Family Scapegoat Syndrome
The family scapegoat syndrome is a version of the scapegoat mechanism that operates within a family system of desire.
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!
Mimetic Theory in High School- by Eric Buys
Eric Buys has written an excellent piece imagining mimetic theory being taught as a high school course. Human beings are essentially crisis managers. According to Buys, in the face of any major crisis, humans ask three types of questions: Scientific Questions How do crisis situations in human life arise out of mimetic interactions? How are these mimetic interactions influenced by conditions of the natural environment? Or, on the other hand, how do mimetic interactions construct patterns of human behavior that influence the natural environment in negative or positive ways? How do we normally deal with crisis situations arising out of mimetic interactions? 2. A First Set of Philosophical Questions (Meaning) What goals are desirable for human life, considering the mimetic nature of human beings? What are we trying to accomplish by studying mimetic interactions 3. A Second Set of Philosophical Questions (Ethics) How should we behave if we want to accomplish our goals? Should we deal with crisis situations, arising out of mimetic interactions, like we normally do – like our ancestors did, for instance? Should we accept certain morals (of which the origins can be scientifically explained)? Or should we try to change our behavior? The goal of the course would be to make students more aware of mimetic mechanisms, hold up a mirror to their lives so they can better see their desires for what they are. It allows students to analyze actual, real-world events (like commercials/advertisements) and their own lives, and see the way that mimetic forces are actually at work. They will come away with a much better understanding of their own mimetic impulses and know how to manage them. All of this material is based on a fundamental understanding of René Girard’s mimetic theory. High schools are more than capable of grasping this theory, and there is perhaps no more important time for them to learn how to do so.
Mimetic Martinis: Contagious Desire Explained, by James Bond
The drama of everyday life is that people are constantly seeking other people to imitate while simultaneously unaware that they imitate. I plan to order a beer from the bar, but my friend orders a gin martini first. Suddenly, I “realize” that I want a martini, too. (If I’m honest with myself, I didn’t want a martini when I entered the bar. I had my heart set on a cold beer. Why the sudden change? My friend didn’t remind me of some subconscious inner desire that I have for a martini; he gave me the desire. I want one because my friend wanted one first. This is mimetic desire.) But what if, while we’re bellied up to the bar drinking our gin martinis, my friend tells me about a new position at his company that he wants: Managing Director of something. If he gets it, he’ll receive a $20,000 boost in salary and have a new title. It comes with more vacation time, too. As I smile and tell him that I hope he gets it, I feel some anxiety. Shouldn’t I be making an extra $20,000, too? Will my friend and I still be able to plan vacations together if he gets twice as much paid time off as I do? And lastly, what the hell? We graduated from the same school and I worked twice as hard as he did in school and after. Am I falling behind? Did I choose the right path in life? Even though I used to tell myself I could never be in his line of work, now I’m second-guessing myself. He seems more eager than I to go to work every day. My friend has become a model of desire to me. We will never speak of it. But an inner force has been activated in me which, if left unchecked, will cause conflict. I start to make decisions based on what my friend wants. If he’s competing fiercely for status, then it’s impossible for me not to have status anxiety. If he reaches Delta Skymiles Platinum status, then I want to reach it too. Sometimes, I imitate him negatively. If he buys a Tesla, then I could never own a Tesla. I have to differentiate myself from him. I don’t want any more reminders that I’m always one step behind. So I buy a classic Ford Camaro and start to hate-watch Tesla drivers on the road—not acknowledging that my behavior revolves around a model of desire. In the passage from childhood to adulthood, open imitation usually turns into hidden mimesis. Gone are the days of childhood when we openly imitated and expressed our true desires. In adulthood, there is an underground imitation game going on around us—and within us—all the time.
Mimetic AI—Mimesis and Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence and two of its sub-domains, machine learning and deep learning, often develop with the aid of mimetic algorithms. Financial engineers use mimetic algorithms to drive momentum trading in stocks and other financial assets; sex robots are programmed to mimic the facial expressions and flirtatious voices of their suitors; and even moral theorists and behavioral economists have been using mimesis to try to determine what a self-driving car should do, for instance, if it has to make a decision between avoiding one person and hitting another one, or in cases of traditional moral casuistry. In many of these algorithms, researchers simply gather data about what the majority of people in different cultures around the world say they would do, and use that to program a form of mimetic morality into the machines. In the moral domain, mimesis is often used over and against “anchored values”, which are intrinsic or anchored to something that is not subject to mimetic delta. Tae Wan Kim, Thomas Donaldson, Mimetic vs Anchored Value Alignment in Artificial Intelligence, arguing for the superiority of anchored values rather than mimetic values in mimetic values when it comes to things like self-driving cars. The abstract of that paper reads: ”Value alignment” (VA) is considered as one of the toppriorities in AI research. Much of the existing research focuseson the “A” part and not the “V” part of “value alignment.”This paper corrects that neglect by emphasizing the “value”side of VA and analyzes VA from the vantage point ofrequirements in value theory, in particular, of avoiding the“naturalistic fallacy”–a major epistemic caveat. The paperbegins by isolating two distinct forms of VA: “mimetic” and“anchored.” Then it discusses which VA approach better avoidsthe naturalistic fallacy. The discussion reveals stumblingblocks for VA approaches that neglect implications of thenaturalistic fallacy. Such problems are more serious in mimeticVA since the mimetic process imitates human behavior thatmay or may not rise to the level of correct ethical behavior.Anchored VA, including hybrid VA, in contrast, holds morepromise for future VA since it anchors alignment by normativeconcepts of intrinsic value. And the conclusion of their study: The preceding discussion reveals stumbling blocks for VAapproaches that neglect implications of the naturalistic fallacy.Such problems are more serious in mimetic VA since themimetic process imitates human behavior that may or maynot rise to the level of correct ethical behavior. AnchoredVA, including hybrid VA, in contrast, holds more promise forfuture VA since it anchors alignment by normative conceptsof intrinsic value.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Psychologist Abraham Maslow first published his famous “Hierarchy of Needs” in 1943. He illustrated the way that he believed human motivation moves—from the fulfillment of basic physiological needs to the fulfillment of the self. Maslow’s hierarchy gives the appearance that “physiological” needs and “safety” needs make up the foundational and largest set of needs for a person. But this is a great deception. In reality, physiological and safety needs—the things we really need to survive—make up the smallest set of needs that people in modern societies spend their time pursuing. There are only so many calories to eat in a day, only so many sexual experiences, only so many different degrees of temperature that are comfortable, only so many styles of roof that can go over a person’s head. When it comes to true needs, we don’t need much. Our first brain is all we need to handle them. All of the “needs” above the first two levels—belonging and love, self esteem, and the fulfillment of creative activities, or self-fulfillment—belong to the world of desire. There are a finite number of things a person needs. But there are an infinite number of things to desire. Transforming Needs Into Desires One of the greatest tricks that the corporate world ever played is transforming needs into desires. Some people might ask: don’t we also have a ton of choices when it comes to physiological needs and safety? Take food. There are over 200 brands of cold breakfast cereal in the typical grocery store aisle, 50 different kinds of hot sauce at the Bloody Mary bar, and 100 different kinds of sneakers that I can choose from at the shoe store. At this moment, you probably have the option to choose from hundreds of restaurants spanning every major type of cuisine in the world on your phone. All can be delivered to your doorstep within 45 minutes. The transposition of basic needs into the world of desires has been going on since the early days of Eddie Bernays’ public relations coup after the first World War. Products used to be advertised based on their “usefulness” or the true need that they served around the house. Throughout the course of the 20’s, there was an explosion of consumer brands that began appealing directly to desire, linking products to identity. Paul Meazar, a banker at Lehman Brothers in the 1920’s, told a group of businesses that “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.” The U.S. Department of Commerce secretary (later, President Herbert Hoover) told American corporations in 1928, that: “You have taken over the job of creating desire and transforming people into constantly moving happiness machines; machines which have become the key to economic progress.” If people could be convinced to operate according to the third brain alone, they could be turned into “constantly moving” happiness machines, moving from one desire to the next as different models of desires came into and out of their lives. Mimetic desire would reign. Because we live in a world where there is less and less need, there is more and more desire. For the first time in human history, we’re not struggling with scarcity but coping with abundance—and that means coping with mimetic desire. When a person has satisfied all of his basic needs and begins moving up the hierarchy of “needs,” he doesn’t typically narrow in on a limited set of needs that contribute to his fulfillment of self. Instead, he’s sucked into a universe of competing desires that is more likely to make him act schizophrenic than self-actualized. My friend who bought BitCoin in 2012 and sold at the top of the bubble didn’t narrow in on fulfilling a personal mission once he cashed out. He bought a kimono, moved into a yurt, adopted a new religion, and became a vegan who held legume-cooking contests with his rich new friends. And when all the best legume recipes had been tested, he moved on to wanting something else. A basic look at human experience shows something that looks like almost the opposite of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Lottery winners are more likely to declare bankruptcy within three to five years than the average American. Jack Whittaker, who won $315 million in the West Virginia lottery in 2002, lost his daughter and granddaughter to drug overdoses after winning. His life began to unravel. “I just don’t like Jack Whittaker,” he told Time. “I don’t like the hard heart I’ve got. I don’t like what I’ve become.” But why? Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that these people should be moving up the pyramid, one step closer to becoming who they want to be. That isn’t what happens. In order to get a better picture of human needs and desires, we have to invert the pyramid. After a person has satisfied all of his basic needs, he looks up at a universe of possible things to want. And this universe of desire—the universe of the third brain—is infinite. There is never a point where we have satisfied all of our desires. There is always another model to imitate. Desires, unlike biological needs, don’t have a built-in homing mechanism. Instead of looking to physiological signals (the first brain) or logic (the second brain) to make choices, people look to other people.
Abortion as Ritual Sacrifice: A Girardian Take on the Scapegoat Mechanism in Sexual Politics
The following are excerpts from the essay Bernadette Waterman Ward called ABORTION AS A SACRAMENT: MIMETIC DESIRE AND SACRIFICE IN SEXUAL POLITICS The key elements of sacrificial religion, as Girard defines it, are the presence ofintolerable tension that must lead to social disruption; the choice of a victimwho cannot strike back to absorb the community’s violence; and theconcealment of the function of the sacrifice, which employs actual violencefor the purpose of stabilizing institutional violence. Abortion in America isupheld not as medical or even political policy, but as, in fact, a religioussacrifice. Abortion in America precisely fits the structure of religious sacrifice,where the best victims are the most defenseless. Like a classic sacrificialvictim, the fetus is both blamed for the disorder surrounding its conceptionand acknowledged as innocent, sometimes at the same time. Here anabortion worker displays sacrificial ambivalence, as if not “we” but otherforces made abortion happen: I see more of murder the further along they get….I believe that,yes, it is a potential life or being, person, but at the same time itis not independent ofthe mother and it’s not able to live by itself.Until we can reach that point.. .it’s really the mother that has thedecision over the life.(Reardon 254) But on the other side of the battle line in the culture wars, abortion is noless a religious issue. Abortion directs violence toward an entity which hashuman ancestry, but is denied the right to vengeance, which defines a personin the community. The real nature of the violence and the victim areconcealed, in defiance of rationality, for the violence works in a powerfullyconservative way to preserve the current social structure while satisfyingmimetic cravings. The structural violence of a society which values theachievements of male bodies and denigrates those of female bodies remainsin place, but women are allowed the chance to escape the violence byshedding their own blood and that of their offspring. The women remaineternal disciples, despising their own bodies as the source of their socialconstriction and seeking always to deflect the death of being that seems tobe their lot. The fears assuaged by abortion are atavistic and at the root ofhuman culture; the language of rights and social contracts does not touchthem. Cooperation in abortion is cooperation in a sacrificial system, with allthe deceit, oppression and futility that that entails. Does such a recognition free us from mimetic desire? No; our desiresand envies remain. But to recognize the devices that conceal our owndependency from us is to do much towards enabling us to choose ourmasters wisely. Indeed, we may be able to emulate one another in thefreedom that is willing to endure suffering to proclaim truth and justice. Toprovide an escape from the endless cycle of sacrificial violence—ofsacrificial abortion in particular—we must recognize the ways in whichreproduction is a burden for women and address the truly deep terrors ofsexuality with self-restraining love, love which agrees to suffer theconsequences of evil it has not caused. Such love constitutes the onlyrational way to live.