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Yesterday I was reading about the ideas of Girard. His first big idea is mimetic desire: when you look for the source of your desires you find that most of them are imitative; you desire them because you see other people desiring them
Mimetic rivalry: If you have a mentor or a leader, you ape his desires, and especially because he is above you, he becomes a model for mimetic desire. This converts him into a rival, a competitor
We particularly emulate the desires of men of high status, men who are famous or powerful. By desiring the things they desire, we try to become like them.
Friends are another source of desire; if your friend wants something, you will often grow to desire that thing. Thus friends also become rivals. This is especially clear when two friends desire the same beautiful woman
When our friends share our desires, the consensus reinforces our perception that our desires are correct. Mimesis can therefore amplify desire. If we notice that we want something no one else wants, we are suspicious of our desire, and it attenuates
All of this I find to be sound, and useful in the sense that it may be easier to overcome some desires once you understand their origin. So much of compulsion is the power of the mysterious, the poorly understood
There is perhaps a lesson here in trying to minimize unfruitful competition with rivals by trying to consciously select your desires and engineer social harmony.
Then again you will often feel that understanding a thing allows you to transcend it, only to realize much later that you were still in the grip of it. If Girard is right, then there is no escape from mimetic conflict, only deferment
Mimetic desire has a tendency to become "metaphysical" desire; when someone has the thing you desire, you desire to become that person. Because this is impossible, you may develop a desire to kill that person. When this happens at societal scale, the rival becomes a scapegoat.
Girardâs second big idea pertains to the role of the scapegoat; the tensions that arise from memetic rivalry are temporarily dispersed by the sacrifice of a scapegoat. The scapegoat is imagined as the cause of all frustrations of memetic desire. The sacrifice is a pressure valve.
Human sacrifice in older societies, such as the Aztecs, is supposed to be illustrative of the scapegoating mechanism. In time, societies may sublimate the scapegoating desire into the sacrifice of animals, or in our case, the unpersoning of heretics.
We can see the Girard's drama of the scapegoat play itself out day after day on Twitter dot com, though we are perpetually denied the consummation of the ritual.
Would it help?
Would it help?
For Girard, Christianity is unique in that it asserts the innocence of the scapegoat, and this is in some way supposed to reflect positively on Christianity. By affirming the innocence of the scapegoat, by creating sympathy for him, Christianity supposedly sublimates violence
I find this line of thinking to be extremely dubious, in part because I see Christians and Christianity engaging in quite a bit of the old fashioned kind of scapegoating, both in history and in contemporary society. The tendency is innate. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1020322404751441921
But supposing the innocence of the scapegoat is an important feature of Western culture. Where does society-level mimetic desire to be Christlike figure into the metaphysics of social justice?
The obvious and kneejerk take is that social justice activists are mimicking the desires of more successful demographics, & their mimetic desire has metastasized into metaphysical desire, and they now make a scapegoat out of white men, who they are in the process of sacrificing
But isn't the perpetual cry of social justice identity groups that they are victims, that they are hated, that they are sacrificed, even, for the sake of what they perceive as their oppressors? Maybe the desire in the SJW soul, though obscured, is to be Christlike
I think the innocence of the scapegoat in Christianity is far less important than his divinity. In Christianity the scapegoat is WORSHIPED, the scapegoat is GOD. Many people, I notice, desire to be objects of worship, and I do not think this desire springs purely from mimesis
We have innate desires, too, desires which spring from biological necessity. Girard makes the point that a man can desire a woman purely because another man, or many other men, desire her also. And yet desiring a woman requires no third party
It's safe to say that desire springs from necessity, though the specific objects of desire come from mimesis, or convenience. In a vacuum, you would still want attention, food, and sex, though you might become the object of your own desires, perversely
If desire is mimetic then we must make sure to model good desires. If we hold up as examples the broken and bitter people who sneer at greatness and denigrate success as oppressive then that is who our children will become. All the heroes are antiheroes these days...
And when I watch most shows and movies, those are the kinds of people I see. Kid's shows with genderless bugmen as protagonists, dramas full of nihilistic protagonists. Never a properly structured family, and never ever a happy one. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1043849034769690625
If you are even slightly inclined to transcendent pursuits then you have probably read some fine old books, and it can be difficult to believe, and difficult to retain, the lesson that most people have no such inclinations or readings.
We have to find ways to spread good and inspiring stories about strong and virtuous people. If you watch a hundred hours of television about dysfunctional families and broken homes, then when you think about families, those images will come to mind
If you watch stories about virtuous drug dealers and gangsters and criminals, then you will start to imagine such people are morally good. If the villain in every story is an old white businessman, then you will think old white businessmen are villains
If you see unhappy sexless marriages and titillating stories of adultery (I notice a similarity between "adulting" and "adultery"), then you will despise marriage and desire promiscuity.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
