Quotes About Mimetic desire

Passive, submissive imitation does exist, but hatred of conformity and extreme individualism are no less imitative. Today they constitute a negative conformism that is more formidable than the positive version. More and more, it seems to me, modern individualism assumes the form of a desperate denial of the fact that, through mimetic desire, each of us seeks to impose his will upon his fellow man, whom he professes to love but more often despises.

More and more, it seems to me, modern individualism assumes the form of a desperate denial of the fact that, through mimetic desire, each of us seeks to impose his will upon his fellow man, whom he

Les mythes débutent presque toujours par un état de désordre extrême.

To maintain peace between human beings, it is essential to define prohibitions in light of this extremely significant fact: our neighbor is the model for our desires. This is what I call mimetic desire.

If the desire of children were not mimetic, if they did not of necessity choose for models the human beings who surround them, humanity would have neither language nor culture.

intellectual…and even religious.

A person] will desire any object so long as he is convinced that it is desired by another person whom he admires.

Markus Müller, "Interview with René Girard," Anthropoetics 2, no. 1 (June 1996): 3–5. 2

Mimetic desire enables us to escape from the animal realm. It is responsible for the best and the worst in us, for what lowers us below the animal level as well as what elevates us above it. Our unending discords are the ransom of our freedom.

The myth-making machine is the mimetic contagion that disappears behind the myth it generates.

And it sees ressentiment as the defining feature of a world where mimetic desire, or what Herzl called, approvingly, 'Darwinian mimicry', endlessly proliferates, and where the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.