Origin of Mimetic Desire
The discovery of the phenomenon of “mimetic desire” was made by René Girard around 1959. The French professor, now teaching in America, had been asked to teach classes on European literature. He approached the texts like a good archeologist, looking to uncover some overlooked truth about human nature. In that respect, René Girard is similar to the archeologist Heinrich Schliemann who set out to find the lost city of Troy in 1871 with nothing but a copy of the Iliad under his arm. Schliemann believed that the text contained truths—if one was able to see them. But even more than see them, one had to actually believe that the texts were reliable roadmaps for finding truth in the first place. Schliemann did, and he was rewarded by finding the lost city of Troy two years after he set out to find it. In this regard, the French historian and social theorist René Girard is a lot like Schliemann. Giard’s colleague, Robert Pogue Harrison, has pointed out his similarities to the 19th-century archeologist, Schliemann, at least in terms of their method. “Like him, his major discovery was excoriated for using the wrong methods. The others never would have found Troy by looking at the literature—it was beyond their imagination.” Cynthia Haven, writing in her book “The Evolution of Desire”, a biography of Girard, states the following (taken here from Notre Dame’s ChurchLife Journal): Girard’s writings hold revelations that are even more important, however: they describe the roots of the violence that destroyed Troy and other empires throughout time. Like Schliemann, the French academician trusted literature as the repository of truth, and as an accurate reflection of what actually happened. Harrison told me that Girard’s loyalty was not to a narrow academic discipline, but rather to a continuing human truth: “Academic disciplines are more committed to methodology than truth. René, like Schliemann, had no training in anthropology. From the discipline’s point of view, that is ruthlessly undisciplined. He’s still not forgiven.” Girard took a completely different approach to literary texts at a time when deconstructionism and post-modern was “in.” He believed that the texts actually held meaning—that they could be used to find some universal truth. And he was rewarded for doing so. This was the discovery of mimetic desire on the part of René Giard. The origins of mimetic desire are another story. Where did it first arise? Who did it start with? Has mimetic desire always been a part of the human condition? In Chapter 3 of his Magnum Opus, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Girard implies that mimetic desires emerges from “The Process of Hominization” (the title of the chapter) or, to put it in simpler terms, the transition from animal to man.
Deviated Transcendence
Deviated transcendence is a form of false transcendence that seeks transcendence in the wrong places—it is an immanent transcendence, like looking for God within the confines of one’s own fishbowl. It comes from an inner void that opens up when human desire seeks its fulfillment in places other than its divine and metaphysical origin. Real transcendence is metaphysical in nature. According to Robert Hammerton-Kelly, who wrote a beautiful tribute to René Girard on his 70th birthday, “the void drives us to seek fulfillment from our fellow human beings, whom we mistakenly believe to possess the ontological fullness that we lack. Thus we fall into a war of desirefor empty prestige and hollow pre-eminence. Deviated transcendence is what leads groups caught in a mimetic crisis to turn to the scapegoat mechanism, which is a form of deviated transcendence. It makes everyone caught up in the mechanism feel as if some transcendent power was at work to bring them peace; in reality, it was a function of their own violence and the false transcendence of their group psychology which makes them feel, subjectively, as if they have achieved something without having truly achieved anything at all. Deviated transcendence is the reason that humans undertake strange diets and rituals—religious-like acts, even among the most secular of people—looking to transcend the paradigms of their existing metaphysical situation by any means possible.
Desire Definition
Girard discovered that we come to desire many things not through biological drives or pure reason, nor as a decree of our illusory and Sovereign Self, but through imitation. That idea was unpalatable to me the first time I heard it. Are we all just imitation machines? No. Mimetic desire is only one piece of a comprehensive vision of human ecology, which also includes freedom and a relational understanding of personhood. The imitation of desire has to do with our profound openness to other people and to the world around us, which is one of the things that makes us uniquely human. Desire, as Girard used the word, does not mean the drive for food or sex or shelter or security. Those things are better called needs—they’re hard-wired into our bodies. Biological needs don’t rely on imitation. If I’m dying of thirst in the desert, I don’t need anyone to show me that water is desirable. But after meeting our basic needs as creatures, we enter into the uniquely human domain of desire. And knowing what to want is much harder than knowing what to need. Girard was interested in how we come to want things when there is no clear instinctual basis for it.[i] Out of the billions of potential objects of desire in the world, from mates to careers to lifestyles, how do people come to desire one of them more than others? And why do the objects and intensity of our desire seem to fluctuate constantly, lacking any real stability? In the universe of desire, there is no clear hierarchy. People don’t choose objects of desire the way they choose to drink a glass of water. Instead of internal biological signals, we have a different kind of external signal that motivates these choices: models. Models are people or things that show us what is worth wanting. It is models—not our “objective” analysis, our central nervous system, or any other biological mechanism—that shape our desires. The universe of desire is filled with models that fluctuate constantly, rising and falling in status and importance. And with these models, people engage in the secret and sophisticated form of imitation that Girard termed mimesis (mi-mee-sis), from the Greek word mimesthai (meaning “to imitate”). [i] Girard uses the word “desire” (or désir in French) because desire was a hotly debated category in philosophical circles in mid-twentieth-century France. After World War II, the question of “desire” dominated French literature and intellectual life. When Girard began exploring the topic, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alexandre Kojève, Jacques Derrida, and others were already wrestling with it. So Girard took up their category (désir) and radically transformed it. For Girard, desire is the most salient feature of the human condition and imitation the most fundamental feature of human behavior.
Family Scapegoat Syndrome
The family scapegoat syndrome is a version of the scapegoat mechanism that operates within a family system of desire.
René Girard and Creative Reconciliation – edited by Vern Neufeld Redekop and Thomas Ryba
The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence. By situating discourse about reconciliation within the context of Girardian thought, it becomes clear that—like Peter who vowed he would never deny Jesus but ended up doing it three times—any of us is susceptible to the siren call of angry resentment and retaliation. It is with a profound awareness of the power of violence that the emergence of mimetic discourse around reconciliation takes on particular urgency. Check out René Girard and Creative Reconciliation on Amazon!
René Girard Quotes
“Individualism is a formidable lie.” “More than ever, I am convinced that history has meaning – and that its meaning is terrifying.” “Victimism uses the ideology of concern for victims to gain political or economic or spiritual power.” “The profound self is a universal self.” “Passive, submissive imitation does exist, but hatred of conformity and extreme individualism are no less imitative. Today they constitute a negative conformism that is more formidable than the positive version. More and more, it seems to me, modern individualism assumes the form of a desperate denial of the fact that, through mimetic desire, each of us seeks to impose his will upon his fellow man, whom he professes to love but more often despises.” “To escape responsibility for violence we imagine it is enough to pledge never to be the first to do violence. But no one ever sees himself as casting the first stone. Even the most violent persons believe that they are always reacting to a violence committed in the first instance by someone else.” “I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.” “The peoples of the world do not invent their gods. They deify their victims.” “Violence is the divine force that everyone tries to use for his own purposes and that ends by using everyone for its own—the Dionysus of The Bacchae” “We must renounce the gambit of “good” and “bad” – even in its inverted form. We must acknowledge that misapprehensions abound, that violence is to be found everywhere, and that our partial understanding of violence by no means assures us victory over it.” “The profound self is a universal self.”
Hyperobject
Mimetic desire is the hyperobject hidden since the foundation of the world.
Mimetic System
A mimetic system is a structure sustained by mimetic desire and the mimetic process.
Social Fact
A social fact is an idea originating with the sociologist Émile Durkheim—it’s something that has a genesis in the institutions or culture of a society which affects the behavior or attitudes or any one member of that society. Mimetic systems and the scapegoat mechanism are examples of Social facts. The University of Colorado gives the following examples: institutions, statuses, roles, laws, beliefs, population distribution, urbanization. Mimetic desire is a social fact. It is, in the words of the philosopher Timothy Morgon, a hyperobject. It is something so all-encompassing that we don’t even realize how it affecting us, yet it affects the way that we behave almost every second of every day. The entire mimetic process of mimetic desire leading to rivalry leading to crisis and eventually the scapegoat mechanism is a social fact that can be transcended, according to Luke Burgis in his book Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. Social facts are not hermetically sealed boxes from which humans cannot escape, but psychological and social constraints from which, in a given time and circumstances, they feel constrained or react mimetically and within the bounds of the system.
Scapegoating in American Beauty – by Eric Buys
In the article Scapegoating in American Beauty Eric Buys reflects on the role mimetic desire plays in the life of Frank Fitts. Fitts, a closeted colonel in the United States Marine Corps desires acceptance and recognition which he feels is not possible if he is openly gay. Yearning to express who he truly is, he struggles with resentment and anger towards those who are chasing the life his heart and mind are hopeful for. “Frank Fitts is willing to do anything to protect his socially mediated (self-)image. His scapegoating of openly gay people helps him to be somewhat at peace with his own life, although he is a bitter man.” Frank Fitts is going through an identity crisis to say the least. Buys identifies sacrifice, scapegoating, and the power it has on the actions of a mimetically driven human being going through a midlife crisis. “Frank Fitts constantly justifies his acts of terror by making his victims responsible for the violence they have to endure. He constantly applies some sort of scapegoat mechanism, his victims “should be ashamed!” They should feel guilty about something they actually shouldn’t feel guilty about…“ “In other words, the sacrifice of Lester – in no ways responsible for what happened to Frank, hence a scapegoat – seems necessary for Frank to fulfill his desire for recognition. In still other words, eros – a mimetically ignited love for some image or social status – leads to thanatos (death) to put an end to some identity crisis.” Visit the Mimetic Margins blog to check out more content!