What have I learned from Alberg’s slim volume?

Both Nietzsche and Rousseau constructed symbolic orders that turned hearts to stone.

Dante pointed to the symbolic order of the Christ.

Jesus, along with the prophets, constructed the first symbolic order from the perspective of the victim.

Flannery O’Connor wrote from the point of view of the victim; that is, the corpse.  In doing so, she portrayed the Nothing at the heart of symbolic orders manufactured after the Fall.

Each symbolic order relies on mimesis^constrained_.

Mimesis^{unconstrained} re-enacts mimesis^constrained in scandalous and problematic ways.

If “scandal” fascinates on the surface and blocks the path to deeper understanding, then “scandal” it is.  If “forgiveness” removes the block of “scandal”, then “forgiveness” it must be.

Discovery is located where scandals lurk.