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WHAT IS MIMETIC THEORY
Mimetic theory is a concept developed by twentieth-century French anthropologist René Girard who saw that human desire is not individual but collective, or social. This has led to conflict and violence throughout human history.
Mimetic theory moves through a four-stage process:
MIMETIC DESIRE
After basic needs are satisfied (food, sex, safety, shelter), people move into the realm of desire in which there isn’t a biological “radar” or instincts to guide them. Instead, their radar becomes other people. People want what other people want. Desire is social.
CONFLICT
Because people want what other people want, there will inevitably be conflict as people compete for the same goods. Mimetic desire leads to mimetic rivalry.
SCAPE-GOATING
When mimetic contagion has spread throughout a community and led it into chaos, the typical way that human communities have dealt with the chaos has been the scapegoating mechanism, in which groups (through a mimetic process) single-out a single individual or problem as the source of their problems and violently expel or eliminate this member from the community.
The Cover-Up
After the scapegoating mechanism has been enacted, human culture springs up around it as a way to cover-up the founding murder. Taboos, prohibitions, and other laws are enacted the prevent the spread of violence that led up to the original founding murder, and the founding murder is ritually enacted over and over again as a means of catharsis and a way to prevent the spread of further violence. This amounts to an elaborate, cultural cover-up. This is true of nations, communities, organizations, and even families.
FOR A SHORT
INTRODUCTION TO
MIMETIC THEORY,
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO
“THE INVENTION OF BLAME”
BY VSAUCE2’S KEVIN LIEBER.
THE BACK STORY
René Girard’s first insight into mimetic theory came when he was a young man in his early twenties finishing his education in France.
He fell in love.
After a short and intense period of courtship, he settled down into a stable relationship with his girlfriend. Then things changed in an instant. His girlfriend asked him if he wanted to get married.
Right away, he experienced a decrease in desire. He quickly backed off. It wasn’t long before he ended the relationship.
She accepted it, went her own way, and began dating other men.
Then, suddenly, he was drawn back to her again. He noticed something that he found curious—and troubling. The more she denied herself to him, the more he wanted her.
It was as if her desire for him somehow affected his desire for her. “I suddenly realized that she was both object and mediator for me—some kind of model,” he said.
He became reattracted to her not because he suddenly saw some new quality in her that he hadn’t seen in her before; he became reattracted to her because she denied herself to him. She was modeling to him what he should want.
Girard wouldn’t fully grasp what was happening until many years later when he saw this same dynamic playing out through human history and in current events. But even then, in his short romance, he saw that there was more to desire than most people believe—especially the hidden role of a model.
The advertising and fashion industries have known this for decades. The creative agencies behind Superbowl commercials don’t simply show us the things they want us to buy. They almost always show us other people wanting the things they want us to buy.
