Mimezis i ideologija: od Platona do Altisera i dalje

The moment one imitates something, it sticks, it marks the imitator, there is no innocent imitation. Imitation necessarily affects the one who imitates, for better or (usually) for worse, and the making of a simple copy of something necessarily af fects the original. This is perhaps the briefest way to descri be Plato’s concerns about the nature of mimesis in the Republic. The purpose of this paper is to give a briefac count of looking at the mysterious magic powers of mimesis and of at temptsto counteract them. The topicis massive, so the paper will concentrate on a few perspectives, starting with the theatrical parable of St. Genesius, leading to Pascal and to Althusser’s theory of ideology,then scrutinizing the ways in which modernity tried to disentangle it self from mimesis (Brecht’s estrangement, Irigaray’s femininity as mimesis, Badiou’s anti-mimeticstance, Freud’s account of magic and Lacan’s account of enjoyment). What is the real of the mimetic spell which has so vastly ramified aesthetic and political consequences? The paper proposes a defense of mimesis, claiming that modernity, by relegating the traditional art to the past of mimesis and representation, thereby maintained a disavowed kernel of mimesis at its core.