As someone who wrote their PhD thesis on Girard's thought, I am sad to see his core ideas being hijacked by right-wingers like Peter Thiel. While Girard himself had a Conservative streak, I think mimetic theory has much unused Progressive potential!

@ImitatioVideo Did you once post a video depiciting Girard's explanation of the history of sacrifice/scapegoating using similar animation to this video?

Survival or social participation (human experience) will to learn or copy core cultural assumptions & behaviours as a masking self-presentation or thought-sytem of guidance and direction within the family, clan, or social identified group or ideology. Much of this operates beneath and prior to any reflective evaluation as 'making a self' to fit and adapt to (our) learned world. In A Course in Miracles the above is an aspect of ego. Its sacrificial nature is masked by gaining a world of limited controls against fear of total loss, that pertain to the split mind of a self-separation, for the masking self-image is made, not created, and as a source of self or guidance and protection, operates as filters, rules and blocks to a felt quality of being for which we have no language but the expression of unselfconscious joy - the language of relational being as distinct from relationships as contracts to get from or get rid of (onto). The core narratives for the 'model' being emulated or followed draw on mythic archetypes as cultural variants and mutations of reiterating Separation traumas projected into victim and victimisers as self-justifications for attack along with grievance as the result and subsequent justification for defences that carry core beliefs in mapped out masking and coping 'solutions'. The repackaging of conflicts to masking 'solutions' runs the scaped 'release' in a novel arena that inevitably breaks down to crises of conflict. The ratcheting of sacrificial "virtue' generates deeper systemic conflicts - and here we are! I mention A Course in Miracles as its observation of the ego goes far deeper than Girad - yet in significant alignment - as does its Christed perspective as the release of the sacrificial dictate to a recognition of giving and receiving as one.

Hmm

except that does not explain who the first people that had no one to imitate did.

This man was a genius

Explains female desire lol

Who came here after "White Lotus" S2 ?

Hence the rise of fake gurus.

So do people chose friends cause they're like minded or become like minded cause of their friends? Does this also explain why some families or groups can just be totally crappy? Cause I've always wondered how or why some people chose to imitate some of the crappiest people, like criminal drug addicts who do dysfunctional stuff just to be doing it.

Perfect!

I’ll be real: White Lotus S2E5 here. You already know.

White Lotus???

For a good intro: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2jde3yAa66KaZY

But if we're all imitating each other, what are we _really_ 'imitating'? ... Enter: _the simulacra..._

you forgot that he specifically said Jesus Christ is the one to imitate

Nonsense....

The solution to the answer is a question. Nice.

Except babies desire before they have anyone to imitate. Maybe French philosophers who get all their ideas from literature and none from direct observation of the world aren't the best place to go for ideas about how human beings function. Foucault certainly hasn't done anyone any good.

I got this condition pretty bad. I was dating a woman on and off for 10yrs, and it was never really going anywhere. We broke up in the last 3 years but remained good friends. In that time I had no girlfriends and she had no boyfriends, and I was happy in life. Then one day she said she had a boyfriend. At that point I suffered full on break-up stress and grief, as fast as flipping a switch. I fought really hard to get her back. After a few days when my brain could get a word in between my gut wrenching emotions, I puzzled over my behaviour as I knew I was happier not being with her. Hence how I stumbled across mimetic desire. She's not good for me at all, I'm happier as a friend, but I wanted her back so badly because someone else saw value in her. Brains can be pretty self-harming. And it harms others too. I wonder how many people are murdered over this condition. Thankfully I was able to stop the emotion overriding the logic, and analyse the problem. Many don't and end up killing the partner.

So glad i found and start imitating Peter Thiel

Frumos. Și totuși (kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJymZ4Wfi86EkMU) filozoful Petre Țutea avea dreptate să spună că discuțiile sunt un atentat la ideea de meditație. Despre conferința lui Heidegger de la Freiburg din 1957.

Why not minimalism???

Be imitators of Christ, God... Ephesian 5:1, 1Corintians 11:1. Sorted.

Is he making the argument that this applies to all desire or simply saying this is one form or manifestation of it?

Nicely done! I wish Girard wrote as simply and elegantly as this presentation. Of course, this is only one of Girard operating principles in his whole theory.

peter thiel brought me here

"The most important choice in each of our lives is who to imitate."

Peoples personalities are collages of stimuli they either associate with, or associate with success. You can buy a book on it or you can drop acid and meditate on it either way itll get you to the same place. You should drop acid and meditate on it. It will boost your confidence over reading someone elses ideas. Then read their ideas and compare the two like youre equals rather than a student

I don't desire that annoying background music.

This is not Rene Girard explaining mimetic desire. The title is a lie.

either this is a glib explanation of Girard or Girard is glib

Clickbait. Gerard was not in this video. Just the ytbers summary

great video, though it would be nice if u could provide subtitles for non-English speaker

I'm sure there's a "natural sciences" explanation to the origin of this phenomenon in humans. So what would the physics, chemistry and biology behind this phenomenon be? Maybe this is something that originated even before humans evolved sufficiently to be able to synthesize a distinctive " human culture". Probably in the period when the precursor to sapiens in the "homo" genuses existed - erectus, australo etc etc. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread stretches really really far back into history.

So was Rene Girard aware of James George Frazer's work? Because I can see similarities in Rene's work with Frazer's upon a cursory glance. And Frazer was an anthropologist who wrote the book The Golden Bough.

This is a two minute A-bomb. My initial thoughts: Girard is giving us a half-truth, although it's the important half (currently). But some things are inherently more desirable than others. Think about real estate. Imitation happens naturally and is unavoidable ONLY UNTIL we get to know ourselves (which most people never do). The ending of the video is loaded, with the "Cervantes" reference juxtaposed with the French pastry shop. I'll attempt to deconstruct later.

This seems to apply more to the material sense of things and not necessarily the emotional? We are all product of our environment, so is that the whole "imitation" aspect? Plus mainstream media and advertising have to have somewhat of a play in this theory since a "choice"/product more advertised surely will be "chosen" more. What about the limited availability of "choices" that others may have more access too i.e. living in a smaller populated country or living in a country with heavy religious backgrounds? .....idk seems like alot of holes in this.....Just came across this theory and trying to understand it more....

One thing I don’t understand: How does the person we model develop their desire? Somebody has to have been the original, or first, person to desire a specific thing, without imitating someone else.

"He noted,", "It may be", "they seemed"... blah blah. Maybe to a degree, but those who invest too much in this opinion are probably his ONLY supporting evidence...

Who or how do you imitate a higher functioning successful person if you are isolated disadvantaged and raised by abusive alcoholics. Finding a mentor to imitate is important

I'm convinced. I'm going to buy some of Girard's work. It's what all the good intellectuals are doing...

I decided to imitate Elon Musk and Peter theil

thats true

Are we autonomous in choosing who to imitate?

There is no other reason for buying pants with rips in them.

Great animation, fascinating stuff! I just learned about Girard through tech investor Peter Thiel.

"Man is the creature who does not know what to desire. He turns up to others in order to make up his mind." Rene Girard's work is important in decoding the world we live in, adding a layer of perspective on the nature of our desires, the scapegoating mechanism of solving human conflict and the importance of treating literature as revealing the condensed, hidden truth since the foundations of the world.

This is incredible... finally someone explained Mimetic Desire in a straight forward way. I tried to read Hidden Things and it's amazing but it is super densely packed, It mentions a bunch of literary references from Don Quijote to Marcel Proust and the Bible which I've never read to be honest. Of course I wanna read those and go back to Hidden Things eventually but for now , this is a nice clear explanation of the concept. Thank you.

heard the words `clausewitz for dummies`spoken by ben kingsley in the dvd War,Ins I bot for 3.33 yesterday. this sent me to my Rene Girard book Battling to the End. I know nothing.Watched a US army for 30 minutes giving summary of clausewitz.last slide-Paradoxical Trinity. Hpw true....... P. 35 in B to the End on the wisdon of Solomon is my mantra for today......I love R. Girard. I am a lifelong learner- follower. Eliz LaRocque July 30, 2012