The Cornerstone Forum
Keeping Faith & Breaking Ground
"The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." Luke 20:17
Continuing with the story of Alexander the Great – the world’s first famous man - Gil Bailie in this 8th part of the Famished Craving series examines the role of Alexander’s ‘hero’ – Achilles – as the Macedonian’s mimetic model. Leo Braudy in his book the Frenzy of Renown says of Alexander, “…nothing was ever enough for him.” And like Achilles Alexander could not abide any external authority. Mr. Bailie uses Shakespeare’s poetic lens on this particular characteristic from the play Troilus and Cressida where Ulysses gives voice to the Bard’s insights into the nuances of mimetic rivalry. The discussion ranges from Tocqueville’s take on hierarchy into René Girard’s understanding of the double-bind inherent in modern ideologies of unbounded desire. Picking up the story of Alexander’s decisive solution to the problem of the Gordian Knot and it’s analog – the guillotine - in the French Revolution, Gil Bailie concludes by revisiting the theme from the first CD in this series – the sources of divine kingship in victimage and sacrifice.