[AlbertCory]

> Girard argues that we don’t develop our own desires but want what others seem to want.

Garbage. I might feel bad that I haven't read Girard, except that the author admits he hasn't either.

> Think about it: rituals before, during, and after the game; group singing; deep emotional involvement; the use of symbols to show that you are part of a certain group. These are all religious aspects. Every club has legendary players; heroic figures, shaped by immortal memories, admired by everyone at the club.

Sorry, Niklas. I've been to Wrigley Field when the Cubs win and everyone sings "Go, Cubs, Go." It's different in America, and by the way, you're welcome to wear the visiting team's baseball cap to a game, too. We know it's just a game.

In the video [1], Girard says:

I think desire usually is born out of the contemplation of someone else who is desiring and who designates to you the object he is desiring as desirable.

Sorry, this is barely even a half-truth. Middle schoolers are walking down the street not looking where they're going because they're staring at their smartphones, and that's where they get desire. If they grow up, they learn to think for themselves.

More from the video:

Peter Robinson [narrator]: Serpent, Eve and apple.

Rene Girard: Serpent in the mimetic theory of desire is a symbol, an image, of the mediator. In other words, the one who directs the subject towards the bad desire. There are churches who know what they are talking about much better than most people think. Know that example is the key to bad as well as good behavior, and this is nothing but what I call mimetic desire.

... and this is why people like to make fun of French intellectuals.

[Mulpze15]

>It's different in America

Yes. Not sure how it makes his argument weaker. There is a weak sense of community in US sports fans, where it is well understood that sports teams are first and foremost a commercial enterprise.

It is perceived differently in Europe where fans are attached to the team fo r other reasons and want to limit the commercial impact in the sport, probably for some of the reasons explained by the author.

[netfortius]

Terrible comparison between a sport like football (not the American one!) and baseball. I lived in Chicago for 35+ years, and been to Cubs and White Sox games quite a few times (mostly because corporate world likes to do events at such games), and that was in large majority about "socializing around" a game, vs anything like attending a football event, e.g. a game of ManU, Liverpool, Milan, Bayern or PSG. I recall the first few times, when I actually attempted to understand baseball, asking people in the stand to just give me the chance to watch, vs. them walking around with hotdogs and beer, standing up and turning around to converse with their buddies by or behind me, giving me no chance to truly watch the game. And I always got the canned response "who comes to a baseball game to watch the game all the time?". I don't think a baseball "fan" will ever understand what it is to grow up with and be a football one.

... and this is partially (i.e. besides the profits making engine) why some Americans hope to get, by buying European football clubs. But they can't get the fan spirit. It just doesn't work.

[Niklas96]

> Girard argues that we don’t develop our own desires but want what others seem to want.

What's your point here?

> Think about it: rituals before, during, and after the game; group singing; deep emotional involvement; the use of symbols to show that you are part of a certain group. These are all religious aspects. Every club has legendary players; heroic figures, shaped by immortal memories, admired by everyone at the club. Sorry, Niklas. I've been to Wrigley Field when the Cubs win and everyone sings "Go, Cubs, Go." It's different in America, and by the way, you're welcome to wear the visiting team's baseball cap to a game, too. We know it's just a game.

I see your point. I think you have to take into account what football means for people and that is very different in Europe compared to America. In America, I would argue, it's much more about entertainment. The development in Europe is similar but it didn't use to be that way. Back in the days, these were local clubs, founded by local people who only lived for these clubs. Wright Thompson's piece explains that much better than I could: https://www.espn.com/espn/insider/insider/story/_/id/3221804...

> Sorry, this is barely even a half-truth. Middle schoolers are walking down the street not looking where they're going because they're staring at their smartphones, and that's where they get desire. If they grow up, they learn to think for themselves.

That's very true. They stare at their smartphones, see other people and get their desires. It might be true that their beliefs system changes when they grow up and that they think for themselves more often. The tendency to desire what other people want, however, doesn't necessarily change. The desires might differ, maybe also the extent, but I don't believe that the mechanism itself evaporates.

[AlbertCory]

There's a whole universe of scholarship on the reasons people want stuff. If you think about it, anyone trying to sell you stuff is dying to figure that out.

"Because other people want it" is, no doubt, ONE of those reasons. But the only one? Please.

As for ManU not being the People's Team anymore: the explanation for that has more to do with money and the structure of professional sports than anything else. I watch the Cubs and don't know half those players, either, and it's not because of globalization. Maybe Mike Trout will play his whole career with the Angels, but most players move around.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I have a patent [1] on using "endorsements" to sell stuff! So obviously I'm not denying that there's some role for influencers.

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150363809A1/en?invento...

[Kon-Peki]

I’m actually really curious to know when ManU was really thought of as the people’s team. I always thought that Man City was the team for the working class and city dwellers, whereas ManU was the management-class and suburban team.

[twayt]

> Girard argues that we don’t develop our own desires but want what others seem to want

I don't think that this is precisely what he argues. There is an obvious circularity of logic if you believe this. If everyone only wants what someone else wants, then how does the original desire even come about?

I think what Girard is actually saying is that there is a certain kind of desire, mimetic desire (wanting something precisely because it is coveted by others), that is a strong and dominant force in our society and those that have come prior to us.

[strken]

I haven't finished reading anything by Girard because I find him frustrating as hell, but from what I remember he had a more complicated argument.

If I'm hungry, I eat. This is very obviously not born of memetic contemplation, unless prokaryotes also engage in it. However, do I eat a TV dinner? Do I eat lean chicken breast and broccoli? Subway? Chicken nuggets? Keto pizza? Anything I want as long as it's in a 1-hour window? Brunch, after waiting in line for over an hour? My grandmother's casserole recipe?

My understanding of Girard (from what little I've read of his work) is that he thought the desires of others mediate the desires of the self. I want to eat, but the specifics of it are changed by emulating other people. It's not possible for me to just eat whatever I want without regard to other people[0], because my whole way of understanding how valuable food is relies on what other people think.

[0] Unless I'm in solitary confinement eating through a slot in the door, and even then I could choose to be vegan or avoid pork, or choose to hunger strike.

[twayt]

I'm definitely not an expert on Girard's work but I agree with what you said. This seems to map on to the concept of `external` mediation [0].

I agree that `external` mimetic mediation does play a role in the choices that you described but I don't think Girard claims that this is the only way desire is mediated. Given multiple options, one's intrinsic desire of self-preservation and to live a high quality life might also play a factor in what one chooses for dinner.

On the other hand, there are a lot of cases where people take seemingly irrational actions because they seek safety in the masses. I think his theories are useful in explaining the latter. It would definitely be a stretch to claim that all desires are mimetic but it would also be a stretch to claim that there exists a human being that is devoid of mimetic desire.

I think it is definitely useful to understand his theories and observe them in action in society without it having to define your entire world view.

[0] https://iep.utm.edu/girard/#SH2a

[AlbertCory]

Let's stay on eating for a sec:

When I was about 3, I suddenly rejected most of my mom's cooking. Probably most parents can relate to that :)

Was I emulating some other kid who ate different things? No, and you'll have to take my word on that. It had to do with my relationship with her (and that's all I'm saying about that on the interwebs). I didn't watch enough TV to have picked it up from "society" and none of the kids I knew acted like that.

I can see that if a modern teen-aged girl suddenly announces she's a vegan, that is probably peer-influenced. But this wasn't that.

We could go back even earlier in child development to show the absurdity of a single-factor theory of desire. You can be generous and say he doesn't really mean that, but you still have his actual words to ignore.

I'll concede that Girard may have some useful theories for certain situations, and so did Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek and Sigmund Freud and lots of other thinkers.

[twayt]

It is clear that the subject of Girard claims is a person who is assimilated into society and observes other people (true of most people).

For example, I doubt that he would make the claim that a recluse who was born isolated and never got in contact with humanity is somehow still influenced by the desire of others.

I don't think it is necessary to throw out the entirety of Girard's theories just because they're not all encompassing.

[AnimalMuppet]

There is mimetic desire. It exists. It happens. Where Girard falls down is that this is not the only way we develop desires.

Girard has his system, and wants to make everything fit in it. But his system doesn't actually cover everything, and so he has to amputate everything that doesn't fit. That's... not a good system, and not a good way to do philosophy.

[wenc]

I've read Girard and watched many of his lectures (including the 5-part series).

I generally agree with mimetic theory and find it explanatory in many situations. It is a useful theory in that sense.

Like all theories, I think it has its limits. As you noted, I don't think it fully explains the formation of all desires. For instance, for me it seems to not explain novel desire. What if we had several models of desire (i.e. other people, inspiration from nature, etc.), and we were to "synthesize" a new desire that was heretofore unthought of? Is that new desire mimetic? I suppose you could argue that the new desire was intermediated by several models, but it seems to not allow for the possibility of creativity, even if that creativity was merely the blending of several models.

[twayt]

For induction to work, you need to have a base-case to apply the inductive rule to.

There definitionally has to be at least one desire that isn't derived from others.

I don't think Girard would ever seriously have made the absolute claim that all desire is mimetic.

[twayt]

Do you have a source where Girard claims that mimetic desire is the only way we develop desires? The closest quote I could find from him is that "All desire is a desire for being". But I'm genuinely curious if you know of a quote where he claims that mimetic desire is the only kind of desire that exists.

[AlbertCory]

How about the one I already cited, where he's being interviewed and says:

I think desire usually is born out of the contemplation of someone else who is desiring and who designates to you the object he is desiring as desirable.

"usually" is not the same as "always", admittedly. But it's fair to say it means "more than 50% of the time, maybe much more."

[twayt]

I would probably agree with Girard that "usually" is accurate if you consider the aggregate of human behavior

[egypturnash]

by the way, you're welcome to wear the visiting team's baseball cap to a game, too. We know it's just a game.

I have absolutely no interest in sports but I feel like an important life skill is paying just enough attention to which sports teams are super important to the city you live in and making sure not to wander anywhere near the stadium's neighborhood wearing their traditional rival's colors, especially when said rival is playing. I did not wanna be anywhere near Fenway when I lived in Boston and the Sox were doing their thing. Do not risk accidentally attracting the ire of a bunch of drunk fans all wound up for the game, or by its outcome.

Shit gets weird when the city's Important Team makes it to the playoffs, too. I live in New Orleans and I always try to avoid big groups of people clearly wearing team colors for something like the Sugar Bowlbwhen I'm in the tourist zone. They are on vacation in Sin City and they are super hyped because their team's near the top and probably nothing is gonna happen but I sure don't wanna get unlucky.

[AlbertCory]

It IS unlucky, whereas in the UK, you'd be lucky to escape major hostilities.

I was at Dodgers Stadium to see the Cubs in 2015. There were 1000s of Cubs hats there, and this happened to be the day Jake Arrieta threw his no-hitter against the Dodgers. Everyone was standing in the 9th, even the Dodgers fans.

[chrisseaton]

> everyone sings "Go, Cubs, Go."

Why are chants so incredibly lame and unimaginative in US sports?

Not sure this is supporting the argument that you think you're making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_chant