instinct for having, his greatest grandfather’s self-generated birthright, and the very reason for the late survival of his genes—your genes and Genesis, for the liking to him that your great grand mother, Sophia, eyebrow perked curiously, took toward the man with one tenth the possession but all requisite gusto, the desire, the tenth that makes the prince—she’ll shape the king in what is truly her own time. For all its weighty moniker, Man’s time is twice hers—possession writ large. What else would a mother bare sons hoping for them but this fetching quality—is not a man to a woman a sexual game of “would you fetch me that, dear?” and “Why yes, dear, look at what I have possessed —it is for you.” The root of all mens’ evil, our love of victory, Nike’s purse—our idolatrous goddess-worship. Our hearts are set to it like our grandfathers’ clocks: we men, our single-stunted gears, often angrily grinding away for our Noontide, and woman, her siren song that indeed wails when nearing midnight—or whenever the day wanes dark to her eye; for, what do we men know but our temporal leaps, the few greats of us, parachutes caught on the hour’s down-sweeping radial ride. She says whoa and wax, and, wisdom being woman, our wars are her steeples and coffers, and worship too often turns to wildery. Patriarchy and patricide are both deeply devoted to possession and desire to possess. Law limits the prince of man from too early a coronation. A prince’s desire is a king’s disappointment. For fathers are disappointed by their sons when, sons, finding their father’s self-rule wanting of his own decree —when his word no longer hangs thickly in the air amongst his peers, desire having become him again as in his youth, re-possession must follow — this is when he no longer has an heir about him. His son has departed him, desire and possession trade in the turning of time when one rises up, hand over hand, and sets the time to the tempo of his own young temptress, his wisdom and his war. Is not the king measured by his queen? The ruler measured by wisdom—ruled by her. And you have succeeded in your aims, but cry “patriarchy!” as if it does not exist to serve you, to plant the blue of the bower in your garden. You say he charges and plunders, and he does! But you see not his reason, because Reason—Wisdom, dear Queen, is You. Or it was until you made your mad dash for the throne. Pray we’ve indeed become the gentle men you’ve aimed for, and not altogether too gentle, for ruling is a hard man’s game appearing soft. The subtlest of actors you’ve selected—this high wire balancing bonobo, half-stripped of his instinct, his way, carying on madly between possession and desire, he is either wanton or wanting. This is the man you’ve made—a madman bent round two poles. You’ve put him on the rack, where justice, the ruling measure, may be stretched of him. Nike’s is a Pyrrhic victory.