[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