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What is Mimetic Theory? – Colloquium on Violence & Religion

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René Girard’s mimetic theory began with an understanding about desire and blossomed into a grand theory of human relations. Based on the insights of great novelists and dramatists – Cervantes, Shakespeare, Stendhal, Proust, and Dostoevsky – Girard realized that human desire is not a linear process, as often thought, whereby a person autonomously desires an inherently desirable object (Meredith desires McDreamy). Rather, we desire according to the desire of the other (many women are attracted to McDreamy, suggesting to Meredith that he is irresistible). We rely on mediators or models to help us understand who and what to desire. The problem, however, is that imitative desire leads to conflicts because a model can quickly become a rival who competes with us for the same object. Mimetic desire leads to escalation as our shared desire reinforces and enflames our belief in the value of the object. This escalation contains the potential for a war of all against all. According to Girard, th

Mimetic theory gathers new and traditional insights about what it is to be human into a powerful set of concepts for understanding human relationships and culture. It is often expressed through three main ideas. 1. Mimetic Desire : All human desire imitates the desires of others, almost always without awareness. The term “mimetic” indicates that this imitation is not conscious. Mimetic desire frees us from acting merely out of appetite or instinct and makes friendship and other kinds of human flourishing possible. But it also leads to rivalry and is the primary cause of human viole

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