What is mimesis in art?
Mimesis in art is the tendency for artists to imitate, or copy, the style, technique, form, content, or any other aspect of another artist’s work. It is the idea that Erich Auerbach made popular in his book, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. The idea is that art imitates nature. All art is a representation either of nature or of other art. The representation of reality is a Platonic conception of the world in which the world we live in is simply some kind of faint imitation of the “real” world, or reality. The more that artists imitate other artists, the further removed they become from that real world. This kind of mimesis by representation is different from what René Girard meant by mimesis in desire. Mimesis of representation means mimesis, or imitation, of external things—art, speech, mannerisms, dress, etc. Mimetic desire, the real innovation of Girard, means that what is being imitated is not any kind of superficial, external representation but desires themselves.
What is the mimetic approach?
The “mimetic approach” to problems or to current events or issues means approaching them as fundamental problems of desire and trying to under the mimetic impulses and consequences of mimetic desire behind these problems. A salient example: a scientific or political approach to mask-wearing during the COVID-19 global pandemic would be to try to find scientific rational or political positions that advocated for or against wearing masks as a form of safety. The mimetic approach to this issue removes these questions from the issue of disease transmission. Instead, it views the debate as one that is fundamentally about mimetic desire and mimetic rivalry, not questions of science or politics. The hip-hop artist Gucci Mane elucidated the phenomenon of mimetic rivalry in his autobiography. He tells the story of making a song about robbing in his “Black Tee” (black tee-shirt) solely because a rival rap group had envy-worthy success with a song about wearing their “White Tees.” Here are some of the lyics: I rob in my black teeHit licks in my black teeAll in ya house searchin’ for bricks in my black tee (Crank it)I kill in my black teeI steal in my black teeI’m real so I gotta keep it trill in my black tee (O-kay-kay-kay) Now, apply the same lyrics to mask-wearing or non-mask-wearing. There you have it. Gucci even talks about wearing a black mask. This is 2008.
What is a scapegoat in psychology?
Psychological scapegoating refers to the tendency to blame someone else for one’s own problems, a process that often results in feelings of prejudice toward the person or group that one is blaming. Scapegoating serves as an opportunity to explain failure or misdeeds, while maintaining one’s positive self-image. In mimetic theory, scapegoating runs deeper than psychology. It is bound up with metaphysical desire. Groups scapegoat a person or another group because they are in a mimetic crisis and need to find an outlet valve for the escalating, reciprocal mimetic desires that threaten to make them implode. It is no mere psychological phenomenon. Someone actually died, or is mutilated, or has their reputation ruined. The modern-day Cancel Culture is the latest manifestation of this.