This draws on the text Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis which is based on the Theory of Mimesis from professor René Girard.

Our desires — the things we want beyond our basic physiological and psychological needs (like food, water, sex, social connection) — do not develop spontaneously or organically. They are derived from modeling the desires of others. Wanting is a social phenomenon. How do we come to want the things we want when there is no instinctual basis? To know what to want is much more complicated than to know what to need.

We use models: people or characters that show us what is worth wanting. With them we engage in a subtle imitation process known as "mimesis". This is a term developed by René Girard. Mimesis is to social psychology as gravity is to physics. It is a fundamental principle. What we want is always curved through a model. We are usually ignorant of this or refuse to believe it.

There is some evidence for this claim in child development. As humans we do not just model action but we model the intent behind the action. There is a study were adults try to pull the end cap off of a toy. It is easy to do, but the adult experimenter pretends to keep having his hand slip off. When the toy is given to a baby the baby will easily pull the end cap off. This is subtle yet important: the child is modeling the intent or desire of the adult not the outcome. (1)

Who we model is a function of proximity. It is more likely you would be envious of your coworker who just got a $20,000 raise for doing the same work you do than of Jeff Bezos.

There are two “spheres” from which we interact with models. The distant sphere where we don’t feel like we are in competition. Then there is the immediate sphere in which we occupy the same social space. In the immediate sphere rivalry intensifies (explicitly or implicitly). Distant sphere models (like celebrities) we imitate freely and without issue. If I dress a bit like my favorite celebrity or follow the same behaviors as my favorite athlete it isn’t so unusual. Immediate sphere models are imitated secretly and we compete with them to differentiate ourselves. If I were to start dressing and talking like one of my best friends everyone would immediately notice how strange it was.

This is important because it drives competition which drives conflict. Any object of desire is desirable because others want it. How desirable something (or someone) is, is a function of the amount of people in our immediate sphere who desire it and the intensity with which they desire it. If you like playing soccer and baseball equally but the baseball team only has 5 open spots and all the other kids in the class are obsessed with baseball, it is likely you will be drawn to baseball.

This is the essence of “mimesis” and out of it conflict springs.

Girard opens the first lecture of his class — Literature, Myth, and Prophecy with the words: “Human beings fight not because they are different, but because they are the same, and in their attempts to distinguish themselves have made themselves into enemy twins, human doubles in reciprocal violence.”

Girard also wrote:

“If individuals are naturally inclined to desire what their neighbors possess, or to desire what their neighbors even simply desire, this means that rivalry exists at the very heart of human social relations. This rivalry, if not thwarted, would permanently endanger harmony and even the survival of all human communities.”

Perhaps counterintuitively, it seems the more people coalesce into sameness of desire, the more they fight to differentiate themselves. If they don't have positive outlets for this, it will turn destructive. Consider this: class conflict and terrorism are not about wanting different things — but the same things. The poor want wealth (so they attack the rich). The terrorists want significance (so they attack those with it). It is likely that a school shooter desperately wants to be “cool” — significant and popular — just like all the other children. It is not because they want different things, but because they want the same things that they feel frustration and lash out.

Mimesis is a potentially dangerous feedback loop. We model the desires of others and that makes the objects of desire perceived as more desirable. This increases rivalry which leads to conflict. Stock bubbles are a case study in this.

Our modern society is particularly at risk for this due to “the cult of the expert” and smartphones and social media.

First and foremost this commentary on “experts” is not a critique of science in any way. It’s simply the observation that our society has “traded saints for experts”. Those labeled as experts are now the source of ultimate authority — often unquestionable authority — much in the same way that religious institutions used to be. Again, in many ways this is good. Quality, peer-reviewed literature is a better source of authority than theology (for most things anyway). The danger is that expert authority is also highly mimetic. It follows similar laws as desire.

What is our basis for taking a source as authoritative? Is it because we personally checked all of the person’s credentials? Is it because the source was fact-checked by editors at the New Yorker? Is it because the person has one million followers on social media and a “verified” blue sticker? Authority is more mimetic than we tend to believe. It’s a “cult of the expert”. Once you convince a few of the people with expert authority to label you as an expert you become one.

This means our society is highly susceptible to mimesis driven authority.

Related to this, we have social media and smartphones which take the distant sphere and turn it into the immediate sphere. Historically the lives of kings and celebrities — and their desires — were distant stars. Now we can get up close and personal with the daily lives of celebrities. They are theoretically only a DM away. This means we are increasingly drawn to the desires that are “outside our orbit” per say. 100 years ago unless I lived down the road from Andrew Carnegie I probably wasn’t exposed much to mansions, cars, and luxuries. But now I see these trappings of desire every day on my feed.

This breeds discontent and greater mimetic frustration.

Again it is worth noting that this theory and the work of both Girard and Burgis may be considered more social philosophy than “psychological science” as it is more a matter of observation than experimentation. Nonetheless, there are a few prescriptions to combat or manage mimesis.