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 […]
Mimetic Desire
Mimetic desire is desire according to another, or desire according to a model. Imitation is the force that shapes human desire. People desire things because someone else—a model—did first. When he was in early twenties, René Girard got his first glimpse into the structure of desire. During his university studies in France, he fell in […]
Compassion Or Apocalypse?: A Comprehensible Guide to the Thought of Rene Girard – by James Warren
Apocalyptic Future, Warren’s written a gem, a much-needed “comprehensive” guide to Girard’s thought. It does an excellent job of starting “in the beginning,” with Genesis, and moving all the way through what Girard worried would be a man-made apocalypse. The table of contents is sweeping: Part I: MIMESIS Chapter 1: Mimesis and DesireChapter 2: Mimesis […]
The Fyre Festival and Violent Mimesis
On April 27, 2017, the first attendees of the now-infamous Fyre Festival landed in the Bahamas. They expected a weekend of luxury and pampering, and to potentially rub shoulders with Instagram influencers such as Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin. Instead, they were met with chaos. There were no luxury hotels or gourmet meals, just Lord […]
Triangular Desire
Mimetic desire involves a subject (the person desiring), an object (the thing being desired), and a mediator (the person modeling desire) between the two. These three points, when mapped, form a triangle. Hence triangular desire. Rene Girard’s insight into the shape of desire radically transformed the previously held assumption that desire is strictly horizontal, occurring […]
Mimetic Desire in the Art Market: Mona Lisa
What art feuds reveal about human desire The art world has a fetish for conspiracy. Take a casual sweep of the news over a given year and you will turn up any number of stories about stolen masterpieces, disputed provenances, and multi-million-dollar black-market auctions. Art itches for intrigue and the latest installment involve the Mona […]
Mimesis Versus Imitation
Mimesis is a funny word. It would make Strunk & White (who taught us never to use unnecessary or overly complicated words) cringe. So why use it? It turns out there’s a good reason Quite simply, mimesis is not the same as imitation. It refers to something far more common, far more powerful, and far […]
Profane
Rene Girard believed that at the heart of all human culture was the distinction between the profane and the sacred. Generally, these terms describe the two different kinds of violence that result from mimetic desire. Profane violence is arbitrary, disordered, and chaotic. On the contrary, sacred violence, such as sacrifices, rituals, and religion, attempt to […]
State of Chaos
Girardian chaos is the state of a society in which mimetic desire has created rivalries and tension that have disrupted the social fabric to the point of breaking. Societies in a state of chaos look for something to bring order, and that something is often the scapegoating mechanism. Humans always seek to bring order out […]
Obituary Tribute to René Girard – Stanford News Service
Cynthia Haven, author of Evolution of Desire, a biography of René Girard, begins this obituary tribute after the 2005 death of the founder of mimetic theory with these words: “René Girard was one of the leading thinkers of our era – a provocative sage who bypassed prevailing orthodoxies and “isms” to offer a bold, sweeping […]