Completing Girard: Antidotes to Apocalypse

A book-length manuscript integrating René Girard's mimetic theory and Buddhist thought.

Preface to the Unfinished Manuscript

In his final book, Completing Clausewitz, René Girard attempts to push the theory of Carl von Clausewitz to its logical conclusion through a mimetic reading of On War. In the early chapters of On War, Clausewitz had the apocalyptic insight that politics could no longer contain violence. But, so Girard claims, Clausewitz was never able to complete this line of thinking and, in the latter chapters, incongruently rests his faith on the competency of politics.

It is ironic, then, that by only developing the apocalyptic side of mimetic theory through a completion of Clausewitz’s intuition, Girard fails to complete his own earlier thinking on the potential of humanity to transcend violence. Haunted by the spectre of apocalypse, Girard could only suggest withdrawal, resting his faith on an interventionist God that is as incongruent to his own theory as competent politics were to Clausewitz’s. In this project, I hope to complete Girard’s earlier thinking as he had completed Clausewitz: through an immanent reading of mimetic theory under the light of Buddhist phenomenology.  

But, perhaps, I should complete my own work before I attempt to complete those of others. The irony (and humor) is not lost on me: this project, in its current form, is incomplete in four substantive ways. First, the rigor and systematicity is not up to par with the best of my abilities. This is only my third pass and, so, I have been focused on just getting my intuitions down on paper. Even Part One – which I have worked on the most – needs considerable more polish. Second, my description of Girard, in Chapter 6, as "escapist" is a possible but partial interpretation. I need to explore whether there is something more charitable to be said about his suggestion to retreat, perhaps, along the lines of saintliness. Third, my treatment of Buddhism in Part Three leaves much to be desired. I've entered Girard into dialogue with David Loy, a modern Buddhist interpreter. I think my intuitions are correct but it would be much more forceful to engage directly with classical sources. Lastly and most substantively, I would like to systematically introduce Hegel as an interlocutor in a fourth and final part of the project. This is because, I will eventually argue that Girardian pathologies only emerge when subjects' quests for freedom are thwarted. Buddhism will be an effective antidote because it prescribes contemplative techniques to help the individual achieve this freedom. My intuition is that Hegel would offer commensurable social insights to systematically actualize freedom for an entire society, without which the prescriptions in this project will only be achievable by a dedicated minority. 

So why am I not completing this project, choosing to release it in this unfinished form? The reason will be clear once I explain the original intent of this work.

I began working on this project two years ago, at the age of 20. I was midway through my journey in college, finding myself in a dark point in life, for I had lost the path that does not stray. I was introduced to Girard's philosophy in a Zen retreat center in the Catskills. Since then, mimetic and Buddhist theory have been my trusted stewards, albeit occupying different roles. Mimetic theory exposed the mechanisms behind my personal – at the risk of connotating something stronger than I intend – pathologies. Girard has become to me what Vergil was to Dante: a guide who reveals the shape of human evil. He rescued me from the grotesque pathologies of my personal hells and even directed me in purging their milder, more subtle forms; yet, as was the case with Vergil, he could not lead me to a complete salvation. The lack of Girardian guidance was filled, in my own life, by Buddhist philosophy and contemplative techniques. I began the theoretical exercise of squaring these two modalities, then, out of practical necessity: to expose the shape of evil in thought as to avoid it in action and to chart a course to liberation on paper so that it may be more swiftly attained in practice. As a result, this work can be read as a letter from my current self who – privileged by my alienated distance from society – has a clearer view of human affairs to my future self who – shrouded in the mist of action – will know no such privilege. I write to counsel him, as an aged, retired father would a hasty, entrepreneuring son.

This theoretical project emerged out of life and life it must now serve. I have no time in the near future to further develop this work in thought because I have been presented with opportunities to actualize it in practice – renounce violence, cultivate love, and accelerate innovation. Certainly, more can be done in theory, in the four ways I've listed and more, but philosophy has served its purpose in this stage of my life – I have illuminated in thought sufficiently, if not completely, the path forward and gained enough clarity for action. I don't see this theoretical distancing as abandoning this project, rather, I see it as taking on its necessary next form – necessary because these ideas will now be thoroughly tested by the hammer of experience on the anvil of lived reality. Therefore, I have not stopped developing this project because I have lost faith in these ideas, on the contrary, I am so convinced by them that I cannot be content in their remaining unactualized ideas. In fact, I have not stopped developing this project at all: the site of its development has merely shifted from thought to actuality. I hope to one day return to the world of thought to integrate the insights I have won through practice. But, until then, the pen must give way to the saddle and contemplation to action.

To my philosophical companions: Chiara, Jeremy, and Trevor … without whom this work would both have not existed and have been ready much sooner

- Johnathan Bi, 12/24/2020

Introduction

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the spectre of apocalypse has faded from the public imagination. What is surprising, then, about reading René Girard, is his repeated insistence that the end is still nigh. An even more puzzling surprise awaits the careful reader – hidden uneasily alongside this anticipation of apocalypse, is a restrained but nonetheless fundamental affirmation of modernity that can easily be missed between Girard’s dense lines on violence:

Our world is both the worst it has ever been, and the best. It is said that more victims are killed, but we also have to admit that more are saved than ever before. Everything is increasing … some of which are marvelous and others dreadful.

Girard’s modernity is characterized by these ambivalent extremes. On one hand, we show unprecedented love for each other and have achieved unparalleled prosperity through innovation. On the other, violence, armed with increasingly powerful means, has become uncontrollable and unpredictable. What explains this unnatural coupling is a single psychological source that Girard takes to be responsible for both developments: mimesis, our fundamental capacity to imitate. Further disrupting hopes for a simple solution, it is largely the same set of social conditions – developed throughout history, reaching their height in modernity – that channel mimesis towards both love and violence. 

The aim of this project is to cut through this Gordian knot of modernity braided equally by strands of the good – love and innovation – as well as the bad – apocalyptic violence – to present a theoretical framework that informs praxis. To untangle the positive and negative effects of mimesis, I will reconstruct and defend Girard’s psychological account of mimesis (Part One) and its influence on history (Part Two). At the end of Part Two, I will reconstruct Girard’s prescriptive solution (Chapter 6. Mimetic Eschatology) and criticize it for being unsatisfactory. Part Three aims to resolve the ills of mimesis in a more satisfying fashion by appealing to Buddhist resources from the Mahayana tradition. By putting Girard into dialogue with various Buddhist scholars, I hope to uncover phenomenological resources that can steer us away from violence towards love and innovation. 

The resources I hope to develop are individualistic in nature – they are prescribed for a singular individual, on how he himself may renounce violence, cultivate love, and accelerate innovation in the existing social world. This methodological choice seems, prima facie, at odds with my stated goal – apocalypse is social and not individual, after all. Furthermore, this choice invites a powerful critique from, whom we can call, communitarians in both western and Buddhist traditions: an individual’s liberation from pathologies, if not impossible, is extremely limited without a fundamental transformation of society. This critique is made all the more potent by the fact that Girardian theory always has, as its unit of analysis, not the individual but the collective or, at least, the pair. Despite the legitimacy of this concern, I believe this individualistic exploration, while far from being the last word on this topic, is a necessary first step for two philosophical reasons. 

First, my argumentation will eventually pinpoint the source of our mimetic troubles to an innate phenomenological mistake that all humans make regardless of culture. The problem is going to be – as a rough and however unsatisfying first pass – that we all naturally treat and expect phenomena to be other than what they are and, as a result, become compulsive in destructive ways when they don’t conform to our mistaken assumptions. Certainly, different social conditions may accelerate or limit the severity of this phenomenological mistake and, therefore, its consequences. But, drawing from Buddhist resources, I will nonetheless insist that this is an innate error that we are naturally wired to commit unless we subject ourselves to specific meditative practice. That is to say, at the root of these social perversions are phenomenological errors – errors that are greatly shaped by social conditions, but whose effective treatment and full resolution must be explicit, individualistic, and meditative nonetheless. Transformation on the social-level alone will no more alleviate our mimetic perversions than putting fresh band-aids on a cancer patient. 

If the first philosophical reason I have just outlined is that social change is not sufficient, then the second is that it is not necessary. The meditative prescriptions I will outline should in theory – but certainly not without immense difficulty in practice – be achievable by committed individuals regardless of their macro social conditions. This is especially true if these individuals have control over their micro social conditions – for example, if they can move into a monastery. But, even if one is immersed in the least ideal of social conditions, one should still be able to – with great difficulty, we must add – alleviate the ills of mimesis in so far as they have resolved their phenomenological error. The classic Buddhist metaphor of a lotus flower undefiled by the muddy pond from which it rose is apt here. The hope is that these individuals – liberated fully, or even partially, from the trappings of mimesis – will be at a better vantage point, epistemically and motivationally, to engender more harmonious social conditions. Behind this methodological divergence, then, is a deeper, substantive disagreement with the communitarians about the origins of our social pathologies. What appear to be inevitable social dependencies – such as recognition – I will show to be a byproduct of individuals’ phenomenological errors. What is required, then, is an individualistic transformation. This does not mean that the transformation in question relieves the individual from his obligations to others – in fact, this change is none other than a radically compassionate mode of existence that sees others as, in some sense, part of oneself. By “individualistic” I only mean that, contra the communitarians, this change can be fully initiated and completed by the individual even in the least hospitable of social situations. Girard’s pathologies, which seem to be social in nature, can be resolved purely on the individual level regardless of the surrounding social conditions even if these conditions can greatly accelerate or thwart one’s progress. That is to say, the harmonious subjective disposition that marks the end of Girardian pathologies is not necessarily dependent on, even if it is greatly influenced by, any objective configuration of the social world. 

I concede to the communitarians that this project – to uncover the antidotes to apocalypse – is incomplete without an accompanying discussion of supporting social conditions. Girard himself makes it very clear that what is required to herald the Kingdom of God and thwart Apocalypse isn’t just a few enlightened individuals but the universal renunciation of violence and the development of love. Without this social investigation, at best, the prescriptions outlined here are antidotes for how one may remain virtuous in the face of the imminent destruction of the world – a painkiller for apocalypse but not a cure. This is why I suggested, in the foreword, that it is necessary to take the individualistic investigations in this manuscript to the social level (possibly, through Hegel) for me to truly complete Girard. With that said, I maintain that this individualistic, meditative methodology is the right first step because of the agency of individuals even in our existing, imperfect social world (the second point) and the necessity of meditative practice even in an idealized, perfect social world (the first point). Furthermore, given that Girard attributes the pathologies of man primarily to constants within the human condition and not any social structure (such as capitalism), a proper social investigation into our ills can only proceed with the core psychological mechanisms in view. The latter ought precede, methodologically, the former.

Beyond these two philosophical reasons, there is a practical reason animating this entire work in general and my individualistic methodology in particular. Buddhist and mimetic theory have been the most influential personal guides in orienting my own life. The initial impetus to begin this theoretical project was a desire to understand how these modalities could be squared in the life of a single individual. I wrote this project, then, for myself: to expose the shape of evil in thought as to avoid is in action and to chart a course to liberation on paper so that it may be attained more swiftly in practice. However, that is not to say that this project is written only for myself – it aims to develop a general, systematic prescription to Girardian pathologies. And, make no mistake, the two philosophical reasons listed above are not just mere excuses for me to pursue a self-indulgent project. Nor is the relationship between the philosophical and practical merely accidental: that I just happen to be pursuing such a path in my own life and just happen to also hold these individualistic assumptions about our seemingly social pathologies. No, the relationship is complementary: it was through my practical struggles that the silhouette of this philosophical strategy emerged and, in turn, it was under the guide of this strategy that I advanced practically. This individualistic, contemplative strategy is tested by the hammer of experience on the anvil of lived reality and so this practical motive should only be seen as grounding and not perverting the philosophical ones. Buddhism, in practice, showed itself a direct and effective antidote to Girard’s social pathologies.

I will make one more remark about my methodology. While the dominant motive of this project is to resolve the problems internal within Girard in a general, systematic way, the way I have done so makes it such that it can be read in three different ways.

 First, Part One and Part Two are a systematic reconstruction of Girard’s system. My reconstruction in these sections isn’t ‘Buddhist’ in any meaningful sense, so it can be treated as an attempt at a faithful and internal reconstruction. I suggest that these first two parts, when read alone, constitute a theodicy – a project aiming to explain human evil and engender reconciliation with the world. This may seem puzzling given that Girard anticipates inevitable apocalypse, and his psychology exposes the pathological nature of human subjects. Indeed, the type of reconciliation I have in mind is not Hegelian – to show that the world, in its essence, is already hospitable to us – which engenders an attitude of affirmation. It is not Rousseauian – to show that, even if our world is not a hospitable one now, there is nothing in the essence of human nature that precludes such a world from existing – which engenders hope and an impetus for action. Girard reconciles us, in a very limited sense, by showing that evil is the constitutive condition of human organization and will only be more powerful as history progresses – there is very little that we can do. If seeing the world as fundamentally good engenders affirmation and viewing it as potentially good engenders hope, then depicting the world as irrevocably evil engenders tranquility. It is a, however limited, species of reconciliation because we can look at the world and think: “This is just the way the world is.” Framed positively, such a view frees us from the taxing obligations to better the world. This limited sense of freedom legitimizes a tranquil retreat – a tending to one’s own garden – which Girard will turn to as the only possible normative solution. Of course, by this project’s end, I hope to have robbed the reader of this tranquility by showing that our situation is not as hopeless as Girard makes it seem and, as a result, instill a Rousseauian hope. 

Second, taken as a whole, this project is an attempt at establishing an interfaith dialogue to render key concepts of Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity intelligible to each other. While Girard’s reading of Christianity is controversial, the synergies that I uncover through Girard will hopefully be insightful even for more conventional strands of Christian thought. I hope to show that the core teachings of Buddhism offer a unique, phenomenological explanation for mimetic pathologies. And, because of this, it is also able to prescribe systematic, reliable, and reproducible techniques to tame it. Many of these techniques are available to all faiths and fill the space of normative solutions where Girard has remained depressingly silent. The first central thesis is that Buddhist phenomenology completes Girard’s Christian social theory. The converse is also true: in Girard, this project points to a possible outline of a Buddhist social theory. I hope to show Girard to be a Christian social thinker that is primarily dealing with the societal manifestations of a foundational concept in Buddhism: Dukkha, commonly translated as ‘suffering.’ Girard’s Christianity deserves Buddhist attention because, I will argue, the psychological force behind mimesis is none other than Dukkha. Therefore, Girard’s Christian social theory which revolves around mimesis is, at the same time, a social theory grounded on Dukkha. Girard draws out the social and political implications of Dukkha by elucidating the interpersonal mechanisms by which Dukkha is caused, perpetuated, and released. Another way to put this point is that Girard informs the Buddhist who wishes to remain engaged with society of the social logic and interpersonal origins of Dukkha that should be addressed alongside the phenomenological. The second central thesis, then, is that Girard’s Christian social theory completes Buddhist phenomenology. 

If I am successful, I will have established a strong equivalence between the foundational concepts of Mahayana Buddhism and Girard’s Christianity. An unintended consequence of this equivalence, however, is that it invalidates one of the central claims of Girard’s system! As a rough first pass, Girard’s main argument for the truth of Christianity is its uniqueness – that it alone understands and reveals the mechanisms and consequences of our mimetic natures. Of course, if my argument is convincing, I will show that Buddhism also has – as its core focus and not just a tangential interest – an understanding of our mimetic natures that, in the phenomenological realm at least, prove even more profound than that of Girard’s Christianity. If Christianity were to lose its status as the unique – and, therefore, according to Girard, the “true” – religion, so much of Girard’s conclusions that are grounded on Christianity will also fall – the certainty of linear time, the inevitability of apocalypse, the impossibility and undesirability of reactionary activity, etc. I will not further investigate the havoc caused to Girard’s system by this move, for this is not the point of my work. But I felt it necessary to highlight that my completion of Girard is, in some sense, also an attack on one of his most fundamental conclusions. 

Last but not least, this project can be read as a practical guide. To the leader, this project is a guidebook to understanding the irrational, mimetic behavior of groups. It equips her with a psychological framework to think about collective solutions. And to the individual who wishes to remain engaged in society but recognizes the clear personal costs – of, say, wielding power, desiring, or being the object of desire – this project maps out the pervasive and devastating consequences of mimetic pathologies as well as reliable solutions to tame it. Above all, it prescribes a personal remedy against the common ills of mimesis, chief among them: violence, vanity, masochism, bipolarity, and delusion.  

But first, a prescription of the cure must proceed through a diagnosis of the condition. 

Part 1: The Psychology of Spirit

Man shall not live on bread alone – Matt. 4:4

Chapter 1. A Theory of Agency

Girard’s apocalyptic predictions begin with an innocuous observation: the defining characteristic of humanity is mimesis – the capacity to imitate. More so than most social theorists, Girard is psychologically reductive. That is to say, he takes this single psychological capacity to be the constitutive mechanism behind a seemingly endless array of social phenomena, including but not limited to: rivalry, envy, violence, innovation, masochism, bipolarity, scapegoating, ritual, prohibitions, homosexuality, vanity, religion, and, indeed, imminent apocalypse. It then becomes important – to both interrogate the ambition of Girard’s psychology as well as understand the shape of his social theory – to have a complete and charitable reconstruction of Girard’s psychology in view. 

Part One is such an attempt, and it is motivated by the two aforementioned aims. First, I hope to interrogate the plausibility, originality and significance of Girard’s psychological views. This, in turn, sets me up to answer the question: “what does our understanding of mimetic psychology reveal about the shape of Girardian social theory?” 

I will attempt to accomplish both tasks with three broad strokes. First, in Chapter 1, I will introduce mimetic theory as, at its core, a theory of agency concerned with a subset of human behavior that proceed through a mimetic form (Section 1.1). Importantly, the form of mimesis (Section 1.2) will be delineated from the force behind mimesis (Section 1.3) – a separation which will be interpretively crucial to understanding, in a later section, why only certain mimetic behaviors are compulsive, reciprocal and trend towards extremes. 

Second, in Chapter 2, I will focus my reconstruction on a specific species of mimesis – mimetic desire. After properly introducing these technical terms in their respective sections, I will argue that acquisitive mimesis is best understood as ranging from physical desire to metaphysical desire (Section 2.1), from external mediation to internal mediation (Section 2.2), and, finally, from the positive to the negative phase (Section 2.3). In drawing out this first range (physical to metaphysical desire), I hope to introduce a species of mimetic desire – physical desire – overlooked in the current scholarship that renders Girard’s psychological views more plausible (Section 2.1.1). Also, in developing this first range, I will put Girard in dialogue with Rousseau with the aim of interrogating the former’s originality and the fruitful side effect of uncovering the relationship between recognition and mimesis (Section 2.1.2). This relationship will prove to be crucial in making sense of Girard’s psychological landscape and help us resolve otherwise hard-to-answer questions internal within Girard, chief amongst them: whom do we imitate (Section 2.1.3)?

Lastly, in Chapter 3, I will mount a defense of Girard’s significance. My general argument is going to be that Girard rescues a certain intersubjective conception of humanity that has been systematically overlooked by influential currents in modern social theory. This will, in turn, provide me with the resources to understand the shape, aims, and scope of Girard’s own social theory – the second aim of Part One.

1. Sympathy and Mimesis

Mimesis, as a form of agency, can be understood under the light of David Hume. In his A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume develops a concept that becomes foundational to Scottish moral philosophy: sympathy. Sympathy is the human capacity to understand others by co-experiencing their emotions in one’s own mind. In order to emphasize how constitutive and inevitable he took this capacity to be, Hume employs the famous metaphor of two violin strings setting each other in motion:

As in strings equally wound up, the motion of one communicates itself to the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature. When I see the effects of passion in the voice and gesture of any person, my mind immediately passes from these effects to their causes, and forms such a lively idea of the passion, as is presently converted into the passion itself … No passion of another discovers itself immediately to the mind. We are only sensible of its causes or effects. From these we infer the passion: And consequently these give rise to our sympathy.

What is relevant in this analogy for Girard, is the observation that there is a species of human behavior – for the lack of a better word, I use “behavior” in the broadest possible sense: actions, experiences, judgements, intentions, etc. – that proceed when an external instance of that behavior is observed. Indeed, this logic that Hume identifies in sympathy – the carrying out of a behavior upon its observance – is none other than the logic of mimesis. 

But there are also two important differences. First, mimesis is not limited to passionate experiences but expands to govern the full spectrum of human behavior. Hume suggests, at least in the quoted passage, that sympathy observes actions in the other yet only arouses passions in the observer. Instead, Girard would say that whatever the mind focuses on will be elicited. If we direct our attention to others’ subjective experience, then passions will arise in us. Yet, if we focus on their physical actions, then we will be nudged to perform these actions. We should also add two more things on this point. Mimetically triggered behaviors are not mirror copies of behaviors as performed by the other but as perceived by the observer. What is elicited is what the observer takes the behavior to be, not what it actually is. This might seem a trivial distinction in the realm of action, which is somewhat objective, but a key move in Girard’s theory will eventually rest on the assumption that we tend to misjudge and, therefore, falsely imitate the subjective experiences of others. Furthermore, since it is clear that mimesis operates according to what the observer calls to mind, we should also permit the logic of mimesis to extend to memory and even imagination. That is to say, this mimetic resonation – exemplified by Hume’s metaphor of the violin strings – nudges us toward certain behaviors even when we simply recall them in memory or imagine them ex-nihilo.

Second, as my use of the word “nudge” should suggest, Girard takes mimetic behavior to be much less inevitable and immediate as the metaphor of resonant strings would imply. After all, we don’t imitate every action or sympathize with every experience that crosses our path. To fully develop this point, we need to separate the form of mimesis from the force of mimesis. This is not a division that Girard himself makes, but one that is helpful to introduce in understanding his theory.

1.2 The Form of Mimesis

When I speak of mimesis as a theory of agency, I refer exclusively to the form of mimesis which operates on the logic we uncovered in Hume. The form of mimesis is constitutive to behavior which proceed when the subject calls to mind – whether that be through observation, memory, or imagination – an externalized instance of said behavior. Deciding to spare one’s enemies after reasoned deliberation is not mimetic. Yet, if the same act of mercy is carried out with, say, a compassionate act of Christ in mind, then it is mimetic. This theory of agency divides the human sphere into the mimetic and non-mimetic. The former have their origin in and are formed by an external other, whereas the latter behaviors are created by the subject, for example, through reason. 

But why does it matter if behavior proceed through this form? This question is all the more relevant since mimesis can operate – in fact, it almost always operates – unconsciously. That is to say, for the subject to “call to mind” an external behavior it is enough for it to be registered in the unconscious. Think of a high school basketball player practicing a specific move by imitating his favorite professional athlete. When this high schooler performs the same move in a game, the idea goes, he need not consciously have to recall the original action for this behavior to be mimetic since the original move by the professional athlete is so deeply embedded in his unconscious through repetition. When we permit this unconscious operation of mimesis, it becomes hard to even differentiate the mimetic from the non-mimetic, much less see the significance of the former. 

The full significance of mimesis will take this entire project to reveal, but I will highlight an initial point in anticipation of the dialogue with Rousseau. Girard, I will show, believes that we can only carry out certain actions or hold certain normative attitudes with true confidence and certainty if it proceeds through this mimetic form of agency. That is to say, only when I can call to mind an other whose actions or views are in alignment with mine, do my actions or views take on a confident form, proceeding from both an “I” and a “We.” Very crudely, this certainty that only the mimetic form of behavior can provide, will lead the Girardian subject to seek recognition.

While I can’t yet do justice to the significance of the form of mimesis, I will attempt to do so for its empirical plausibility. Mimesis, as a theory of agency, has received substantial empirical support from the late-20^th-century discovery of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons fire both when one performs an action – say, raise a hand – and when we perceive others performing the same action. They also fire when a mere intention to act is observed. Furthermore, mirror neurons are deeply interconnected with the limbic system, which governs emotions and sentiments, and the cortical system, which governs reasoning and judgement, revealing how permeated this reflective capacity is in the human psyche. Actions, intentions, emotions, and even judgments – this broad neuro-biological reach of mirror neurons is an empirical justification for expanding Hume’s sympathy beyond mere passions. This “neurological, automatic, and necessary” process that seems to have its hands in the full spectrum of human behavior is the biological basis for the form of mimesis – by merely perceiving the behaviors of another, we are presented, through mirror neurons, with identical behaviors that we are nudged towards.

1.3 The Force of Mimesis

Of course, many of Girard’s canonical examples of mimesis appear to be more than just nudged – they are backed by an unending drive that render them compulsive.  What is the force that makes them so? After all, there appear to be behaviors, proceeding through the mimetic form that are almost irresistible – chanting in a large crowd – whereas other mimetic suggestions – performing a dangerous activity – often illicit an opposite response within us. 

First, we should permit that the form of mimesis always carries with it a small, nudging force. This doesn’t matter greatly to Girard’s theory and is just based off the intuition that, ceteris paribus, we are slightly more inclined to carry out an action if it has been mirrored by an other. Second, beyond this nudge, a wide array of forces that are unrelated to mimesis can drive behaviors that proceed through the mimetic form. If I am hungry and watch my friend eat a burger, then my ordering of the same burger will be a behavior with the form of mimesis – because the origins of the action are external – that is fueled by the force of hunger. In this case, an impetus which has its origin within me is given shape by a suggestion originating from an other. Third, of all the forces “within me,” one in particular is extremely powerful and the animating impetus fueling Girard’s most popular social phenomena: “shame.” Shame will be given a proper treatment in the following section on metaphysical desire. But, as a first pass, it can be understood as a deep and all-encompassing despair that one has a deficient ontological status. At its core, shame is a drive towards substance: a yearning to make one’s being “real” in some sense. This preliminary overview of shame is incomplete without also introducing the logic that directs this force: transference. Transference, I will show, aims at identifying the cause of one’s shame or the cause for the resolution of one’s shame. The Girardian subject will blame and destroy the former and will love and deify the latter. Transference is a drive towards causality – it seeks to understand and explain the world and the reason for its shame. But, importantly, it does so in a simplified and erroneous way. As a first approximation, Girard takes the cause for one’s shame to always be complex and multifaceted, yet transference is only satisfied if it can single out and hold responsible one single source. Therefore, it does so in a deceitful way. What I hope is clear, even in this brief introduction, is that beyond merely directing shame, transference carries within it forces of its own – desires to get even: love and hate – that will play an equally important role in Girard’s social observations.

Transference and shame, together, are the most important forces fueling mimesis. In conjunction with the form of mimesis and recognition (which will be introduced later on), these four concepts are the constitutive building blocks of Girard’s psychology.

1.4 A Partial Theory

As I’ve already mentioned, the form of mimesis is only a partial theory of agency – it describes a subset of behavior whose origins lie elsewhere. The exhaustive complement to mimetic behaviors, then, must be original behaviors that we, in some sense, create ourselves. This distinction is the highest division in Girard’s psychological landscape.

To clarify, it is not as if any specific instance of behavior necessarily has to be exclusively original or mimetic. Even the seemingly mimetic example I gave of ordering the same burger as one’s friend must involve some originality: I probably gesture to the waiter in a different way than our friend did, form our own words when ordering, etc. Behaviors are not exclusively mimetic or original but exist on a spectrum – Girard says as much in his discussion of innovation: “a truly innovative process [is often] continuous with imitation.” But this is as far as Girard’s interest in original behavior seem to extend: there is no discussion behind the complementary logic that forms these original actions. Whether that be reason, instinct, or intuition – Girard doesn’t venture an answer and seems content in leaving half of his landscape unfinished. Instead, he dedicates his energy exclusively in analyzing mimesis, and not without reason: as I will soon show, Girard is interested in analyzing instances of mimesis so inflamed that they become the dominant, if not exclusive, logic that govern behavior and events.

But even within the realm of mimetic behavior Girard’s focus is heavily partial. This partiality is what his original contributions are to the lineage of mimesis. Of course, mimesis is nothing new. It has received significant treatment in the philosophical tradition starting from Plato, whose metaphysics and politics revolved around mimesis, and Aristotle, who coined man “the most imitative creature in the world.” Girard conceives of his own contribution to this well-established tradition, then, as illuminating an overlooked species of mimesis. While other philosophers have thoroughly examined how we imitate the non-acquisitive aspects of others, such as language and customs, Girard focuses on the instances where we imitate the desires of others. This latter type, what Girard termed “acquisitive mimesis” or “mimetic desire,” is central to his work as the generating mechanism of both culture and violence. This distinction, then – between non-acquisitive mimesis and acquisitive mimesis – would be the next division we should have in mind in his psychological landscape. While these divisions – and, thus, Girard’s focus – may seem somewhat arbitrary now, the full import of Girard’s partiality will reveal itself in Chapter 3 when we interrogate his significance.

Chapter 2. Acquisitive Mimesis

As did Girard, I will focus the rest of my reconstruction only on the acquisitive side of mimesis: mimetic desire. After introducing these technical terms properly in their respective sections, I will detail how mimetic desire ranges from physical desire to metaphysical desire (Section 2.1), from external mediation to internal mediation (Section 2.2), and, from the positive to the negative phase (Section 2.3).

2.1 Physical Desire and Metaphysical Desire

The species of mimetic desire that features most heavily in Girard – metaphysical desire – is motivated to acquire objects not for their inherent qualities but to be like a model who also desires or already possesses the object. I use objects here in the broadest sense of the word: materialities, positions, companions, experiences, etc. It is termed metaphysical because the strength of this desire – unbeknownst to the desiring subject who truly craves the object – is not correlated to any qualities of the object and takes upon a reality of its own based on the desirability of the model. It is, in short, deceitful. The drive, in Girard’s own words, “to be what the other becomes when he possesses this or that object” permeates our daily existence, most noticeably in celebrity culture and advertising slogans such as “Be like Mike!”

But we don’t select models randomly nor is it any arbitrary state of being that we want. Girard’s insight is that behind every state of being we seemingly want to acquire – smart, attractive, successful, etc. – lies a common denominator that we are really after: “metaphysical autonomy.” This term may be unfamiliar even to those intimately acquainted with Girardian theory. I concede, Girard only uses this exact formulation in a single utterance: “In Dostoyevsky’s eyes the false promise is essentially a promise of metaphysical autonomy.” When describing the state of being we are really after he, much more commonly, uses “reality,” “freedom,” “self-sufficiency,” and “pride.” So why have I chosen, instead, to use “metaphysical autonomy?” First, the other formulations carry with them heavy philosophical baggage that may be as limiting as they are revealing. I prefer to begin with a cleaner connotative slate and introduce dimensions of this concept at my control. Second, metaphysical autonomy captures the two distinct and, as we will soon see, competing ideals that constitute this state of being – reality (metaphysical) and freedom (autonomy). Third, as I’ve just mentioned, “metaphysical” carries a negative connotation in Girard’s use of “metaphysical desire” as describing that which has a reality that is deceitful, illusionary, or false. This description will also be accurate for metaphysical autonomy – for numerous reasons we have yet to explore, it is a goal that will constantly allude the Girardian subject. Of course, this is just a minor interpretative choice, nothing of substance would be lost if we used any of the other formulations instead. 

As should be made obvious by his undisciplined interchanging of these term, Girard is characteristically unsystematic in his use of this concept and never gives a fully formed definition. Therefore, just as we elucidated the form of mimesis in a dialogue with Hume, I suggest that we understand metaphysical autonomy under the light of Hegel. In his famous Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes a hypothetical subject’s journey to realize freedom. In the earlier sections, Hegel’s subject aims to do so by searching for free things externally in the world. Then, the Phenomenology takes a turn, starting from the section titled “Self-Consciousness.” From here on, instead of searching for freedom in external things, the subject itself tries to become free. It is this latter part of the Phenomenology – the subject’s quest for its own freedom – that is especially illuminating for Girard. Specifically, there are three qualities in Hegel’s notion of freedom that help add clarity to Girard’s idea of metaphysical autonomy. 

Metaphysical autonomy and freedom are, first and foremost, ontological statuses. Contrary to everyday usages of the word, Hegel describes “freedom” primarily with ontological language, as the “absolute … what truly exists … it is the essence, or, what exists-in-itself.” Alongside this positive definition of freedom as that which is most real, Hegel also introduces an important negative criterion: to not depend on an other. These same ontological intuitions can also be found in Girard. In his main book on mimetic psychology – Deceit, Desire, and the Novel – Girard describes the fluctuations of metaphysical autonomy, in at least three instances, as a gain or loss in “reality.” Furthermore, Hegel’s negative criterion of independence, as will be spelled out in a later section, will also find its way into the concept. 

Second, for both Hegel and Girard, this ontological status requires practical confirmation. That is to say, it is not through reasoned analysis that we gain certainty of our ontological status but through practical interactions. In Hegel, this point is exemplified in the master-slave dialectic. The master gains certainty of his freedom not by sitting in a room, philosophizing about metaphysics, but through his relationship with the slave. Positively, the slave transforms the world to be habitable to the master – who, in turn, gains certainty of himself as real because he sees real objects in the world, tailored just for him, that give concrete expression to his being and character. Negatively, the master is not dependent on the slave. Again, this should not be interpreted metaphysically – that the atoms which constitute the master aren’t gravitationally bound by those of the slave – but socially and ethically – the slave does not impose any normative obligations upon the master, he exists merely to serve. The master, for example, can go hunting without asking for the salve’s permission – the former’s ontological independence is confirmed through his practical independence. Just as this ontological status requires practical confirmation, so does it carry profound practical consequences if not confirmed. When practical interactions disturb our freedom, we experience not just a mere cognitive disturbance or epistemic doubt but a deep ethical despair that pervades our being. Hegel says as much when he describes the perilous journey that his hypothetical subject goes through and the series of violations to its understanding of freedom that it will experience “as the path of doubt, or, more properly, as the path of despair.” Again, these observations are echoed in Girard. What caused the fluctuations in metaphysical autonomy I alluded to in the last paragraph are not metaphysical insights but practical, social, and ethical phenomena: the allure of high society, “desire and hatred,” and “rivalry.” Furthermore, the absence of metaphysical autonomy is felt so strongly by the subject, that it manifests as none other than the animating force behind Girard’s social observations: shame. Under the light of this second point, it is perhaps easier to understand the ontological status Girard believes we are after as “existing in great measure.”

Given the practical import of freedom and metaphysical autonomy, it should come as no surprise that, third, Girard and Hegel take them to be the foundational end of human subjects. They are foundational, in one sense, because they are the true ends of our actions. Hegel seems to suggest that the utility of the goods created by the slave for the master is merely secondary. What the master is really after is the confirmation of his freedom that these tailored goods provide. As a contemporary corollary, the disproportionate allure of fine dining is perhaps better explained, not by the quality of the food, but the type of social standing we conceive ourselves to have when we are served in such a delicate way. Freedom and metaphysical autonomy are also foundational because the drive towards them are persistent. Put negatively, humans will not be satisfied until these ends have been obtained. But beyond mere persistence, these drives are also immensely powerful. In the section leading up to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic – “the Struggle unto Death” – rivals are engaged in duels where they risk their lives for the sake of their freedom. So it is with Girard: shame is going to reveal itself to be such a powerful drive that, to the more deluded Girardian subjects, life itself will seem secondary to the metaphysical autonomy of one’s being.

Yet, as helpful as Hegel may be, we should delineate two important differences between the philosophers. First, unlike Hegel – who meticulously lays out the criterion for freedom throughout the Phenomenology – Girard never fully articulates what the requirements for metaphysical autonomy are. Indeed, as we work through the contradictions of metaphysical autonomy, we will reveal specific demands, but we shouldn’t expect to walk away with a comprehensive criterion. This lack of a precise definition burdens us with a vast interpretive freedom that we must use carefully. Second, the dialectical journey of Hegel’s subject, however difficult, is eventually successful. At the end of the Phenomenology, the subject understands what the actuality of freedom looks like. While there is indeed a dialectic to be spoken of in Girard, it is a dialectical regression where subjects follow exceedingly perverse ways to obtain metaphysical autonomy. We will see the ideal of metaphysical autonomy altered but never realized. The most important difference, therefore, is this: in the final analysis, the Girardian subject can only be satisfied when it renounces metaphysical autonomy as a goal. Otherwise, in so far as a subject has this ontological status as an end, it will always fail immanently, and experience constant shame.  

Metaphysical desire, then, is the faulty logic by which we aim to resolve this shame when we haven’t yet let go of metaphysical autonomy as an end. We search, however unconsciously, for models whom we perceive to have this elusive quality and try to obtain the objects that they desire or possess, with the unconscious assumption that these objects are what make them metaphysically autonomous. The exact mechanism is this: when I see someone who I consider to be metaphysically autonomous perform a behavior that I take to be constitutive of their autonomy – these have to be significant acts core to their identity – the same behavior is suggested to me, as it always is through the form of mimesis. What’s different, however, from other instances of mimesis, is that this suggestion is not just nudged but backed by the full force of my shame. This is because my shame is desperate to find its own resolution, and is quick to latch on to any behavior that could confer metaphysical autonomy. As an example, if I watch Michael Jordan put on a new pair of sneakers and advertisements convince me that those sneakers are constitutive of Jordan’s greatness, then the act of possessing and lacing up those exact sneakers will take on a metaphysical allure. I will conclude, wrongfully we must add, that my shame will be resolved once I own and put on a pair of those shoes.

Metaphysical desire proceeds through the form of mimesis and is fueled by the force of shame. Because shame is such a foundational force and its ends are so ambiguous, metaphysical desire is infinitely malleable – much more so than the desire for a burger in the example I gave. In that case, the force of mimetic behavior – hunger – is a concrete desire largely determined already by the subject. After all, hunger can only be directed to a limited array of objects, namely, food. The external suggestion of a burger merely guides this desire that has mostly been shaped by the subject. Even before mimesis gave it its final form, hunger is already – to a large degree – determined. Metaphysical desire, on the other hand, is much more malleable and requires more social constitution to give it shape. This is because its force – an ontological yearning – is one level more foundational, abstract, and unsubstantiated than a concrete desire like hunger. Whereas hunger is a largely originally-authored, concrete desire that comes formed already in the subject, metaphysical desire needs mimesis to first give it shape before it can even be a concrete desire. The idea is that the ends of shame are so ambiguous, we don’t even know where to begin. If shame is to motivate our practical activity – and, for Girard, it certainly does – we first need others to suggest a more concrete desire that we can act upon. Whereas hunger can only be directed to a limited array of objects, metaphysical desire can take shape as any desire and be directed towards any object depending on who the model is. If I grew up with a Don Juan as a father, perhaps my shame takes the form of a desire for sexual conquest. If I spent my childhood with philosophers, perhaps my shame manifests as desire to write treatises. If I was educated in Imperial Japan, perhaps my shame takes on the shape of a desire to die for the Emperor.

As these examples suggest, the plasticity of metaphysical desire is how human customs can be so diverse. Yet, it is also what makes metaphysical desire so compulsive and unsatisfying. The malleability of metaphysical means that it is deceitful: we are oblivious that this intense desire we feel for the object is because of our shame and the metaphysical autonomy of model. Instead, we consider whatever concrete desire our shame manifests as to be original and its object to be extremely desirable because of its intrinsic qualities. Unbeknownst to us, what really defines metaphysical desire is, Girard observes, “pride and shame.” That is to say, desire is not concerned with the object per se but what the object says about us: what metaphysical autonomy (pride) the object may confer that can resolve our harrowing sense of shame. The strength of metaphysical desire increases with the intensity of our shame, the degree of metaphysical autonomy we attribute to the model, and the strength of their desire for the object. In reality, and hidden from us, the object itself makes no contributions whatsoever. The canonical example is romance. So often we find a previously uninteresting prospect suddenly become attractive as soon as we find that a formidable rival desires them. This increase in attraction has nothing to do with the prospect and everything to do with the rival and ourselves. While metaphysical desire, from the perspective of the desiring subject, is directed at and responding to some inherent quality of the object, it really is a perverse fascination with the mediating model and one’s own ontological insecurity. 

Framed in this light, it is not difficult to see why metaphysical desire will be an immanent failure: what it aims at (an object) and what it really wants (being) aren’t even the same type of thing. The idea is that, as soon as we actually obtain the object, we will realize through experience that it can’t really confer upon us the prized ontological status that we seek. And how can it if what made the object so charming was the model and not the object itself? As a result, the only objects that maintain their metaphysical allure – that we can still believe have the power to confer metaphysical autonomy – are necessarily the ones that we haven’t yet obtained because of their difficulty. This is quite plausible: it is easy for most people to reject the idea that buying shoes is the key to our ultimate satisfaction because shoes are accessible. Anyone who believes so can simply buy a pair of shoes and correct their belief through experience. The belief that financial success is not the key to our ultimate satisfaction, however, is more widely held because the object is much more difficult to obtain and, thus, harder to validate. Therefore, Girard concludes, cultures and people who are primarily motivated by this metaphysical drive often confound the difficult with the good. In its extreme form, this logic leads to the perversions of masochism and sadism which mistake the difficult (specifically, the painful) as the good.

2.1.1 A New Reading

Before we further expand upon the failures of metaphysical desire, let us at least sketch out the rest of our psychological landscape. What is the relationship between metaphysical desire and mimetic desire? Are there non-mimetic desires?  

The popular reading – offered by these commentators and more – identifies three categories of motivational forces or, loosely, desires: instinctual needs, mimetic desires, and metaphysical desires. According to this interpretation, instinctual needs – eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping – are non-mimetic. In the realm of human motivation, they are the exhaustive complement to mimetic desire. That is to say, we are either exclusively motivated by instinctual needs or mimetic desires. Where do metaphysical desires fit in this picture? They are interpreted to be a subset of mimetic desires, specifically inflamed ones – implying that mimetic desire is understood, just like metaphysical desire, as solely a desire “to be” with no considerations given to the object. This quote is representative of the popular reading: “mimetic desire is always a desire ‘to be,’ to exist in greater measure, a desire for an achievement or a dreamed-of completeness that one might feel stands before one but is being held onto by the other.” The transition from mimetic desire to metaphysical desire is understood by this popular reading as one solely of intensification – more shame in oneself, more metaphysical autonomy attributed to the model. What is crucial here, and what I will soon find problem with, is the idea that mimetic desire and metaphysical desire operate on exactly the same logic, in search of the exact same objects – the only difference being intensity. This landscape of human motivation consists of the jointly-exhaustive, mutually-exclusive pair of instinctual needs and mimetic desire, the latter sometimes taking on an intensified and metaphysical form. The popular reading paints a picture of humanity as either engaged with the most animalistic of urges or the most lofty and abstract considerations of metaphysical autonomy. At the same time, it must demarcate the world of objects into two fundamental types: one set – air, food, shelter, etc. – to satisfy our instinctual needs and another set – cars, medals, décor, etc. – aimed at by our ontological yearning. To be sure, this bifurcation seems to be directly supported by passages in Girard like such:

Once his basic needs are satisfied . . .  man is subject to intense desires, though he may not know precisely for what. The reason is that he desires being, something he himself lacks and which some other person seems to possess. The subject thus looks to that other person to inform him of what he should desire in order to acquire that being.

My alternative reading is this: the realm of human motivation consists of two fundamental drives that have different aims but nonetheless can, and always do, co-exist alongside each other: metaphysical desire and, in Girard’s own terms, “physical” desire. If metaphysical desire is directed at what objects say about the metaphysical autonomy of our being vis a vis a model, physical desire, I suggest, is directed at the experience conferred by the qualities of the object. By experience I mean the immediate, visceral moments of interacting with an object. Or, to put it negatively and tautologically, experience encompasses all the consequences of our having interacted with an object other than what it says about the metaphysical autonomy of our being. The experience of sex could be moments of pleasure or intimacy. The experience of a car could be the utility it provides in saving us time or the delight we find in its aesthetics. The experience of a job could be enjoyable flow states of engagement. Experience is transient and fluid while being is permanent and solid. A narrow but hopefully illuminating way to put it is that physical desire aims at utility whereas metaphysical desire aims at identity. I suggest that any specific instance of desire always contains these two aims – the experiences we hope to enjoy (desire “to experience” / physical desire) and the being we aim to enhance (desire “to be” / metaphysical desire) – each varying in strength depending on the specific desire. Under this light, it might be more appropriate to label “physical” desire as “phenomenological” or “experiential” desire, but I will refrain to stay closer to the original text.

The most fundamental disagreement between these two readings is this. In the realm of human motivation, the popular reading takes the desire “to be” and instinctual needs to be jointly-exhaustive and mutually-exclusive, whereas the suggested reading takes the desire “to be” and the desire “to experience” to be jointly-exhaustive but not mutually-exclusive. Framed as the latter’s critique of the former: first, instinctual needs and the desire “to be” are not mutually-exclusive. One single instance of desire can be motivated by both, as my example of fine-dining suffices to show. We can’t neatly bifurcate the world into objects that serve our needs from those that constitute our self-conception. But, perhaps I am being uncharitable – this is an easy fix anyway. The more foundational critique, then, is this: instinctual needs and the desire “to be” are not jointly-exhaustive. That is to say, the exhaustive complement of “to be” is not instinctual need, but “to experience.” This is evident after observing the many things which desire points to that are neither needs nor being. Basketball is one such example – it is clearly not an instinctual need and, even if it is pursued partially for being, there is a residual that is best described as the “experience” of playing basketball. My contributions, then, are twofold. First, a single instance of desire can have another aim co-existing alongside the desire “to be.” Second, and more significantly, that other aim is best captured by the desire “to experience” instead of instinctual need.

With this new model in view, it is not hard to find where “mimetic desire” fits in the picture. In so far as desire is substantiated through the mimetic form, it is a mimetic desire. Otherwise, it is a – what we can call – “original” desire. Clearly, there are mimetic physical desires, such as the example of ordering a burger – my desire for the experience of food is given shape by a mimetic suggestion. There are also original physical desires: if, after reasoned deliberation, I choose to get a salad instead. And while metaphysical desires are inherently mimetic, we should still permit them to vary on a spectrum between mimetic and original. That is to say, there are some paths of achieving metaphysical autonomy that are mere copies and some which involve more synthesis and, as a result, originality. 

This chart represents the full scope of human desires, or, motivations. But, for the rest of the project I will be focusing on the top half of mimetic desire because we are, to repeat, focused on reconstructing the landscape of mimetic behavior; furthermore, the operation of mimesis is so pervasive that even the most original of desires will have, as I have already argued, mimetic traces. 

In summary, mimetic desire is a desire that proceeds through the mimetic form which always contains within it, although in varying proportions, a desire “to be” and a desire “to experience.” Contra the popular reading, mimetic desire is not just a desire for being, even though it may contain such ends; that is to say, mimetic desire is not just the same species of desire as metaphysical desire merely less intense. Under this light, the transition from mimetic desire to metaphysical desire isn’t just an inflammation of the former. It is marked by an intensification of the metaphysical dimension of mimetic desire combined with a crowding out of any physical considerations for the object.

The central role which the desire “to be” plays in Girard, makes it easy to overlook the contributions of the object and neglect an entire spectrum of desire. Indeed, the current interpretation leaves little room for the object’s qualities to influence our desire beyond satisfying our most basic of instincts. 

If we read Girard carefully, or so I hope to show, we will find plentiful textual support to make the interpretative moves I am suggesting. My strong demarcation between two species of mimetic desire – the physical and the metaphysical – aims, above all, at doing justice to Girard’s utterance, in his first book, that “the ‘physical’ and ‘metaphysical’ in desire always fluctuate at the expense of each other.” Clearly, desire is furnished with more than metaphysical concerns; it also has a physical dimension directed at the “concrete value” of the object. Mimetic desires are always at risk of the metaphysical component being inflamed and crowding out any physical considerations: “As the role of the metaphysical grows greater in desire, that of the physical diminishes in importance … [metaphysical] passion becomes more intense and the object is emptied of its concrete value.” The transition from mimetic desire to metaphysical desire is not just one of inflammation but an extinction of an entire species of the desire – physical desire. We can find similar textual evidence in Girard’s later works. On at least four occasions in Things Hidden, Girard insists that our desire isn’t solely metaphysical, differing only in intensity. Instead, the metaphysical stage is something transitioned to from a distinctly different type of desire altogether: “the desire to acquire … quickly degenerates into what I call metaphysical desire, whereby the subject seeks to acquire the being of his or her model. At such times [and only at such times], I want ‘to be what the other becomes when he possesses this or that object.’” In another instance, Girard talks about “the ‘metaphysical’ threshold” at which point desire makes this radical transformation. In yet another, he clearly draws a distinction between “having objects and being busy with them” (physical desire) with being “taken over completely by the mimetic models” (metaphysical desire). In this particular line, we are given a clue to what this other non-metaphysical desire may be directed towards: “Desire becomes detached from the object, bit by bit, and attaches itself to the model.” As common sense would expect, and as I have already suggested, this alternative desire is one directed towards the qualities of the object; or, more accurately, the experiences made possible by the qualities of the object.

But even beyond these textual considerations, we can embark on an empirical inquiry to reveal the limitations of the current interpretation. Imagine a seasoned surfer, living in a coastal town. She wakes up early in the morning, excited to catch some waves. How do we explain her desire for surfing? The current interpretation only permits us to understand her desire as instinctual – which surfing clearly is not – or motivated by metaphysical concerns. Indeed, she may have gotten into surfing motivated solely by a desire “to be.” As a young girl in a culture that prioritized leisure, she may have been exposed to certain popular celebrities who also surfed, and, in an act of imitation, decided to take up the hobby. Looking forward to her first day, without any experience of surfing or any similar activities, her desire can reasonably be described as largely metaphysical. That is, the strength of her desire to surf is not correlated to the experience of surfing, for she has none, but rather to the autonomy of the celebrities that mediated her decision. But is this still the case years later when she has countless of hours of experience under her belt? To be sure, part of her desire for surfing can still be metaphysical – maybe now mediated by a specific professional surfer. But it seems implausible to explain the strength of her desire in its entirety by only appealing to metaphysical concerns; barring extreme cases, the experience of surfing – the thrill and adrenaline rush – must factor into it as well. As this thought experiment demonstrates, by introducing experience as a legitimate object of desire alongside being, I relieve mimetic theory of much explanatory burden and the charge of implausibility. As generative as it is, the mimetic pursuit of being alone would be hard-pressed to produce satisfying explanations for a whole host of psychological phenomena, such as flow states, which are an undeniable part of human experience that seem to have little to do with metaphysical concerns. By distinguishing experience from being, I demarcate an explanatory sphere mostly reserved for other psychological theories, while clarifying and lessening the burden of Girard’s own.  

Furthermore, there are three central philosophical reasons why the current interpretation can be improved. First, it may lead us to underestimate how problematic desire is. The standard reading differentiates between an inflamed metaphysical desire and non-inflamed mimetic desire, which makes the latter seem unproblematic. Yet the logic of the desire “to be” – which we are rightfully concerned about in metaphysical desire – is already fully formed in mimetic desire. This desire is always problematic because, first, the goal it aims for – metaphysical autonomy – is impossible to achieve for reasons we will explore. It is always an immanent failure. Second, this prideful striving for autonomy is always accompanied by a crippling sense of shame. To be sure, this desire can be instrumentally valuable in providing us with other goods even if it is always an immanent failure – the despairing researcher may be motivated to make productive discoveries which are of material benefit even if they don’t resolve his shame. And certainly, the desire “to be” can be tamed to a point where it is manageable. But this does not change how problematic the desire “to be” which exists within mimetic desire is, even when it is not inflamed. More worryingly, every one of us is almost always motivated by this drive and plagued by shame, however subtly. To illustrate how pervasive the problematic nature of our desire is, Girard called the prideful lie of metaphysical autonomy an “illusion which permeates our world” and the corresponding shame a condition “common to all men.” The centrality of the metaphysical drive in Girard is a reminder of our common fallenness. Just like the Christian concept of original sin, we are almost always plagued by the desire “to be.” We should ask “how much” and not “if” we are under its grasp. By describing metaphysical desire as an inflamed version of mimetic desire, the popular interpretation suggests, even if it does not intend, that there is a healthy species of the desire “to be” and the same problems that trouble metaphysical desire aren’t already contained within everyday mimetic desire. It paints shame as a pathology instead of a constitutive experience of the human condition. My alternative reading emphasizes that there is no unproblematic desire “to be” and no total escape from shame. They can, for the most part, only be tamed but not extinguished. It emphasizes how problematic desire is in and of itself, even without considering the disastrous social consequences it leads to.

Second, and paradoxically, the current interpretation can lead us to overestimate how problematic desire is for Girard. This is because it does not permit, apart from our basic needs, any contributions from the object to inform our desires. If mimetic desire is only a desire “to be,” then any non-instinctual activity must be solely motivated by metaphysical ambitions. And, since this ontological goal is impossible, these activities will be completely illegitimate. We would have to say to the entrepreneur building a new venture, the artist creating a masterpiece, the athlete in a state of flow, and the academic working on a groundbreaking treatise: “the desire you have for your work has no grounding in reality and experience whatsoever and, even worse, what you are really after – metaphysical autonomy – is completely unobtainable. Not only are your pursuits immanent failures, but they are complete failures – you will have made absolutely no progress towards the only thing truly motivating you.” Instead, my interpretation offers: “the part of your desire directed at the experience of practicing your craft can be satisfied, but the hope that you can make yourself real by practicing your craft is an illusion. You will immanently fail at obtaining metaphysical autonomy, but there may be plentiful experiential rewards along the way.” Not only is the former explanation empirically implausible, as I have argued, but it is also deeply alienating to consider our most intimate desires – the love for our spouses, the drive to mastery, the care for our family – as entirely deceitful. This is perhaps why Girard is commonly accused of ignoring the relevance of the object and its contributions to desire. To be sure, there are instances, where the metaphysical component is so inflamed that it completely crowds out any physical concerns – in these cases, the object does not matter at all. And certainly, even our most intimate desires, the ones we consider to be solely “our own,” can and often do have external origins. But even the staunchest Girardian must concede that there is also a wide array of desires where the object does play a significant role. Lest we delegitimize and problematize the entirety of the human condition, we must make room for a species of desire that is informed by the reality of experience. 

These first two points can be summarized as such: the standard reading does not problematize desire enough by implying that there is an unproblematic version of the desire “to be”; it overly problematizes desire by declaring that, other than satisfying our basic needs, we are enveloped in narcissistic pursuits of making our being real with no other legitimate ends in view.

Third, and most relevant to this project, the current interpretation precludes any psychological solutions. If, other than a narrow array of instinctual needs, we only have the desire “to be,” and this is as problematic as I have made it seem, then there is no way out. If we encourage this drive, we merely exacerbate the problem. Yet, if we tame this drive, we have no dynamic motivational resources to call upon. The same stroke that extinguishes the desire “to be” would condemn the human subject into a state of vegetation.

For these overwhelming textual, empirical, and philosophical reasons, I suggest that we can best defend the plausibility of mimetic theory by interpreting it to say that we are motivated by both desirable “experiences” as well as the metaphysical autonomy of our “being.” Certainly, the boundary between “experience” and “being” is not so clear. Who we conceive ourselves to be colors our experiences as much as experiences, if ever so subtly, shape our self-conception. But one ought only examine how different the consequences are of, say, pursuing a job because the work is engaging (experience) and because of what it says about us (being), to see that the distinction I have drawn is nonetheless meaningful as a heuristic, especially at the extremes.  

To be sure, those critical of my interpretive suggestions can point to a number of considerations, textual and philosophical, that appear to justify their skepticism. Philosophically, Girard has always rejected the Romantic depiction of spontaneous desire and the enlightenment’s concept of the self-sufficient, rationally-directed individual. By introducing original and physical species of desire, I seem to be, at the very least, betraying the extent to which Girard insisted that we are mimetic, relative, and social creatures. After all, aren’t I just promoting “the lie of spontaneous desire … [defending] the same illusion of autonomy to which modern man is passionately devoted”? Textually, Girard often makes claims such as “imitative desire is always a desire to be another” which seemingly precludes any contribution from the object whatsoever. 

To the textual critique, I respond that my emphasis on physical desire as a central interpretive device is indeed not positively supported by every utterance Girard makes on the matter. But it can be made consistent if we consider that on at least three occasions Girard concedes that he often uses “desire” or “mimetic/imitative desire” when he is referring specifically to “metaphysical desire.” Claims about desire’s sole metaphysical origin that seem total prima facie, like the quote provided, is only meant to apply to metaphysical desire. Another path of resolution, for utterances like this is to take “always” to mean “present but not necessarily all-encompassing.” That is to say, mimetic desire always has a component of the desire to be, but it is not necessarily just the desire to be. 

To the philosophical critique, I respond that even if I have limited the extent to which we are mimetic in the realm of human motivation, I have not taken away the possibility that specific social conditions can inflame our desires such that it becomes exclusively metaphysical and mimetic. In other words, I have not limited the extent to which the desire “to be” can influence society, and have kept the integrity of Girard’s social conclusions intact. 

Furthermore, mimesis still permeates the landscape of desire, as I have painted it, for three key reasons. First, desire is always constituted by both metaphysical and physical considerations, what varies is the proportion. Even a (seemingly) physical activity as drinking water may be embellished, ever so slightly, with metaphysical conceptions of how our favorite celebrity athletes replenish themselves. Desire will always be somewhat mimetic because there will almost always be a metaphysical component that is inherently mimetic. Second, there are traces of mimesis even within original physical desires. This is because experiences are constituted by contributions from both us as well as qualities of the object. Specifically, our interpretations of the world radically change the nature of our experience and what we desire. Holding the view that “cows are sacred” would change our original physical desire for beef as much as the attitude “the purpose of life is leisure” may enhance our experience of surfing. Interpretations alter the landscape of experiences. Since they, in no small part, have mimetic origins – that is to say many of them are adopted through imitation – even our original, physical desires are mimetic, albeit through a more indirect route. Under this light, mimesis is not everything, but everything is mimetic. That is to say, mimesis is not the core mechanism behind every psychological phenomenon, but it permeates all of our capacities. Thirdly, recognition is an experience we desire. The pursuit for recognition will involve me mimetically inhabiting the minds of others to understand their values so that I can pursue the objects they deem worthy of recognition. The point I am trying to make is this: the desire for the experience of receiving recognition – even though it is an original physical end – requires us to use our mimetic capacities. With these three moves, I hope to have shown that my interpretation has not limited the extent to which our motivational resources our mimetic. On the contrary, it shows how fundamental and permeated mimesis is as well as the varied forms it can take.

2.1.2 Mimesis and Recognition

The intuition behind my last defensive move, however, raises an important objection to Girard we must now turn to. This objection is not, as the ones I have been diffusing are, on the plausibility of Girard’s psychological observations, but rather their originality. Namely, in a philosophical canon that has not withheld ink on the centrality of recognition for human beings, what does Girard’s mimetic account have to offer? Prima facie, it seems that instances of imitation can be more elegantly explained, with less philosophical baggage and assumptions, by understanding mimesis as merely a stratagem to win recognition. To defend Girard’s originality against this intuition, we will now put him in dialogue with Rousseau. Rousseau’s proximity with Girard makes him a particularly threatening recognition theorist and one who, through this dialogue, will illuminate the role that recognition plays in mimesis and vice versa. 

Rousseau differentiates between two primary species of human motivations: amour-propre and amour de soi. For our purposes, it is sufficient to understand amour de soi as encompassing the passions which aim at our self-preservation – food, shelter, sex, etc. – it is a motivation we share with animals. Amour-propre, on the other hand, is concerned with others’ judgements of us or, in Rousseau’s own words, it yearns “to have a position, to be a part, to count for something.” It is a desire for recognition, specifically, two distinct species of recognition: respect and esteem. Respect is a recognition of one’s legitimacy: that one is morally worthy and that one’s ends deserve consideration. Respect is what underlies, say, human rights – it is a status we confer upon all subjects who meet some general criteria. Esteem, on the other hand, is a recognition of one’s desirability: that one is excellent at what one does, often that one is better than others, and that one is worthy of praise and emulation. Esteem is what underlies, say, academic awards – it is a status we confer upon a specific subject in proportion to their particular qualities and achievements. Importantly, and what will prove so threatening to Girard, the ultimate end which amour-propre seeks is not a mere cognitive confirmation that one is recognized nor a fleeting feeling from being respected or esteemed but an existential confirmation of our reality. In other words, when we are seeking recognition, what we are really after is for others to confirm our being as real. Furthermore, just as mimetic desire is for Girard, amour-propre, for Rousseau, is both the characteristic that defines humanity as well as the constitutive psychological motor behind our social ills as well as our collective achievements.  To this drive, Rousseau ambitiously claims, “we owe what is best and worst among men: our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors, our conquerors and our philosophers.” Even stronger, the capacities which we often consider constitutive of humanity – morality, freedom, rationality, even subjectivity itself – are all, in some sense, made possible by amour-propre.

The first and most obvious threat, then, are the similar roles which mimetic desire and amour-propre play in their respective theoretical systems. Both are psychological mechanisms that define the human condition, aimed at relative goods, mediated by others, and responsible for the best and worst of humanity. This superficial similarity must be what hastens commentators to conclude (wrongfully I will show) that mimetic desire “is just another name for Rousseau’s amour propre.” This concern is fairly easy to assuage: despite their similar roles in social theory, the aims and logic of both are fundamentally different. The Rousseauian subject aims to be recognized, its success is dependent upon winning the recognition of others. The Girardian subject, on the other hand, desires a specific object that is indeed mediated by an other, but one whose recognition is irrelevant. After all, when people are mimetically compelled to buy Michael Jordan’s shoes, they aren’t deluded in thinking that Jordan himself will personally recognize them in any way. The logic of mimetic desire, however deceitful, is that the mere possession of the object is enough to confer metaphysical autonomy with or without explicit recognition from the model. A canonical defense would be to point to figures such as Don Quixote whose pursuits are rarely accompanied by any observers to even confer esteem – with whatever few observers present offering more derision than esteem. In these circumstances, it is more plausible to understand Don Quixote as gaining metaphysical desire for the deeds of Amadis of Gaul rather than pursuing external recognition.

The task to defend Girard becomes much harder, however, when we permit amour-propre to be directed by an internal form of recognition. Rousseau seems to suggest, even if he does not develop this point fully, that we tend to take on the normative judgements and perspectives of others, collecting them into an “inner observer.” Amour-propre desires the recognition coming from this inner observer who resides within us but whose origins are nonetheless foreign as much as it does from real, external others. In other words, certain acts that appear internally motivated without the support of any external forms of recognition still retain characteristics of being observed and recognized by an other – they are still motivated by a desire for recognition. Don Quixote may have internalized the values of Amadis of Gaul to form an inner observer, the rebuttal goes, that motivates through recognition albeit not in the traditional, external way. To this, the Girardian must concede: the internalization of normative attitudes does indeed encompass a great deal of mimetic phenomena. But, the form of mimesis, as a theory of agency, is more fundamental as it explains the precise mechanism by which this inner observer is formed. Framed as a critique: it is simpler and cleaner to think of this process as simply internalizing normative values through mimesis than a roundabout description of forming some unnecessarily complex inner observer. Furthermore, mimesis also explains the acquisition of many behaviors that are not normative attitudes (e.g. patterns of speech) that are poorly explained by a pursuit for recognition, even in an internal form. Therefore, mimesis underlies, encompasses, explains, and expands the scope of Rousseau’s inner observer as it did for Hume’s sympathy. 

More crucially, Girard would add, to understand this process of internalization as a pursuit of recognition, while not wrong per se, does not place enough emphasis on what the human subject is really after: the ontological status of our being. This is because, for Girard, the desire for recognition is fully explained and fueled by our desire for metaphysical autonomy. Therefore, it would be misleading to discuss the former as an autonomous desire without the latter in view.

To fully develop this point we need to uncover the precise relation between recognition and metaphysical autonomy in Girard by turning to his discussion of the coquette in Things Hidden. The coquette – a seductive woman who basis her identity and worth on her ability to charm men – achieves metaphysical autonomy to a certain degree: Girard describes her as having “self-sufficiency.” Her success – however limited as we will soon find it to be – is because she has a “desire of the self for the self.” What Girard means is that she is able to affirm her own sexual desirability or, using a concept we have already developed, esteem herself. This self-directed esteem is what makes the coquet, to some degree, metaphysically autonomous. Why is that? Girard does not give an explanation but we can reconstruct one for him. First, I remind the reader that it is the desire from a metaphysically autonomous model which gives objects an ontological prestige or, as Girard puts it, what “transforms [an] object into something that appears super-abundantly real.” If desire is the authority through which metaphysical autonomy is conferred upon objects, then it requires little strain to see esteem – which can be understood as an abstract species of desire that confirms an other’s desirability – as having the same authority for subjects. We gain metaphysical autonomy by being desired or, more generally and abstractly, esteemed. Second, what is equally as important is that the coquette does not esteem or desire anyone or anything else. The only species of desire she has is directed at herself, a “circular desire that never gets outside itself.” The idea here is this: if my desire pursues an external object that I consider to have reality, then I am, at the same time, alienating and projecting this coveted ontological status externally upon that object. Yet, by directing her desire only towards herself and not showing interest in anything external – this is what Girard meant by her “indifference” – the coquette is unalienated and affirms her being and her being alone as the locus of worth and reality. 

We can only speak of a proper desire for recognition, however, after Girard’s next move: the coquette is only able to desire herself in this way because she attracts a suitor that desires her. What Girard has in mind is the idea that we can only convincingly and sustainably hold a certain self-conception if that self-conception is also held by others. If everyone tells us that we are ugly, we are still free to believe that we are sexually desirable, but that belief will be deficient, unstable, lack a degree of reality, and ultimately unable to confer the ontological status that we seek. Put more generally, we can only manifest a behavior with certainty and confidence if it proceeds through the form of mimesis – if we can call to mind an external instance of said behavior that originates from an other. In these cases, we act more assuredly from a larger “we” and not just from a single “I.” I will not attempt a systematic defense of this claim but merely direct the curious reader to examine instances where we seem to act the most confidentially and easily: singing in a church choir, cheering on a sports team in a large crowd, chanting in a ceremonial ritual, etc. The assumption I hope to have teased out of Girard is that the form of mimesis not only provides suggestions for behavior but also imbues behavior with an added degree of confidence and certainty. Thus, while the suitor’s desire may be helpful for the coquette’s autonomy in and of itself – as esteem confirming the desirability of her being – its primary import is instrumental: it “offers her a form of desire she can copy … The flame of coquetry can only burn on the combustible material provided by the desires of others.” And just as the coquette’s self-directed desire is made possible by the suitor’s desire, so is the suitor’s desire by the coquette’s desire. Girard explains that indifference and narcissism – even, or maybe especially, when feigned – are such common tools of seduction because they project an immense desire towards oneself for others to imitate. Consider the inverse case: if the coquette does not have such a strong, narcissistic self-directed desire, the suitor’s desire would be just as ungrounded and unconfident: “If even she does not think of herself so highly, why ought I?” 

The picture Girard paints is one of dual dependency: the suitor is all the more enthralled with the coquette because she seems self-sufficient and indifferent, but she can only be so because the suitor’s intense desire reinforces this self-view. For this reason, Girard, in a surprising twist, concludes that the coquette “has no more self-sufficiency than the man who desires her.” The idea must be this: metaphysical autonomy has two related but fundamentally contradictory aims. One is reality – a sense that we exist – which is conferred by esteem. But the other, which the coquette lacks, is freedom and self-sufficiency. The strength of her self-directed desire and, thus, reality is dependent on the inbound desire from the suitor. To maintain her prized ontological position, she must continue to enthrall the suitor. “Her self-sufficiency would fall to pieces if she were wholly deprived of admiration” and, thus, it is not, in the fullest sense, self-sufficient. In the final analysis, esteem does not grant us the metaphysical reward in its entirety. In fact, there is a sense in which it takes us further away from it.

This new stratagem to achieve metaphysical autonomy – in Girard’s own words, to set up a “dazzling illusion of a self-sufficiency that we shall believe in a little ourselves if we succeed in convincing the other person of it” – is fundamentally different than the logic of pursuing metaphysically alluring objects we previously went over. What I hope to have shown is that Girard derives the logic behind the desire for recognition solely from the mimetic pursuit of metaphysical autonomy. Put simply, for Girard, we desire recognition not for its own sake but primarily because it mimetically enables us to affirm our reality in a confident, non-delusional way. Certainly, I am not claiming that this line of thinking is completely original to Girard. Rousseau, as I have mentioned already, concedes that recognition’s ultimate end is to confirm our reality; he was also aware and deeply concerned about how our desire for recognition threatens our independence. 

Despite this proximity – and to answer our motivating question directly – here is what I think Girard has to add to a recognition theorist like Rousseau. Girard is not concerned with the desire for recognition but the mimetic pursuit of metaphysical autonomy. This pursuit, as I have already shown and will continue to develop, can operate on many different logics. One such logic is the internalization of external behaviors that we consider constitutive to the model’s autonomy – I have argued that this logic underlies, encompasses, explains, and expands upon Rousseau’s inner observer. Another such logic is the desire for recognition we have just been developing. The first contribution Girard makes, then, is to uncover the deeper psychological capacities (mimesis) and motivational force (metaphysical autonomy) at play behind Rousseau’s external and internal pursuits of recognition. Second, and more substantively, by inquiring into the rules that govern metaphysical autonomy, Girard is able to uncover the logic behind a broader range of social phenomena that are related to but can’t be adequately explained by recognition. One such logic is masochism and sadism that I have already explained; another is mimetic rivalry which we will soon turn to. Girard would place these phenomena alongside the desire of recognition as stratagems to acquire metaphysical autonomy that operate on mimesis. And given how these stratagems are commensurable – they are after the same thing, operating on the same capacity after all – the Girardian challenge posed to Rousseau is that one cannot fully understand the workings of recognition without also grasping these other logics. To put it critically, Rousseau describes the existential sense we are searching for in the game of recognition too thinly: simply as a confirmation of our reality in the eyes of others.  That is to say, the very act of being recognized offers, one-to-one, this existential reward of being confirmed as real in the eyes of others. While Rousseau demarcates two species of rewards, one existential and one emotive, he makes them to be two sides of the same coin. Girard further differentiates these two species of rewards while acknowledging the relationship between them. By giving metaphysical autonomy a more independent and fundamental sphere of existence, Girard is able to unearth unique and independent rules that govern it. It will soon be clear how the quest for metaphysical autonomy, independent from the search for recognition, is responsible for so much of the world’s wonders as well as disasters. To summarize these two contributions in a single sentence: by exposing and further developing the fundamental mechanism and motive behind acts of recognition, Girard uncovers other co-existing logics that must be grasped alongside recognition in order to fully understand the extent to which we are social creatures.

2.1.3 The Economy of Metaphysical Autonomy

This lengthy discussion of recognition is not only productive in situating Girard externally in the larger canon but also informative in answering a particularly challenging question internal to Girard. Why do we only imitate some people and not others? The first answer would be that we imitate those we consider to be metaphysically autonomous. But what makes someone appear to possess this elusive quality? 

A satisfying answer can’t be found through a specific interpretation of Girard but can be creatively reconstructed from resources we have already developed in our discussion of the coquette, specifically, that desire (and its more abstract form, esteem) confer metaphysical autonomy. We can conceive of the world as a social graph of desire. The nodes are either people or things and the edges represent desires – in the case when it is from person to thing – or esteem – in the case when it is from person to person. With this, we can paint a plausible developmental picture. In childhood, we are placed in this web of desire and provided with people to esteem and, therefore, considered to possess metaphysical autonomy. These may be our parents, teachings, or siblings. 

From here, Girard’s own commentary on metaphysical desire is enough to answer the question. We imitate those whom we esteem, taking upon their desires for specific things and esteem for specific people, who have their own set of desired things and esteemed people which starts the process anew. So, I imitate a certain person, desire specific things, and believe some people and things to have metaphysical autonomy not due to the objective amount of desire they have directed at them but whether the people I already consider metaphysically autonomous desires them. And, of course, metaphysical autonomy is not a binary but a gradient: we consider some people and things more “real” than others.

This external graph of desire, which changes and varies, depending on the immediate situation of the world is one of three mechanisms that shapes who and what we perceive to be metaphysically autonomous. The second mechanism, we can add to Girard in a Rousseauian move, is an internalized locus of this external graph. The idea is this: being exposed to this external graph over a long period of time, we slowly build up an internalized conception of what type of person and what category of thing has metaphysical autonomy that may prima facie appear independent and spontaneous. For example, a young child may be mediated by Steve Jobs and, over the long run, consider the entire category of “entrepreneur” to possess a heightened degree of reality. Lastly, there are symbolic gestures, such as a humiliating defeat or spectacular victory, which can confer or take away metaphysical autonomy without involving esteem. I will elaborate on this in the next section. Together, these three mechanisms – the external graph of desire, the internal locus, and symbolic gestures – govern the economy of metaphysical autonomy. It should be noted at the outset how subjective this economy is to each individual based on their contingent circumstance. 

To answer our motivating question: we are intensely mediated by another person to the extent that, first, we consider them metaphysically autonomous – this is determined by all three mechanisms mentioned above. Second, we ourselves experience a strong shame. And, third, they are close to us in proximity. The strength of our metaphysical desire for a thing then is correlated to, first, the intensity of our mediation by people who also desire this thing. Second, the number of these people. Third, the strength of these people’s desires for the thing. These three encompass the external graph of desire. Fourth, the preconceived notions of reality of our internal locus. And fifth, this thing’s participation in any significant symbolic gestures. 

2.1.4 Preference for the Physical

With my reconstruction of metaphysical desire complete, hopefully it is clear why we must emphasize physical desires to defend Girard’s plausibility. What is left to be fully explained, however, is Girard’s unmistakable preference for physical desire – “being rational — functioning properly — is a matter of having objects and being busy with them” – and wholesale rejection of metaphysical desire – “being mad is a matter of letting oneself be taken over completely by the mimetic models, and so fulfilling the calling of desire.” Five unique qualities of metaphysical desire are responsible for Girard’s position.

First, metaphysical desire is impossible to satisfy. Physical desire is satisfied when it is met with the corresponding experience. Of course, one can overestimate and be disappointed but it is, in theory, satiable. Metaphysical desire, however, is not. The promise of metaphysical desire is always a lie simply because what it aims at, metaphysical autonomy, is impossible to achieve. Girard took this as fact, but now, with the resources we have developed in our discussion of esteem, we can better articulate why. Certainly, one can make steps towards the goal of metaphysical autonomy and gain a greater degree. We can either win the esteem of others or of our own internal locus. But the reality conferred to us by esteem, for aforementioned reasons, always implies a dependency on this esteem that chips away at our autonomy. If metaphysical autonomy demands not only a sense of reality but also of autonomy, then it is a lie for the simple fact that the esteem required to bring about a greater sense of reality will, at the same time, rob us of our autonomy. The other stratagems to win metaphysical autonomy will equally be met with failure. I have already detailed why this is the case for our pursuit of metaphysically alluring objects and will continue to uncover new ways in which this ontological ideal is contradictory for Girard.

Second, metaphysical desire is deceitful. Its deception lies in the fact that we always overestimate how metaphysically autonomous others are. We feel that we are the only ones lacking being. I’ll have more to say about this later. But, as a result, whenever we are disillusioned by any specific pursuit we had hoped would confer upon us metaphysical autonomy, we don’t conclude that the goal in and of itself is impossible but simply our specific stratagem of pursuing it is flawed. We come to this fatal conclusion because we are deceived that many others have successfully obtained it. We start looking for new objects to acquire and new models to imitate and end up chasing an elusive quality no one really possesses. Its deceitfulness hides its impossibility and encourages us to go on one wild goose chase after another. 

Third, metaphysical desire is relative. Esteem is rewarded relatively, only in relation and with comparison to others. Since the allocation of metaphysical autonomy is so intimately bound with the economy of esteem, it too is relative. With this quality comes many dangers: it could be an endlessly competitive pursuit, it becomes a necessarily scarce resource, and one could improve their relative standing by deliberately harming others, etc.

Fourth, metaphysical desire tends to gain an, in Girard’s own words, “’infinite’ measure” of strength. When we feel like the state of our being, our spiritual existence, is on the line, we tend to pursue objects with a fervor disproportionate to the object’s value. Not only can this overriding power make us ignore other important aspects of our life not imbued with this metaphysical quality, but it also exacerbates the negative consequences of all the other qualities mentioned. 

Fifth, metaphysical desire does not fall under the jurisdiction of reason. We can tease this position out through Girard’s discussion of the relationship between war and politics – the latter a social vehicle for reason and the former for metaphysical desire. Girard claims that politics can only control wars of utility that are fought for a specific physical objective in mind. It cannot contain wars of extermination motivated by a blinding metaphysical hate. The idea must be this: politics can only control war if the latter has a clear and rational objective in mind that is subject to the purview of reason. We need only transplant this social insight into the psychological sphere to clarify the relationship between desire and reason. If I desire something physically, there is something concrete I can point to. Reason can examine it, weigh its tradeoffs, and potentially tame or redirect it. The goal of metaphysical desire, however, is abstract and elusive. Furthermore, this pursuit of the metaphysical autonomy of the model is always hidden from the subject, disguised as a passion for the object. Reason does not even know where to begin much less be able to quantify and “weigh” it. Even more practically, metaphysical desire tends to have such strength as to override the dictates of reason. As we will soon see, this specific quality is responsible for many of the terrifying and irrational actions of groups. Without reason to tame and direct it, the only way metaphysical desire can be resolved, if it is inflamed on mass, is violent catharsis. 

The careful reader might point out that these exact same qualities of relentlessness, strength, and irrationality are also dispositions responsible for the best parts of civilization. Indeed, metaphysical desire has been an engine of progress as much as a catalyst of disaster. We will push the discussion of the positive side effects of metaphysical desire to a later chapter when we discuss what to replace it with. For the time being, we must continue to investigate how these qualities render metaphysical desire dangerous to the subject and society. It can even suck the mediating model into its sphere of corruption. To this relationship of mediation, we now turn. 

2.2 Internal Mediation and External Mediation

The logic of mimetic desire and the form it takes change depending on how desire is mediated between model and subject. In internal mediation, the pair is close enough that they end up desiring and competing over a similar set of objects. In external mediation, the pair is distant enough that, even though one mediates the desire of the other, they never converge onto similar objects. By distance I refer to two specific types. Spatio-temporal distance removes the physical possibility of competition; this I call exposure, or, more accurately, a lack thereof. Social, spiritual, and intellectual distance prevents the pair from identifying with each other and believing that objects which satisfy one will also be fitting for the other; this, Girard calls differentiation. Differentiation is a fundamental belief of the pair’s inequality: that they are of, speaking loosely, different stock and essence. If a pair is both differentiated and unexposed, then no mediation happens whatsoever. External mediation occurs either when the pair is undifferentiated but unexposed or when the pair is exposed but differentiated. Once more, Cervantes’ Don Quixote provides canonical examples for both. Don Quixote’s desires are mediated by Amadis de Gaula, a legendary knight of a time long past whom he identifies with. The pair is undifferentiated but unexposed. They never enter into conflict or rivalry. Don Quixote, in turn, externally mediates the desires of his squire, Sancho. Despite their physical proximity, Sancho fundamentally does not consider he and Don Quixote to be of the same stock: the difference between a learned man and a peasant is too large. They are exposed but differentiated. As a result, Sancho, while clearly being mediated by and sucked into Don Quixote’s world, desires not what Don Quixote desires but what Don Quixote suggests he should desire. Sancho wants to be a governor instead of a knight. Careful readers of Girard might pause on this new species of metaphysical desire: it is desire not according to a model but suggested by a model. The idea here must be this: if I identify a model with abundant metaphysical autonomy yet I conclude we are differentiated, I won’t go about pursuing the objects he pursues but nonetheless believe he has the knowledge of how to achieve my own metaphysical autonomy. As a result, my desires are directed by his suggestions rather than actions. In the final case, if a pair were both undifferentiated and exposed, they would enter internal mediation and eventually compete over similar objects. 

Metaphysical desire and physical desire can exist in both forms of mediation, depending on the extent to which one experiences shame and attributes metaphysical autonomy to the model. But internal mediation is much more dangerous because it manufactures this shame and metaphysical autonomy through symbolic gestures within competition itself. In other words, even one who enters internal mediation motivated by physical desire will likely soon be dominated by metaphysical desire. The defining motivational force behind mimetic rivalries, however, is not just metaphysical desire but also resentment. Resentment stems from the last of the four constitutive psychological capacities yet to be introduced: transference. Transference is the drive for the Girardian subject to identify the causal origin of its shame. Of course, this cognitive endeavor carries with it a strong motivational force: deep resentment and hate for what it takes to be causing its shame. I must emphasize that transference will almost always be deceitful because it is only satisfied if it identifies a single source that is totally responsible for its shame. As a result, it tends to over exaggerate the responsibility of one person if not place total blame on a completely innocent subject. When a pair is fueled by metaphysical desire for the object combined with resentment directed at each other, Girard terms the relationship a “mimetic rivalry” – the generating mechanism of violence. For clarity, I will call the period in internal mediation before mimetic rivalry when rivals are still mostly motivated by physical desire without resentment: object competition. 

The process by which object competition degenerates into mimetic rivalry is as such. The subject, imitating the model begins to desire and pursue the object. Because of their proximity – both spiritual and spatio-temporal – imitation is reciprocated: the model becomes the subject’s subject and the subject, the model’s model. As the rivals perform similar actions to procure the object, they become even less differentiated and even more exposed. Metaphysical desire intensifies due to this increased proximity. When one of the rivals secures the object or even gains a slight advantage in competition, the now trailing runner-up will draw three disastrous conclusions. First, feeling a profound shame from being bested, he will conclude that he is worthless while the victor is worthy. In Girard's own words: "The [victor], being closely identified with the object he jealousy keeps for himself, possesses — so it would seem — a self-sufficiency and omniscience that the [runner-up] can only dream of acquiring." That is to say, through this symbolic gesture of defeat, the runner-up is robbed a degree of being that is attributed to the victorious model. This interiorization of shame and external attribution of autonomy is generated by the process of internal mediation itself. Second, Girard continues, the runner-up will attribute the superiority of the victor to his ownership of the object: "the possession of this object must make all the difference between the self-sufficiency of the [victor] and the [runner-up’s] lack of sufficiency." As a result, the runner-up craves the object more so than ever: his shame deepens, he wants to be just as autonomous as the victor, and believes that the object holds the power of the victor’s autonomy. Third, the runner-up attributes blame to the victor and develops resentful sentiments of jealousy, envy, and hatred. Through transference the victor is given a dual character: as ultimately good (because he possesses the coveted object) and as totally evil (because he is responsible for the subject’s shame). Usually, the subject feels nothing but respect and admiration towards the model who mediates its quest for metaphysical autonomy. But, in the case of mimetic rivalries, the subject believes (often wrongly) that the model is either passively withholding the object of autonomy or actively hurting the subject’s being. Resentment, Girard observes, is reserved for those who are “both the instigator of desire and a relentless guardian forbidding its fulfillment.” Without the former, we simply feel annoyance or dislike and without the latter, respect. Resentful sentiments are ambivalent, containing within it a degree of admiration alongside hatred. Since the victor is, to some degree, blamed for the increasing sense of shame, the logic of metaphysical desire changes as well with the injection of resentment. It is no longer about acquiring the object to have the same being as the model, but to steal the object from the model robbing him of his elevated status in retributive vengeance. One cannot overemphasize the degree to which this new logic of resentment transforms relationships of mediation. If the examples of simple mediation – such as buying Michael Jordan’s shoes – already represent a perverse fascination with the other disguised as a desire for the object, then resentment makes it all the more so. In mimetic rivalry, not only is one fixated on and enthralled by the being of the model, as one already is in simple mediation, but one also wants to change or, more accurately, sabotage it.

Since competition is unstable – today’s victor might be tomorrow’s runner-up – the process I have just outlined can alternate back and forth until both rivals, feeling an intense shame, attribute a false autonomy as well as increasing blame upon the other. At this point, we enter mimetic rivalry proper. I must clarify that internal mediation is not mimetic rivalry but merely a condition where model and subject are exposed and undifferentiated. If, for whatever reason, physical desire dominates and no resentment develops, then the relationship is one of object competition. Mimetic rivalry is characterized by an inflammation of metaphysical desire and resentment. 

An example will be helpful to illustrate the wide scope and irrational nature of mimetic rivalries. Consider two friends mediating each other’s goals in recreational weightlifting. Should one friend reach the goal first, the other would, first, experience a shame, however subtle, and attribute greater autonomy to the other. Second, the runner-up would reason that the increase in autonomy must be due to the victor’s increased strength and desire the goal more fervently. Third, the runner-up would, however irrationally, feel a slight resentment towards the victor as if the victor were somehow to blame. I choose weightlifting precisely because how innocuous it is and how the goal, to lift a certain amount of weights – unlike, say, competing over a romantic partner – is not exclusionary but nonetheless can create feelings of resentment through deceitful transference. To be sure, the process outlined here is only applicable to mimetic rivalries and not all relationships. But the Girardian insistence is that if we were to examine our close relationships, many would appear to take on the form of rivalry. 

It seems, then, that competition encourages the development of mimetic rivalries in four ways. First, by forcing competitors to perform similar actions – they are pursuing the same objects after all – competition closes the spatio-temporal as well as spiritual distance. And since the outcome of competition is lopsided – there is a victor and loser – it manufactures, second, a sense of shame in the loser and, third, a degree of metaphysical autonomy attributed to the winner. Add to this, lastly, a heightened degree of resentment, and it becomes clear how mechanisms within competition itself transform it into mimetic rivalry where rivals are perversely fixated on each other rather than objects. This is what led Girard to conclude that the more internal the mediation the less freedom one has over what to pursue. Don Quixote’s “distant mediator sheds a diffused light over a vast surface”; Amadis invites him to imitate the chivalric ideal in the abstract but does not prescribe a specific castle to conquer or particular beast to slay. A close mediator, however, usually directs our desires to more concrete goods which only heighten the chance of competition and all the perils that come with it. This entire process of growing resentment and inflamed metaphysical desire is almost inevitable in internal mediation and, as we are now going to explore, leads to violence. Girard observes: “by making one man's desire into a replica of another man's desire, it invariably leads to rivalry; and rivalry in turn transforms desire into violence.”

2.3 The Positive Phase and The Negative Phase

At the peak of mimetic rivalry, rivals hold ambivalent feelings of admiration and resentment towards each other. When admiration takes central stage, rivalry is in what Girard termed the “positive” phase. Resentment may still be present, and even to a large degree, but it is dormant and secondary. The dominating narrative is: “the model is withholding and guarding something precious from me; I must take it away from him to be more like him.” Metaphysical desire is directed towards taking the object away from the blameful model in order to inhabit their being; it is an act of convergence. 

But, if resentment builds up enough, the dominant narrative changes to: “the model is intentionally damaging my being; he is evil and I must distance myself away from him.” The subject will conclude that metaphysical autonomy lies not in being more similar to the now devilish-seeming model but rather from being unlike and as distant as possible. But even as resentment becomes the dominant sentiment there is a hidden attitude of admiration because there is an implicit recognition that the rival is powerful enough to have damaged the subject’s being so terribly. Resentment and admiration exist in both phases of rivalry albeit in different proportions.

 Rivals in the negative phase of imitation resort to two general strategies. First, one may, in an attempt to distance themselves as far as possible from the model, pursue “false differences” as markers of independence or originality. False differences are objects we pursue and identify with because they make us feel different from the model but, in actuality, neither limits our exposure to nor differentiates us from them. The pursuit of false differences is still motivated by the goal of metaphysical autonomy and fueled by a feeling of shame and is thus a species of metaphysical desire. That is to say, even though the relationship with the model has changed – one seeks divergence instead of convergence – the fact that the pursuit is still exclusively for metaphysical being with no physical considerations given to the object has not. A classic example of the pursuit for false difference is Nietzsche’s analysis of Christian morality. The Christian priests, so Nietzsche argues, do not desire compassion for its own sake but simply because it is the opposite quality of the masters, whom the priests resent. The adherence to compassion is not primary but a vain reaction against the models they loathe. But even beyond the charge of vanity, false differences, by not providing differentiation nor limiting exposure, do nothing to stop internal mediation. In fact, given how radically similar they have become, rivals often come up with similar strategies of differentiating themselves and end up converging. That is to say, the quest for originality often ends in similarity. One ought only look at fashion to be convinced of this fact. Previously, I offered an immanent reason for why metaphysical autonomy was impossible to achieve. Through the mechanisms of mimetic rivalry, Girard offers another social reason for the impossibility of metaphysical autonomy:

Because our desires are always mimetic or imitative, even and especially when we dream of being completely autonomous and self-sufficient, they always make us into rivals of our models and then the models of our rivals, thus turning our relations into an inextricable entanglement of identical and antagonistic desires which result in endless frustration.

Metaphysical autonomy is socially impossible because the more original, independent, and self-sufficient we wish to be, the more we are motivated by metaphysical desire, and the more mediated and external our character becomes. The more real we appear to others, the more we invite imitators and become entrenched in rivalry.

The second strategy in the negative phase of rivalry is to enact violence on the model as retribution. By violence I mean any action intending to hurt which encompasses everything from verbal jabs to physical murder. Violence seems increasingly justified because of these false differences: one perceives oneself as radically good and the other as radically evil. If shame and resentment build up to a certain degree, then they, for aforementioned reasons, cannot be calmed by reason. Thus, violent catharsis often becomes the only way to discharge such existential sufferings. Of course, violence, unless it is total, fails to end the rivalry because it too, Girard laments, is reciprocated: “Everyone imitates the other’s violence and returns it ‘with interest.’” 

The thin line between the positive and negative phase of mimetic rivalries explain why conflicts between those who inhabit a close relationship, who have or had shared feelings of admiration are so common and brutal: husband and wife, master and apprentice, Orestes and Clytemnestra, Romulus and Remus. It should be noted that the negative phase is not limited to internal mediation. Although, as I have traced in the last section, the conditions of internal mediation which generate resentment are conducive to its formation. Just as the positive phase can occur in both external and internal mediation, so can the negative phase. In internal mediation, the feeling towards the model will likely be ambivalent because there is actual conflict that both prove the rival’s prowess and blameworthiness. In external mediation, the attitude towards the model is more singular: admiration in the positive phase and resentment in the negative phase. What remains the same between external and internal mediation is the foundational logic. In the positive phase, the lie of metaphysical desire is that if only you secure the object you will be like the model you so admire. In the negative phase, the lie of false differences is that if only you secure the object you will be different from the model you so loathe. One is an act of converging, another an act of diverging. But both are fueled by a yearning for metaphysical autonomy with respect to another person by acquiring some object in response to shame. 

Chapter 3. The Rescuer of Spirit

In the previous chapter, I have attempted to reconstruct the core of Girard’s psychology: acquisitive mimesis. Every instance of mimetic desire, I suggest, can be located between these three poles: from physical to metaphysical desire, from internal to external mediation, and from the positive to the negative phase. 

I have also, in the first chapter, illuminated the shape of what Girard chose to systematically leave out of his psychological picture. Within mimetic behavior, the exhaustive complement to acquisitive mimesis is non-acquisitive mimesis which plays a limited role in Girard’s system. Even more limited still is the role played by, what I termed, original behaviors which form the exhaustive complement to mimetic behaviors. 

By emphasizing an overlooked species of desire, I hope to have defended Girard’s plausibility and, by putting him in dialogue with Rousseau, his originality. Yet, one last defense must be made. Even if mimetic theory is plausible and original, why is it significant? Why does this picture of human psychology deserve contemporary attention? My argument is going to be that mimetic psychology illuminates and rescues a part of human nature that has been systematically overlooked by popular currents within modernity. To accomplish this task, we must first interrogate Plato for resources to transcend our modern biases.

3.1 Tripartition

Plato famously offers a tripartite theory of the soul. As the name suggests, Plato believes that there are three distinct components within human nature – reason, appetite, and spirit – each with their own means and ends. We have an appetitive part of the soul because we are embodied in animal bodies programmed to survive. Its end is physical self-preservation and all the necessities – food, housing, security, sex, etc. – which survival demands. The appetitive part of the soul pursues these ends with the means of instinct – natural tendencies which evaluate things based on an immediate, instinctual criterion. That is to say when my instinct urges me to, for example, look for food, I judge which objects will satisfy me not by appealing to some distant, impersonal metric such as macronutrient content but by what I am immediately craving. Reason – the means of the rational part of the soul – on the other hand, evaluates things based on a mediated, normative criterion. Reason can step outside our embodied experience and make judgements based on standards that transcend our immediate inclinations. As the example of evaluating food on their macronutrient content suffices to show, reason can (and, for Plato, should) direct the other parts of the soul. But that is not to say that it has no end of its own – the rational part of the soul is aimed at the end of truth and contemplative joy. Finally, the spirited part of the soul pursues the end of social-standing – or, framed in contrast against appetite – social self-preservation. To further delineate the ends of spirit from those of appetite, it is helpful to consider Achilles’ decision in The Illiad:

Either,

if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans,

my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;

but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,

the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life

left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.

Burdened with divine foresight, Achilles knows that his glory will have to come at the expense of his life and vice versa. Effectively, he is deciding between the end of spirit and appetite: the existence of his social self or physical self. By ‘social self’ I refer to one’s self-conception, or, identity. The assumption here, of course, is that our self-conceptions and identities are inherently social in nature – this can only remain an assumption for now, but I will soon show how they are constituted socially in origin, confirmation, and content.  Since the end of spirit is a social end then its means must also be a social means. It is unclear in Plato what this social means precisely is (I will go on to argue that mimesis is a good candidate) but it is evident that it is a mechanism through which a significant dimension of our selves is constituted socially.

3.2 Utility-Calculating Machines

With Plato’s picture of the soul in view, I will go on to claim that an influential strand of modern thought systematically ignores the end and means of spirit – reducing humans to, at their best, rational, utility-calculating machines who use the means of reason to satisfy the end of appetite. To do so, I will reconstruct a history of philosophy offered by Axel Honneth – a recognition theorist who is just as concerned that the social dimension of our selves has been overlooked.

The first stroke of Honneth’s history of philosophy begins with Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, and extends to the medieval Christian natural law theorists. What defines these pre-modern thinkers – and what will soon stand in stark contrast to the radical break of modernity – is that they saw humans as fundamentally social creatures. To put it in the Platonic terms that we have been developing, they recognize social means – the fact that our characters are constituted socially – and they legitimize the social end. That is to say, first, they acknowledge the possibility (if not necessity) that our identities, dispositions, and ends are formed by a social group. We can, for example, take on the habits of others and, importantly, take on a group’s ends as our own by identifying with the group. Second, they see certain forms of social participation as an end in-and-of-itself. An important species of good can only be won by being immersed in a community – the good in question is the act of participation itself, irreducible to the instrumental goods that participating may engender. The social ontology that results from this picture of human nature is not necessarily a collaborative one but one where subjects form deep relationships and attachments with each other and the larger community.

The departure from this picture of human nature as capable of (social means) and needing (social end) intimate social immersion begins with Machiavelli. This break, for Honneth, lies in Machiavelli’s “conception of humans as egocentric beings with regard only for their own benefit” that underlies his political treatises. Benefit here should be interpreted narrowly as self-preservation: our animal, appetitive end. This picture of human nature is a radical break because it ignores our social end – that there is a species of good that is not individual but communal in nature – and social means – that our identity may be shaped by and intimately attached to others. Alongside this reduced view of human nature, is a radical social ontology of “a permanent state of hostile competition between subjects” that amounts to a “perpetual struggle for self-preservation.” Under this light, the only relationships subjects can establish with each other and the community at large are shallow and instrumental ones that matter only in so far as they relate to one’s own interests.

If Machiavelli was the one to inject this intuition into the philosophical canon, then Hobbes – Honneth’s history continues – was the thinker who established a justification of the state upon this reduced view of human nature and antagonistic social ontology. Hobbes attempts to legitimize the sovereignty of the state by imagining what a state of nature without one would be like. Starting from Machiavellian intuitions about human nature – as concerned primarily for one’s own self-preservation – Hobbes concludes that the natural state of relations between human subjects is an escalating war of all-against-all. Effectively, Hobbes uses the obvious undesirability of this state of nature to justify a social contract that limits the freedom of each subject and grants authoritative power to the state to manage the inherently antagonistic relations between individuals. Importantly, the reason that these hypothetical subjects would consent to such a contract is not out of a concern for the greater good or a desire for belonging but primarily out of a rational calculus of what is in their own best interest. Honneth comments: “Contractually regulated submission of all subjects to a sovereign ruling power is the only reasonable outcome of an instrumentally rational weighing of interests.” So, it is only with Hobbes that the full picture of human nature, which I ascribed to influential currents within modern thought – humans as rational, utility calculating machines – comes into view. Hobbes confines the task of political philosophy to the rational obtainment of physical self-preservation or, in Platonic language, to use the means of reason to achieve the end of appetite. To be sure, Hobbes did not completely overlook the spirited part of the soul: one of the key motors in the war of all-against-all are subjects’ desires for glory. But this concern for social-standing only plays a relatively minor explanatory role and, more crucially, is given no normative weight. That is to say, the social contract and, eventually, the state do not gain their legitimacy from and have no responsibility towards resolving citizens’ spirited end but exclusively their appetitive ones.

Lest we draw the wrong conclusions of what is at stake in systematically overlooking spirit, I must add a third author to Honneth’s history of philosophy who operates on a similar view of human nature but reasons his way to a very different social ontology: Adam Smith. The extent to which Smith takes humans to be rational, utility-calculating machines can be seen in his inquiry into the origins of the division of labor. How did this complex social structure – touching upon most facets of life, encompassing a wide variety of normative relationships, and “from which so many advantages are derived” – arise? It did not result from, so Smith argues, “human wisdom” which foresaw its benefits but from “the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” Smith takes this propensity of rational, self-interested calculation to be a constitutive capacity of humanity and, with it as the dominant if not exclusive logic, attempts to explain a wide array of social phenomena – the division of labor being one of them. We did not, this line of thinking would suggest, specialize in a single craft due to the directions of a village elder, out of the joy of mastery, a yearning for professional recognition, or a desire to share our unique gifts with the community but solely out of a calculus of self-interest: if I am better at making armor than I am at herding cattle, I will be able to optimize my supply of goods if I exclusively make armor and trade them for cattle. This reduced view of human nature – as rational, utility calculating machines – takes on its most obvious form yet in Smith’s understanding of the economic subject, but it would be wrong to level the same charge against Smith as we had against Machiavelli and Hobbes of systematically ignoring spirit. After all, an intersubjective core lies at the foundations of Smith’s moral theory found in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Instead, I am only making the more modest claim that in the realm of economics, Smith seems content in conceiving of subjects as only using their means of reason to satisfy their end of appetite. The social ontology that results from this reduced view is atomistic as it had been for Machiavelli and Hobbes: we enter into relationships (as economic actors) only in so far as they advance our own material interests. But, crucially, this atomism does not lead to permanent competition but optimized cooperation. Through the workings of the invisible hand, the pursuit of one’s own interest advances the interests of the whole. Private vice – what caused unending conflict for Machiavelli and Hobbes – leads instead to public virtue. My reason for introducing Smith is, thus, not to argue that he has fallen prey to the same oversight but to show how deeply this atomistic intuition is embedded into all facets of social theory and, more importantly, that this atomism does not necessarily lead to antagonism and can even engender a social ontology of cooperation.

I have painted over a long period with a broad stroke, being more uncharitable than I would have liked had our aims not been internal to Girard. I only hope to have sketched an illuminating figure that is at least revealing as it is unfair. But, even if this reduced view of human nature does not represent the most sophisticated understanding, it is still a worthy position to interrogate given how dominant it is in the popular psyche. We can see the popularity of this conception of humans as rational creatures primarily concerned with appetitive, material ends in how prominently GDP is used as a normative criterion to gauge a country’s progress. Even other normative standards such as justice have taken a rational, material bent – often measured through metrics such as the Gini coefficient which concerns itself exclusively with material inequality. More generally, one way to interpret the popular observation that modernity is “materialistic” is that we only have material, appetitive ends in view and have lost sight of the other species of good available to human subjects.

So, what precisely is at stake in systematically ignoring spirit? Or, to return to our motivating question: why would it be significant to rescue this part of the soul? The full significance of a psychology of spirit will show itself to lie in the importance and pervasiveness of the social phenomena which it alone makes intelligible and, thus, will take the rest of this project to reveal. But now, I will attempt a general answer. To first clear the ground: what is not at stake is the question of whether social relations are naturally competitive or cooperative. As my introduction of Smith hoped to show, one can reason from this atomistic view of human nature and arrive at a fundamentally cooperative social ontology. Inversely, as my suggestion of Achilles as the archetype of spirit reveals, a more intersubjective understanding of human nature does not guarantee a harmonious social ontology. In fact, spirit can ignite more violent, unwarranted, and pointless competition than appetite. One need only think of Achilles deforming Hector’s dead body – a symbolic act that had no consequence on Achilles’ self-preservation – to be convinced of this fact. Why might spirit intensify conflict? This is the question I had hoped to anticipate by describing the ends of spirit as “social self-preservation.” Spirit can engender more grotesque forms of conflict because a species of survival is on the line – specifically, the survival of our social self. This is a dimension of the self that is often more important to us than even the physical – as Achilles’ decision shows – and is thus a more powerful motivator. It also tends to be quite fragile, threatened by the most innocuous of symbolic gestures.

What is at stake in overlooking spirit, then, is twofold. First, a social theory grounded on a reduced view of human nature fails to grasp the severity, variety, and frequency which antagonism manifests between subjects. Such a theory which can only conceive of conflict as resulting from appetitive interests does not have the theoretical means to predict, explain, or resolve the most atrocious acts of violence and will, thus, be defenseless against them in reality. It has trouble explaining, for example, the irrational but all-too-common motives of subjects who gain satisfaction from sabotaging others while not advancing their own material interests in any obvious way. If the first point just outlined is that ignoring spirit underestimates the extent of human evil, then the second point is that it is deficient in guiding us towards the human good. Even worse, since what we are deprived of is an inherently social good – none other than a relation with others – we would lack the intellectual resources to achieve both the good life and the good community. The reduced view only permits us to form shallow, instrumental relationships that matter only in so far as they advance our own ends. This is because our physical selves are relatively fixed and can’t expand to encompass others: our appetites are intimately tied to and defined by our embodied, limited, and separate physical forms. Appetite alone does not provide us with a mechanism to directly relate to others and, as result, we can only relate to others in so far as they matter to our ends. The social self, on the other hand, has no such limitation. It can expand and encompass others, taking their ends as its own. I will soon pursue a systematic explanation of how this may be possible; now, I will only provide a relatable example to make concrete what is at stake. As a husband I consider my children and my wife as, in some deep sense, part of what constitutes my own social identity and, thus, pursue the family’s ends as my own. My social self, as a ‘husband,’ has direct and immediate reasons to pursue ends that are not limited to my physical self because constitutive to the identity of ‘husband’ are inherently social obligations and rewards. It would clearly be a deficient relationship and an unsatisfying existence if, say, I had no joy whatsoever in helping my children and did so only in so far as they wouldn’t interrupt my own pursuits. Without spirit, we are robbed of these substantive relations and condemned to alienation because we would only be able to conceive of others as impositions or, at best, tools. At the same time, communities would amount to no more than a mob of atoms joined together by a precarious equilibrium of self-interest, subject to dissolution at a moment’s notice. What is at stake, then, in ignoring spirit is failing to achieve the complete good and, out of naivety, inviting radical evil. Thus, if I am able to show Girard to be a convincing candidate for rescuing spirit, I will have, at the same time, shown his significance to be in rationalizing our irrationalities – that is to say, making intelligible (rationalizing) the ways in which we are more than just rational, self-interested machines (our irrationalities). To this task, I now turn.

3.3 Social Animals

Completing this task amounts to showing that there are psychological resources within mimetic theory that are plausible candidates for the means and end of spirit. I will argue that mimesis satisfies the former and metaphysical autonomy, the latter. 

Recall, the form of mimesis is constitutive to behavior which proceed when the subject calls to mind an externalized instance of said behavior. Borrowing resources from Hume, I described mimesis as a form of co-resonance. Mimesis, then, is a mechanism by which we gain access to others’ subjectivity or, put differently, the route by which we expand our subjectivity to encompass the experience of others – the type of expansion I identified as lacking for the physical self. It should not be a surprise then, prima facie, that I take this intersubjective pathway to underly all the ways in which we are social creatures and be a plausible candidate for the means of spirit – the mechanisms by which our identities and ends are constituted socially. Specifically, we have already traced three ways in which mimesis forms us socially which I will now reinterpret through the lens of spirit. First, metaphysical desire furnishes us with ends acquired from an external model. These new ends often carry with them new identities – if I have an intense desire to write, I naturally conceive of myself as a writer. In this case, our ends and identities are socially constituted by mimesis in the sense that their origins are social. Second, as I have deduced from our discourse with Rousseau, the fact that mimesis imbues actions with a degree of confidence leads us to seek recognition. To continue the analogy, it is only when others recognize me as a writer do I feel secure in my identity and ends. In this second way, our ends and identities are socially constituted by mimesis in the sense that their confirmation is social. 

To be sure, these first two points only show mimesis to socially constitute us in a weak sense – the origin and confirmation of my identity may be social but its content can still be atomistic, concerned only about myself. So how does mimesis enable the stronger, more substantive sense of social constitution that I attributed to the husband where the very content of the identity contains within it social obligations that extend beyond the physical self? As I hoped to have emphasized through Hume, sympathy – the co-experience of an other’s subjective content – is a subset of mimetic behavior. Sympathy provides the psychological foundation for my taking an other’s ends as my own because I, through mimesis, experience their experience as my own. It might be helpful to think of a husband sympathizing with his sick wife: mimesis grants the husband direct access to the subjectivity of his wife which, in turn, prompts non-instrumental action. What I am suggesting is that whenever we take on a substantively social identity such as ‘husband’ we are, at the same time, encouraging ourselves to more frequently access the subjectivity of those we have obligations towards through mimesis. Because we are constantly mimetically conjoined with these specific others, experiencing their experiences, we have direct reasons to promote their ends. This explanation of how we take on a social identity – as an extension of our subjectivity – also captures what is so rewarding about social participation: it expands the scope of our social selves. In this third and stronger way, mimesis constitutes our identities and ends in the sense that their content is social and directed towards others. But, I must remind the reader, the fact that our identities can be so substantively conjoined with those of others is as much a precondition for envy and sabotage as it is for love and support. That is to say, just as our spirited selves can take the furthering of other’s ends as an end in-and-of-itself so can we take their thwarting. The pandora’s box that mimesis opens up is the social self which gains satisfaction in relation to others. This can be a harmonious relation as my example of the husband attempted show. But it can also be an antagonistic one where I take the very failure of my rival as an end in-and-of-itself. This is the fundamental logic of mimetic rivalry, which I have already traced, that operates on the mechanisms of mimesis and transference. Recall, contrasted against simple mediation (the first way in which mimesis constitutes us socially), the logic of mimetic rivalry is not just about acquiring the object to have the same being as the model, but to steal the object from the model robbing him of his elevated status in retributive vengeance. With the introduction of blame directed through transference, we take the thwarting of an other’s ends as a good in-and-of-itself. Put differently, just as the social self can expand to encompass ends that lie beyond its physical self, so can it be threatened by developments that do not encroach upon its material interests. For example, if I consider myself ‘the best lifter,’ meeting someone who lifts more than me would threatens the very survival of this identity even if it does not change my material existence. In the final analysis, this third and substantive way in which mimesis constitutes us socially is a mechanism for radical evil as it is for profound good – precisely the two extremes we had hoped to rescue in resurrecting spirit. 

This resurrection is incomplete, however, until I can show that metaphysical autonomy is as convincing a candidate for the end of spirit as mimesis is for its means. Recall, I’ve described the end of spirit as either social self-preservation or, more practically, a concern for social standing. It may, at first glance, be difficult to see why either of these formulations are even translatable, much less equivalent, to metaphysical autonomy. After all, the first characteristic I attributed to metaphysical autonomy is that it is an ontological state that has to do with freedom and reality. This concern should be partially assuaged when taking into account the second characteristic I attributed to metaphysical autonomy: it is an ontological state that requires practical confirmation. Put more strongly, what we are really seeking is a social freedom – to not be dependent on others – and a social reality – to exist in great measure in the eyes of others. This idea should no longer be foreign given the many social mechanisms that I have examined – esteem, mediation, symbolic gestures, competition, etc. – which determines the allocation of metaphysical autonomy. But to fully resolve this concern, I must go beyond suggesting specific examples and will provide a general argument to square freedom and reality with social self-preservation and social standing. If one of the Girardian subject’s aims – reality – is to exist in great measure, it is natural to think that ‘great’ should extend along the temporal dimension. That is to say, when we aim to exist in great measure, we aim not only to be recognized as great momentarily but to ensure this recognition is preserved through time – hence, social self-preservation. And since the existence we seek is a social existence – reflected in the practical ways others relate to us – it is not contrived to describe this reality as a form of social standing. How does freedom fit in the picture? We can understand it as the content of what we want preserved through time, or, what we want to be recognized as. Put differently, the social-standing we want confirmed is the status of being free – not dependent on others. Under this light, the subject’s pursuit of metaphysical autonomy is a pursuit for freedom and struggle to have that freedom made socially real – that is to say, recognized by others. The Girardian subject is engaged in an intersubjective pursuit of freedom. It is helpful to think of Achilles’ desire for glory to see all of these elements at play. Glory is a social reality because it must be awarded by others; part of what makes it appealing is that it is preserved and can last longer than our physical selves; and when we are recognized as glorious, it confirms our ability to dominate others. This is a – granted, exaggerated and perverted – species of freedom because it takes the logic of independence to its extreme: it is not content with just being independent from others but is only satisfied if others are dependent upon it (dominated). 

By arguing that the end of spirit can be meaningfully conceived of as a social confirmation of freedom – or, in Girardian terms – metaphysical autonomy, I hope to have completed my portrayal of Girard as a candidate for rescuing spirit and, thus, defended his significance in the broader canon as rationalizing humanity’s irrationalities. Spirit’s end is metaphysical autonomy and its means is mimesis; thus, the spirited part of the soul is none other than acquisitive mimesis, or, mimetic desire which encompasses all of ways in which we seek metaphysical autonomy through the means of mimesis. This view of Girard – as the rescuer of spirit – is, then, also productive in making sense of why he drew attention to the specific psychological elements that he had. What must have seemed like arbitrary decisions – to focus on mimetic instead of original behaviors and then to focus on acquisitive mimesis rather than non-acquisitive mimesis – becomes intelligible in the context of rescuing spirit: we focus on mimesis (the first split) because it is the means of spirit.

 And we narrowed down to acquisitive mimesis (the second split) directed at metaphysical autonomy because it is the end of spirit.

Girardian theory concerns itself with the subject’s mimetic pursuit of metaphysical autonomy or, interpreted more generally, the intersubjective pursuit of freedom. This is not an arbitrary focus because, I hope to have shown, it encompasses the operations of spirit and reveals all the ways in which we are social animals instead of rational, utility-seeking machines. To make my conclusions more explicit, I am suggesting a strong identity between these different formulations: (1) the spirited part of Plato’s soul encompasses (2) all the ways in which we are social, spirited creatures and not just rational, utility calculating machines which is also the focus of (3) Girardian theory. Girard primarily concerns himself with the psychological mechanisms behind and the ethical, social consequences of (4) acquisitive mimesis, or, (5) mimetic desire which encompasses the ways by which (6) we use the means of mimesis to pursue the end of metaphysical autonomy or, put more generally, by which (7) the subject intersubjectively pursues freedom. The prime significance of Girardian theory is that it attempts to give an exhaustive account of what it means for us to be social, spirited creatures. But Girard’s significance goes beyond merely rescuing spirit. In all the numerous ways that I will now expound, Girard elevates spirit above appetite and reason and, as a result, fundamentally changes what we take humans to be while setting the stage for an equally radical social theory.

Spirit is elevated above appetite in two ways. First, the end of spirit tends to matter to us more than the end of appetite. Practically, this means that we often choose the former when the two are in conflict by, for example, eating at the less delicious but more prestigious restaurant. Second, spirit is elevated above appetite in the sense that what appear to be decisions made on the grounds of appetite are often attempts to satisfy spirit. We may believe that we chose a car because it is safe or a meal because it is delicious, but we often make these appetitive choices based on what they say about our social selves. Even stronger, Girard wants to say that we are almost always oblivious to the extent our spirited end directs us. This is because of the deceitful quality of metaphysical desire that I have already discussed: we believe the intense yearning we feel for the object is due to its inherent qualities and are completely unaware that its real origins lie in the metaphysical autonomy of the mediating model. In this second sense, spirit is elevated because it is the foundational criterion by which decisions are actually made, even if it does not appear to be so.

Spirit is also elevated above reason in three ways. First, reason is not strong enough to direct the force of spirit. I have already attempted to extract this assumption from Girard’s observation that politics cannot control wars motivated by a deep spirited hate, but there is more to be unearthed in this analogy. Not only is politics impotent at controlling these wars, often, these wars direct politics – that is to say, the fervor of war often transforms politics into a mere propaganda machine to justify violence. In like manner, reason is often a mere spokesperson for spirit: we decide on the grounds of spirit and reason’s only task is to make it seem as if we were moved by justifiable normative ends. So not only can reason not curtail spirit, but reason is also often spirit’s servant while pretending to be its steward. Practically, what I have in mind here are instances where, for example, we are attracted to a prestigious position for the sake of prestige yet justify our decision on other normative ends, say, doing good for society. Second, spirit is elevated above reason because reason cannot access spirit’s end. This can be interpreted as an expansion upon the ways in which reason has trouble curtailing spirit – if the first point is that spirit is often too strong, this second point is that spirit’s operations lie outside the dominion of reason. I’ve defined reason as the ability to evaluate based on a set of non-immediate, normative criteria or ends. For reason to successfully operate, then, it must be able to, as a minimal precondition, gain access to whatever ends motivating the subject. Yet, as I’ve already emphasized with appetite, spirit’s workings are hidden from us and not accessible – at least, not without considerable philosophical work. Thus, spirit is outside reason’s domain. If we take a narrower but quite common understanding of reason – as the ability to quantify based on a set of criteria – then the end of spirit is inaccessible in yet a further way: it defies quantification. It makes no sense to ask exactly ‘how much’ metaphysical autonomy we seek as it does for, say, the amount of food we want. 

Before I proceed to the last point, I wish to first draw out the social significance of elevating spirit in the ways just discussed to begin advancing the second aim of this essay: to investigate how Girard’s psychological conclusions sets up his social theory. One important but not exhaustive consequence of promoting spirit (specifically over reason) is that it threatens all social theories grounded on rational political discourse: the intersubjective use of reason to arrive at some optimal agreement. Hobbes’ social contract is one such theory. Girard’s critique of Hobbes is that reason is most unavailable when it is most needed: during the war of all-against-all. The idea here is this, when spirit’s end (metaphysical autonomy) is not inflamed during periods of peace, perhaps there is the possibility of people coming together and negotiating some kind of rational arrangement that would advance the interests of all. But at the height of an all-out war, what dominates subjects is a deep, spirited hate against others which reason can neither access nor control. It is unthinkable, for Girard, that opponents in such a war could just sit down, put aside their identity-constituting resentments, and negotiate some kind of optimal contract. Girard’s specific critique against Hobbes can be extended to all theories which rely on rational political discourse as such: people without significant training in specific nurturing circumstances, when participating in political discourse, do not use reason to access the standpoint of the common good. They do not even use reason to defend their own appetitive best interests (the hope being that if everyone did so, the group will converge to the common good). Instead, because of the dominance of spirit, what appears to be the outcome of reason, when people participate in political discourse, is more so an ex poste rationalization of spirit’s social demands. For the vast majority, reason is merely a spokesperson for spirit. This critique can be made more concrete if we were to consider how Girard would depict the democratic process. Girard would say that people do not choose their candidates based on whose policies advances the common interest. We do not even vote for candidates whose policies best advances our narrow self-interest. What the majority of us do, instead, is choose the candidate based on the social signals we want to give off and then rationalize why they are good for the common interest. More generally, Girard would observe, democratic citizens make national decisions – support movements, vote for candidates, pick political parties – to win local, social rewards. ‘Rewards’ does not imply conformity; recall, the negative phase of mediation promises to reward us if we pursue difference. In this case, we would appear to be making decisions independently through reason by deviating from the group but what we would really be doing is pursuing difference for difference’s sake. We would, for example, vote for an economically progressive candidate not out of reasoned analysis but from, say, a personal resentment of our richer peers. Seemingly contrarian decisions like these would still be pre-determined by our social relations and not by reason. Even worse, we would be oblivious to this fact due to the deceitfulness of mimesis. The idea that our rational opinions are actually determined by a social graph that is orthogonal to truth should not be foreign to the careful reader. After all, in our discussion of metaphysical desire, I have argued how our most intimate ends – what we consider to be the most valuable and rewarding pursuits – are determined by none other than this social graph. It is only natural to think then, our closely held political opinions are subject to the same force. To be sure, the picture I have attributed to Girard may appear to be too strong: we certainly have some access to reason and, furthermore, we are not always so spirited. Indeed, this is true: there are times when reason stewards spirit. Girard is trying to advance a more nuanced and, in some sense, even stronger view. He does not think rational political discourse is theoretically impossible, but that it requires a very specific and rare set of circumstances where subjects are not overly spirited and have strengthened their faculties of reason. But precisely when reason is needed the most – when democratic subjects are at each other’s throats, when there is a fundamental conflict of interest, when people see in the other a radical evil – is when spirit is inflamed and the circumstances for reason’s stewardship is thwarted. Put simply, people don’t rationally listen to each other when this form of communication would be most helpful. Rational political discourse is impotent because all it can resolve are trivial disputes – when little is on the line – in matters of great import, those that are intimate to our identity, reason becomes a mere mouthpiece for spirited allegiances and resentment. Making matters worse, the direction of Girard’s history, for reasons that will only become apparent in Girard’s social theory, is increasingly hostile to the already rare circumstances that allow for reason’s stewardship, rendering rational political discourse a practical impossibility.

As if this did not already present a strong enough challenge, the third and last way in which spirit is elevated above reason strikes an even more devastating blow to our modern intuitions: spirit evolutionarily precedes reason. The point I have in mind cannot be found internally within Girard but can be easily transplanted from Rousseau to Girard. Rousseau argued that amour propre – the desire for esteem – is evolutionarily prior to reason because of two unique qualities of the former. First, amour propre forces us to go outside of ourselves and examine ourselves from the perspective of those from whom we hope to win esteem. It is evolutionarily prior, because without this impulse, there is little cause for us to go beyond our first-person, solipsistic perspectives. At the very least, the use of amour propre strengthens our capacity to not render judgement from our immediate ends and, instead, externalize ourselves – a pathway that reason must take as well. Second, because it is esteem – normative approval – that we seek, the external position we inhabit is also a normative one (instead of, say, putting oneself in the perspective of one’s prey to determine their orientation in order to hunt them). Thus, amour propre trains us not only to abstract away from our immediate ends and access an external position, but also to inhabit an external position whose normative attitude and ends are different than our own – precisely the position that reason must also be able to access. The basic idea here is that we need to be able to ask the question “does he think this is good?” (amour propre) before being able to ask the more abstract question “is this good?” (reason). This line of argumentation can be easily transplanted to Girard. First, if reason is the capacity to evaluate on non-immediate criteria, then it must be dependent on a more fundamental capacity for us to escape our immediate perspectives. I have argued that mimesis is the pathway by which we expand our subjectivity to access external positions. Second, reason needs to access a specific type of external perspective, namely, a normative one. This is precisely what Girardian psychology focuses on with its emphasis on acquisitive mimesis – the acquisition of not just others’ habits or appearances but their normative attitudes and ends. The argument I am trying to make is that without the capacity of acquisitive mimesis – the ability to gain access to and acquire external, normative perspectives – humanity will not have been able to develop its capacity for reason. But even if this is factually true, why does this particular mode of precedence matter? After all, we have already evolved, and reason can, to a certain degree, operate independently of spirit even if the former was, at some time in the past, evolutionarily made possible by the latter. It matters because histories determine how we think about the present and this genealogy, in particular, challenges what we take humans fundamentally to be. A popular line of thinking, offered by philosophers such as Aristotle, identify the constitutive capacity of humanity to be reason. The evolutionary story we have been trying to paint suggests otherwise: reason may be a constitutive capacity of humanity but it is only made possible by the constitutive capacity of humanity: acquisitive mimesis. To think that humans are defined by reason would be like thinking that fire is defined by smoke and not flame – mistaking a unique quality derived from and dependent upon its essence as the essence itself. Indeed, Girard describes the process of hominization – the evolution from animal to man – as none other than the strengthening of acquisitive mimesis. In a Rousseauian move, we add to Girard that even that which we pride ourselves most with – reason – is but a mere side product of this more fundamental development. Under this light, humans are not reality-seeking but myth-making animals; not independent but mimetically-bound creatures. Put more provocatively, our essence – what really defines us – is not the yearning for truth, but the ability to believe in lies as long as others do as well.

3.4 The Shape of Girard’s Social Theory

This radical view of human nature sets the foundations for an equally radical social theory – one where groups can only be reconciled through lies and violence, where truth brings war not peace, and where the historical expansion of justice, equality, and transparency begets apocalypse. While the explanations of these specific social conclusions are beyond the reach of Girard’s psychology, I will now turn completely to the second aim of Part One and discuss how the psychological resources we have unearthed helps us understand and situate mimetic social theory. As is the case with his psychological landscape, Girard’s social theory is partial in two ways. First, it is partial in that it only concerns itself with the social operations of spirit, or, acquisitive mimesis. That is to say, he will not be interested in, say, how we can facilitate rational political discourse or how to systematically address the appetitive ends of all. This should come as no surprise given that the only psychological resources that Girard has at his disposal are those of spirit. Second, within the social operations of spirit, Girard is interested in a partial subset: the pathologies that result when spirit is inevitably upset in its mimetic pursuit of metaphysical autonomy. It is important to keep these two partialities in mind lest we think Girard’s social analysis – such as scapegoating – exhaust all there is to be said about society. Instead, they should be read as social pathologies which result when a large group of people fail in the mimetic pursuits of metaphysical autonomy – or, framed differently – their intersubjective pursuits of freedom.

Framed in this second formulation, it may be helpful to think of Girard as the negative complement to Hegel. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel attempts to answer the question: what does a social order that systematically satisfies all its citizens’ intersubjective pursuits of freedom look like? Girardian social theory, on the other hand, answers a different, negative question: what happens when citizens intersubjective pursuits of freedom are thwarted? Lest I trivialize Girard’s project it is important to see him as first answering “such a social order is impossible” to the Hegelian question. The concern of trivialization I am trying to assuage is the thought that Girard’s social theory only deals with accidental instances of social pathologies. Instead, his claims are more ambitious, systematic, and pessimistic: he will go on to identify mechanisms that, with the certainty of Newtonian laws, will bring about these social pathologies. Even worse, the direction of history only exacerbates these mechanisms until they eventually lead us to our inevitable apocalypse. Interestingly, what will make Girard a challenging and rewarding interlocutor for the Hegelian social theorist is that Girard, very broadly, agrees with Hegel’s account of the direction of history: the expansion of transparency, justice, and equality. But what Hegel took to be the preconditions for actualizing freedom, Girard will see as the systematic blockers that prevent its realization. Thus, as is the case with his psychology, the partiality of Girard’s social theory is not unwarranted: we are at an eschatological time in history where the dominant logic of society is, increasingly, the pathologies which result from the systematic obstructions of freedom.

I have answered the question: “how does Girard’s psychology help us situate his social theory?” But what about the converse question: is there any aspect of his social theory that enriches our understanding of his psychology? Of course, there are too many possible answers here; but one in particular stands out in my attempt to portray Girard as the rescuer of spirit. We have been using spirit as ‘spirited,’ relating to the social. Yet, there is another sense of spirit – as ‘spiritual,’ relating to religion, sacrality, and divinity – that is equally apt for mimetic theory. We will go on to find, in Girard’s social theory, that it is none other than the psychological mechanisms we have covered within acquisitive mimesis – shame, transference, mimesis – that gives rise to religions and gods. Girard, then, rescues spirit in a second sense by creating a grammar for the sacred. Furthermore, by showing us to be religious creatures through the same mechanisms that make us social creatures, Girard establishes a fundamental identity between these seemingly unrelated spheres: all religious phenomena are social in nature and, conversely, all social phenomena have a religious dimension. 

Girard rescues spirit – hidden since the foundation of the modern world – in all its richness: the good and the evil, the sacred and the profane.

Part 2: A History of Violence

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword – Matt. 10:34

Chapter 4. Mimetic Anthropology

Acquisitive mimesis plays as central a role in Girard’s anthropology as it does in his psychology, so much so that the arch of hominization is exclusively characterized by an increasing capacity for acquisitive mimesis. Girard observes that, while displaying all the capacities of non-acquisitive mimesis, animals rarely imitate the desires of others. As a result, the social order can be maintained by rigid dominance hierarchies. Yet, as our capacity for acquisitive mimesis increased, so did the amount of internal mediation which, as we now know, begins with object competition but degenerates into lethal mimetic rivalry. More worryingly, the metaphysical desires that populate mimetic rivalries are quite contagious for the simple fact that they too are desires and passed through imitation. Furthermore, because the nature of rivalry is to exact vengeance, it is also an engine of shame creation which only prunes the conditions for more metaphysical desire and thus rivalry. Girard is quick to point out how even a single mimetic rivalry, far from being a local concern, can quickly spread to all members within a group. Throughout the process of hominization, entire hominoid groups would be caught up in this mimetic contagion, descend into anarchy, and self-destruct. Dominance hierarchies could no longer contain social groups when constituents began imitating each other’s desires. 

The only hominoid groups that managed to survive were those who stumbled upon a particular cultural device: what Girard called the victimage mechanism. In moments of mimetic contagion, such groups would, imitating each other, transfer the resentment built up from their personal rivalries upon an innocent but peculiar individual or group. This scapegoat would be blamed for all the chaos within the group and be expelled in an act of collective violence. It is unjust not because the scapegoat is completely innocent – in fact, groups often select those who are more responsible than others – but because the scapegoat is attributed the entirety of the blame, described as radically evil, and punished accordingly. Experiencing cathartic release from the sacrificial act, the tensions within the group are quelled. Order is restored.

If one agrees with the psychological landscape I have just painted, one must also, if at least partially, subscribe to this uncomfortable fact about the foundations of society. This is because moments of chaos are marked by an inflammation of mimetic rivalries and, thus, metaphysical desire which we now know to be outside the domain of reason. It is precisely the moment that the social contract and rational organization is most needed, in the war of all-against-all, that rationality is the most impotent. Only the catharsis from unjust, sacrificial violence, Girard reasons, can bring chaos to order. This whole process of scapegoating requires no new psychological mechanisms to be introduced, other than those already discussed in the negative phase of mimetic rivalries, to be understood. As is the case with negative rivalries, in the victimage mechanism, one perceives a sense of shame, projects the cause of shame solely to an external source through transference, and seeks to exact vengeance upon it. The only difference is that projection is collective, established through imitation, in the act of scapegoating and individualistic in the case of rivalry. Under this light, scapegoating is none other than a collective negative rivalry and the negative phase of mimetic rivalry, a local scapegoat. 

Girard continues, this demonizing transference would work so well in premodern societies that the now peaceful community could only explain the drastic and unlikely resolution to the fact that the scapegoat was actually divine. The catharsis was so effective that people could only explain it as a miracle. Another, equally unjustified sacralizing transference occurs. The sacrificed scapegoat now becomes a prestigious god and a religion is formed around them. A sense of shame is identified and the solution, instead of the cause, is projected externally onto a model which is now worthy of reverence and imitation. This entire victimage mechanism – from innocent bystander to victim and finally to god – Girard argues, is the anthropological origins of myth and religion. 

These myths usually contained two general sets of strategies to guard against future escalation towards mimetic contagion: prohibitions and rituals. Prohibitions – such as the caste system, gender roles, etc. – created genuine social and spiritual difference amongst members within a group. They restricted the possibility of imitation altogether through radical inequality. This limitation on acquisitive mimesis, however arbitrary and oppressive, prevented the now differentiated individuals from entering into relationships of internal mediation and thus mimetic rivalry. Rituals, on the other hand, sought to reproduce the original sacrifice in a controlled manner. A placeholder, such as a lamb, would represent the first victim and the catharsis from the act of murder, amplified by its connection to the original expulsion, would alleviate societal unrest. Both institutions ultimately aimed at controlling mimetic contagion even though their strategies may seem completely different. In the early stages of contagion, prohibitions seek to contain it by prohibiting rivalrous behavior. Yet, when this is no longer a possibility, rituals seek to accelerate and discharge the tensions from rivalry in a controlled manner. 

Girard’s observations become more surprising considering his further claim that modern societies are not radically different from these ancient ones. Prohibitions and sacrificial rituals are still the core logic our institutions operate on. We have found no new collective strategies to resolve violence other than scapegoating. By institution, Girard refers to all forms of cultural practices: actual institutions, such as the judiciary, but also gender norms, festivals, war rites, family units, etiquette, etc. 

His central claim is that in moments of chaos, true peace and, therefore, lasting culture can only be founded upon the catharsis springing from the violent expulsion of a victim whose total guilt we believe in with absolute certainty. Since no individual nor group can be truly responsible for all the chaos – it is actually the tensions of each and every mimetic rivalry that lead to overall degeneration – the founding of institutions is always unjust. Peace comes at the expense of blaming a relatively innocent victim with absolute certainty. This certainty is only possible individually if we look around and see everyone else is also absolutely certain. Therefore, the founding of institutions is also always collective. Its collectiveness covers its injustice:

Foundation is never a solitary action; it is always done with others. This is the rule of unanimity, and this unanimity is violent. An institution’s role is to make us to forget this.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that we find Girard’s claims of the injustice of our institutions so surprising: the very efficacy of institutions rests on their ability to cover up the fact that they are unjust. But what are we to make of the plausibility of Girard’s double claim: that, first, “violence, in every cultural order, is always the true subject of every ritual or institutional structure”; and, second, the only way we resolve violence is through unjust scapegoating? As with the case of mimetic desire, I will qualify the scope of his claim while leaving its function within Girard’s system untouched. I propose we make sense of Girard’s double claim by analyzing institutions in four concentric circles. 

Exclusively in the outermost circle, lies institutions that are neither sacrificial nor prohibitory whose functioning does not rely on the prestige of a founding murder. For example, the federal mail service.

In the second circle, lies institutions that are not necessarily sacrificial nor prohibitory but whose functioning relies on or is aided by the prestige of a founding murder. A good example that Girard himself uses is the institution of rationality. Rationality has gained the prestige it has in modernity by scapegoating religion and blaming many ills of humanity on it. It gains the status of a savior only by demonizing a predecessor. The rules of rationality itself aren’t necessarily sacrificial but they gain an aura of prestige nonetheless from scapegoating.

In the third circle, lies institutions that are directly prohibitory whose legitimacy depends upon a founding murder. The tripartite caste system Plato outlines in the Republic is such an institution. The legitimacy of this institution relies on the prestige of a founding myth that describes how each person is born with a particular type of metal that would decide their caste, a myth whose untruth Plato himself admits.  

In the last circle, lies institutions that directly reproduce sacrificial scapegoating in an attempt to resolve violence. Here, we will find law, politics, and war. Law, so Girard argues, does not transcend the logic of sacrificial scapegoating. The logic of the judicial system is to identify parties guilty in accordance with a predetermined criterion and expel them from society. For Girard, the primary role of the judiciary is not justice but rather catharsis. If it really were for the former, it ought to, say, examine into the social conditions that lead to theft instead of just expelling the thief. Lawful punishment and private vengeance is different only in that the conditions of the former is laid out in advance and its legitimacy enforced by the state. It might be difficult seeing the cathartic aims and unjust means of law in our own society, but it ought not be in the countless others where the punishment is clearly disproportionate to the crime: death for stealing grapes, for example. To identify politics as sacrificial is an easier task. One interpretation of politics offered by Carl Schmitt sees the constitutive quality of politics as the making of friend-enemy distinctions, the former to benefit and the latter to, in somse sense, expel. The frequency by which we see politicians cast undeserved blame on specific groups lends credence to this reading. More specifically, certain political mechanisms such as elections in democracies serve a sacrificially cathartic role that discharges tensions in precisely the way Girard outlines. It is easiest of all, then, to identify war as sacrificial. In times of internal chaos, it is a well-known tactic to redirect resentment towards an external enemy through warfare. The dizzying amount of propaganda this usually involves should be indicative of the untruth of this scapegoating. 

I hope to have, again, limited the scope of Girard’s claims while preserving his most important insights and their argumentative role in the overall structure. His original description of institutions as sacrificial becomes more accurate as we move towards the innermost circle. Indeed, not all institutions are sacrificial, but the more an institution is aimed at dealing with violence, the more sacrificial it must be. That is not to say, however, that the institutions who aim for peace – such as law, politics, and war – are necessarily unjust. In fact, as we will soon investigate, institutions are becoming more just. His claim is somehow even less palatable: since chaos is the result of mimetic contagion and never the consequence of an independent actor, a truthful and just institution will have to recognize blame in almost everyone. But such an institution can never establish peace, because peace can only be founded upon the catharsis of expelling one source of radical evil. Not all institutions which aim for peace are necessarily unjust, but all institutions that succeed in bringing peace are. Girard’s surprising insight is that justice and transparency are incompatible with worldly peace. 

Chapter 5. Mimetic Theology

Peaceful society depends on the integrity of prohibitions and sacrificial rituals which, in turn, gain legitimacy from the prestige of the original god. That is to say, for the victimage mechanism to produce genuine peace and lasting cultural practices which can reintroduce peace, its true mechanism must remain hidden. The scapegoat must not be recognized as innocent and the sacrifice as unjust for then, the prestigious god would be exposed as merely an arbitrary victim. Certainly, the prestige of the god could wane over time and, with it, the guards against mimetic contagion. Society would then descend into chaos before reproducing the victimage mechanism again, introducing a new host of myths. 

For most of our history, humanity operated on this cyclical course. Yet, the Christian revelation, through the death of Christ, exposed the injustice of scapegoating and in Girard’s own words, “forced us to adopt [a linear time that] makes the eternal return of the gods impossible, and thus also any reconciliation on the head of innocent victims.” This Christian concern for the victim already appears in the Old Testament stories of Job, Joseph, Abel, etc. as the victim is often portrayed as innocent, but it only takes its full form in the crucifixion. For Girard, Christ’s death revealed the scapegoat as innocent and the collective as guilty. The crucifixion exposed the victimage mechanism and the violent, unjust, and untruthful foundations of cultural institutions. Conversely, it is Christ’s ability to expose this legacy of injustice that Girard sees as evidence of divinity: the one true God who reveals the falsity of all other gods and myths. 

Christian revelation, for Girard, becomes the inflection point of human history. Slowly but surely, humanity loses its ability to create myths out of the deified scapegoat and, with it, the legitimacy of prohibitions – now considered oppressive – and the efficacy of sacrifice – now considered cruel. The Christian concern for the victim is both a truth and justice seeking force that would ultimately be responsible for among others: the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, and the egalitarian movements of modernity. It even has some explanatory power over contemporary phenomena such as victimhood culture which, at its extremes, puzzlingly sees groups compete to be depicted as the most victimized in society. 

But, let us not forget, truth and justice are incompatible with worldly peace. Four continued transformations brought about by the Christian revelation are responsible for an increase in internal mediation and, thus, mimetic rivalries. First, equality – the removal of prohibitions, such as gender roles – decreases differentiation. Second, technological developments, such as air travel and the internet, increase exposure. Third, the new Christian standard of justice limits the models we wish to imitate in history, as we now find their practices unjust. This restricts the possibilities for external mediation and pushes individuals into internal mediation with “unproblematic” contemporaries. Lastly, with the fall of myths and deities that kept us humble, humanity has been abusing its newfound license for pride. We more readily and willingly attribute metaphysical autonomy to human peers which only intensifies mimetic rivalries. 

Not only do we have an increase in mimetic rivalries, but also a decrease in the resources to deal with them. It is harder to found peace-bringing institutions because sacrificial scapegoating, increasingly denounced for its injustice, no longer produces the essential cathartic release. Cultural institutions have had to react to the Christian revelation and hide their sacrificial nature through nuance, abstraction, rationality, and, indeed, more justice. But it is because and not despite their increased justice that they are impotent in producing peace or authority. Most worryingly, the more an institution directly deals with resolving violence, the more it must rely on sacrifice, the more it has lost its efficacy due to the Christian revelation. Violence becomes uncontrollable and unresolvable. 

I have now traced the key historical developments from hominization to modernity: the increased capacity for acquisitive mimesis, the development of prohibitory and sacrificial institutions, and the revelatory force of Christianity. Before we explore the specific characteristics of modernity that render it eschatological – namely its capacity for violence, love and innovation – how plausible is this philosophy of history? 

One may object to Girard’s anthropological claims: violence is not caused by mimetic contagion but material scarcity, therefore, peace does not come from sacrificial catharsis but rather from rational negotiations and the alignment of incentives. As I will soon argue, the truth probably lies in between two extremes. But even if Girard only highlights part of the causal nexus of violence and its resolution, the mere insightfulness of his observations and terrifying conclusions of his arguments more than warrant our further engagement. 

One may also object to Girard’s claims about the importance of Christianity. A first response would be that one need not believe in the literal divinity of Christ to believe in the important role that Christianity plays in history. Second, one need not even believe in this weaker claim. As long as one subscribes to Girard’s anthropological conclusions about the unjust and deceitful foundations of peace-bringing institutions, any truth-or-justice-seeking force one identifies within history can act as a valid substitute to the role Girard needs Christianity to play in his history. For example, if one believes that there is a strong, teleological force within history to seek truth, then that would be adequate in leading us to Girard’s apocalyptic conclusions which we will now explore. 

5.1 Violence in modernity

The first defining characteristic of modernity is its unprecedented actuality, potential, and constancy of violence. What must have seemed an anachronistic claim in the introduction of the project should now flow naturally: the Christian revelation removed the restraints of violence – prohibitions – while making impotent the only tool for resolution – sacrificial ritual.

First, the collapse of prohibitions and rituals across social institutions has led to an immense actuality of violence. Mimetic rivalries now form at a dizzying scale, creating unparalleled societal tensions. Unfortunately, sacrificial scapegoating is still the only method we know how to resolve such tensions. We haven’t given up scapegoating as it becomes less effective but have merely increased the dosage to maintain the same effect. Girard would point to the atrocities of scapegoating in the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century as evidence of this fact: 

Entire categories of humans are distinguished (the Jews, the aristocrats, the bourgeois, the unfaithful, the faithful…) and we are told that utopia depends on the necessary condition of the elimination of the guilty categories. As the power of the mechanism breaks down, sacrifices at a larger and larger scale must persist to achieve the same calming effect. Before we could bring peace by sacrificing a goat or a few men, but now we must kill an entire race, religion, class — the eradication needs to be total.

Second, the collapse of prohibitions and rituals in war specifically, the institution which regulates violence between nations, creates the potential for violence. Without prohibitions in war, violence is uncontrollable and will escalate to apocalyptic proportions. 

The contemporary fallacy, Girard points out, is to believe that war can be controlled by rational political negotiations. As I’ve articulated many times already, rationality has limited sovereignty over mimetic desire: only when the latter is weak and not yet dominated by metaphysical desire. But when metaphysical ambitions do take over, Girard comments, “passions do indeed rule the world” and rationality merely serves the ends set by mimesis. Political rationality can only limit strategic wars motivated by a physical desire of the nation state to gain some utility. But in wars of extermination, motivated by a metaphysical desire to exact violence on the enemy, politics serves the ends of war and has no domain over it. In our age of internal mediation, nations and national identities increasingly enter into mimetic rivalries with each other. It is increasingly this latter type of war – a war fought not for material resources but prestige – that we should expect.  

So how have wars been deescalated in the past if not primarily through the steward of reason? Girard’s reductive explanation should, at this point, come with no shock: just as war is escalated by mimesis, so is it deescalated by it. The only difference is the availability of cultural and technological frictions which determines whether escalatory or de-escalatory actions are imitated between enemies. Technological frictions – distance, terrain, communication, etc. – are all the spatio-temporal barriers preventing the use of maximum force in a single instance. Cultural frictions – the prohibitions within war such as an honor code, political consequences, burial rites, etc. – are all the social-cultural barriers preventing the use of maximum force in a single instance. In situations where there are abundant technological and cultural frictions – I take weeks to maneuver my troops as you do yours, I provide a burial truce for you as you do me, etc. – war could deescalate to mere armed observation. Metaphysical passions cool down. Opportunities for peace negotiations occur. But Girard sees in Napoleon’s ability to conscript universally and arrange every aspect of society in service of the military apparatus evidence that technological and cultural frictions were beginning to disappear. Today, nuclear weapons have conquered all technological frictions, enabling us to unleash everything in one instance, and nothing but a fragile International Law of War restricts our actions culturally. The frictions that checked war are all but gone, and even a local war could quickly escalate into nuclear apocalypse.

Third, without sacrificial scapegoating to end war, violence is constant. Whatever peace there may be is simply a suspended state of potential violence. That is to say, without placing ultimate blame on a small group of individuals, the losing side will never accept the state of peace. They will either seek to build up their strength or attack subversively from their defensive position. For the former, Girard presents the example of Germany’s nationalistic response to the Treaty of Versailles. For the latter, Girard presents the example of terrorism. Society is infected with unpredictable outbursts of violence and whatever peace exists is merely a time of suspended violence directed at procuring the strength needed to exact greater vengeance. Either way, violence becomes constant even when invisible. 

To many, modernity represents an era of unprecedented peace. Girard does not disagree. But the fact that we are living in a long period of peace is not incompatible with the idea that apocalyptic violence is around the corner. First, the constancy of violence, Girard reminds us, “obliges us to see history on a larger scale and as involving very long alternations.” Without sacrificial resolution, peace is interpreted as merely a trough between two peaks of violence. Second, let us not forget, our peaceful trough is preceded by a peak in the actuality of violence – the two world wars – with more causalities than ever before. And given that war has lost all of its breaks, third, the potential for violence is limitless. Perhaps our trough will be followed by an apocalyptic peak which no institution can contain.

Writing this project in a year that has seen a heated trade war and a global pandemic – both threatening political stability and both being used for political scapegoating – it does not strain one’s imagination to take Girard’s apocalyptic intuition seriously. This is especially so, considering his predictions on both matters more than a decade ago:

A conflict between the United States and China will follow: everything is in place, though it will not necessarily occur on the military level at first … Trade can transform very quickly into war, and today, since traditional war is no longer available … trade can become the trend to extremes. From this point of view, we can reasonably fear a major clash between China and the United States in coming decades.

[The H5N1 pandemic] could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few days, and is a phenomenon typical of the undifferentiation now coursing across the planet … Pandemics tell us something about human relations.

5.2 Love in Modernity

But we must remember that the removal of prohibitions and sacrificial rituals is, at its core, a truth-and-justice-seeking force. Thus, the second defining characteristic of modernity is its actuality and potential for love. 

Love is, as defined by Girard, being “identified with others. This is Christian love, and it exists in our world. It is even very active. It saves many people, works in hospitals, and even operates in some forms of research. Without this love, the world would have exploded long ago.” The abolishment of slavery, animal welfare, human rights, etc – the Christian concern for the victim specifically, and love more generally, has permeated society. 

Furthermore, there is even a greater potential for love than what is already actualized. This is because a prerequisite of identifying with the other is undifferentiation, which the removal of social prohibitions – the caste system, arbitrary gender norms, etc. – has greatly accelerated. Of course, this does not change the fact that undifferentiation is also a precondition for and accelerator of violence. It only goes to show the complexity of the problem at hand. 

5.3 Innovation in Modernity

The third defining characteristic of modernity for Girard is our unprecedented ability to innovate: “freed of sacrificial constraints, the human mind invented science, technology and all the best and worst of culture. Our civilization is the most creative and powerful ever known.” Girard suggests three ways that the removal of prohibitions and sacrificial rituals have driven innovation. The first two develop the prerequisite perspective for innovation while the third furnishes us with motivational forces. 

By perspective I refer not to specific pieces of knowledge required for innovation but rather one’s general outlook and interpretation of the world. Perspective, defined in this sense, is paramount as a prerequisite for innovation. Since, we must imagine how specific interpretations of the world — for example, belief in an unstoppable degeneracy of history, or the sanctity and inviolability of nature — would remove the possibility of innovation altogether. For Girard, the perspective necessary for innovation is “a minimal respect for the past, and a mastery of its achievements.” The idea here is this: one must have enough reverence, or at least curiosity, for the past and one’s contemporaries to fully understand the inner causal workings of their achievements. The positive perspective for innovation is to see the world as worthy of engagement and capable of being understood. But one must not revere the past nor others to the point where these accomplishments seem given or final. The negative, and often overlooked, perspective for innovation is to see the world as constructed, malleable, and incomplete. Both too much and too little reverence are fatal to innovation. In the case of too much reverence, a lack of the negative perspective, the world may seem worthy and intelligible but also given as is. Existing accomplishments appear final, and unalterable. Think of a cult fanatic who can recite their leader’s revelations from heart but can’t conceive of it ever being improved. In the case of too little reverence, a lack of the positive perspective, the world may appear malleable but one does not have reason to engage with it or the knowledge to do so. Think of a child watching mechanics assemble a car. Instead, a delicate balance of reverence is needed to understand the world but not see it as final, a balance the Christian revelation has indirectly brought about. 

First, prohibitions and sacrificial rituals, as previously mentioned, are dictated in myths. Their removal, alongside a broader rejection of myth, changes the connotations of innovation from negative to positive. Its connotation was negative because, Girard elaborates, innovation implied a deviation from the sacred, albeit static and rigid, ideals provided by myth. It was “practically synonymous with heresy." The escape from myth, therefore, frees us from deifying the achievements of the past and instead permits us to hold an attitude of “minimal respect.” Our negative perspectives are made possible with the rejection of myth.  

Second, the removal of prohibitions increased the amount of internal mediation in society. In discussions on innovation, we often dismiss the utility of imitation after recalling its unintentional and unconscious manifestations such as groupthink. But much of what we consider "learning", such as that between master and apprentice, inevitably involve a great deal of internal mediation. One must first learn a craft or catch up to one's competitors through imitation before one is even at the vantage point to innovate. Furthermore, "in a truly innovative process, it is often so continuous with imitation that its presence can be discovered only after the fact, through a process of abstraction."  Girard elaborates, innovators are always surprised when their imitators suddenly innovate in their own right – America to the Europeans, Germans to the British, and now China to America. What lies behind this surprise is a false dichotomy between innovation and imitation. In practice, no act of innovation can be entirely done from a vacuum and thus must involve some degree of imitation, and no imitation can be adopted without being adapted and thus must involve some degree of innovation. The increase in internal mediation accelerates our “mastery of [humanity’s] achievements.” Our positive perspectives are accelerated through internal mediation.

Third, an increase in both object competition and mimetic rivalries has motivated modern innovation. This is true in business as it is in science or art. Girard observes: "the driving force behind their constant innovation is far from utopian. In a vigorous economy, it is a matter of survival, pure and simple." In object competition, we innovate to secure the survival of our physical selves or enterprises. In mimetic rivalries, we innovate to secure the survival of our spiritual selves and our sense of being. Both are powerful engines of progress. 

To be sure, Girard holds a much more ambivalent attitude towards innovation than to love or violence, attributing to it both the “best and worst” of modern cultural developments. He is certainly critical of the degree to which we idolize innovation, calling it an “unhealthy obsession.” Specific avenues of innovation, such as nuclear weaponry, are also causes for concern. On the other hand, he credits innovation with all the vibrancy and creativity of modern society. And just as innovation has handed terrifying instruments into the hands of violence, it has also developed effective means to actualize love. At the very least, we can say that innovation has instrumental value in actualizing love. Any viable solution to modernity’s ills should tread carefully, then, to preserve some if not most of our innovative capacities.

Chapter 6. Mimetic Eschatology

Modernity is eschatological because the bad – violence – and the good – love – are, catalyzed by the Christian revelation, accelerating to astronomical proportions while innovation arms them both with powerful instruments. Depending on what forces within modernity are developed, humanity will soon look radically different: a prosperous Kingdom or an apocalyptic wasteland. We are in desperate need of a solution. 

Our solution cannot be collective. We cannot simply reintroduce prohibitions and sacrifice since, Girard argues, truth cannot be ignored once revealed. The Christian revelation’s concern for justice will only, if ever so slowly, continue to gain ground. But even if we could, it would not be desirable. In limiting violence through prohibitions and sacrifice, we would also have stopped the development of love and innovation. A satisfying strategy cannot be reactionary and would instead need to renounce violence, cultivate love, and accelerate innovation on a societal scale. 

In a surprising twist, despite his praise of the positive potential of modernity, Girard does not believe such a societal solution is possible. His defeatism is fully audible in his last book: “We have to destroy one another or love one another, and humanity, we fear, will prefer to destroy itself.” Apocalypse is inevitable: “The disaster is thus insignificant in relation to its certainty.” With depressing conviction, Girard declares the Christian revelation, which sought to bring humanity into maturity by removing the crutches of sacrifice, a failure: “Christ will have tried to bring humanity into adulthood, but humanity will have refused. I am using the future perfect on purpose because there is a deep failure in all this.”

This degree of pessimistic certainty is indeed a late development for Girard. He once believed “that universal knowledge of violence would suffice” to renounce violence and develop love. That is to say, a rational understanding of metaphysical desire and mimetic rivalries would be enough to limit violence. And an intellectual grasp on how we are fundamentally similar – becoming easier by the day as prohibitions are removed and differentiation is dissolving – would be enough to cultivate identification and love. This is an empty hope for the same reason politics cannot contain wars of extermination: rationality has no hold over intense mimetic desires. It is precisely now, Girard laments, when the rational truth of undifferentiation – identity with the other – is most available that rivals enter into the fiercest mimetic rivalries because of this high degree of undifferentiation:

When there is no longer anything separating enemy brothers and everything tells them to unite, since their very lives depend on the union, neither intellectual obviousness nor appeals to common sense, to reason or to logic are of any use. There will be no peace because war is fed precisely by the nothing that alone remains between the adversaries and that is nourished by their very identity.

The eschatological paradox of modernity is this. At a time when people have never been more radically alike and equal, people see the most radical and diametrically-opposed differences in each other. Modernity, undifferentiated and exposed, becomes infested with internal mediation. Rivals see nothing in the other but the false differences they erect. Under these circumstances, to resist the urge of mimetic rivalries is “something only geniuses and saints can do.” This is the crux of Girard’s disbelief that there can ever be a societal solution. He despairs over the fact that the more we seek truth and justice, the more we inch towards the Kingdom, the more we realize the conditions of undifferentiation and exposure which contains the greatest potential of love – the more we bring about internal mediation, mimetic rivalries, and violence.

We have arrived at another paradox: “The future of the world is out of our control, and yet it is in our hands.” That is to say, we can no longer prevent the world from descending into apocalypse because mimetic rivalries have taken upon a will of their own. Yet, whatever violence that does ensue solely comes from human decisions. We should remind ourselves of the humanism of Girard’s theology: Satan is not a sentient being but the victimage mechanism, God is withdrawn and non-interventionist only making an appearance for revelation, and apocalypse will come solely from human rather than divine violence.

6.1 Holderlin’s Sorrow

It is incongruent, then, to this humanism that the only solution Girard does prescribe relies solely on divine intervention “that will take place in a beyond of which we can describe neither the time nor place.” This solution, as will soon be abundantly clear, is only available to very few individuals. The idea here must be: since the world will inevitably descend towards apocalypse, and the societal wide renunciation of violence and cultivation of love is impossible, we can resort to doing so individually to make ourselves worthy of the Kingdom whose foundation is now solely left in the hands of God.   

The path of individual salvation lies in an imitation of Christ, which encourages the renouncing of violence and development of love in five ways.  

First, Christ will never enter rivalry with anyone because he is withdrawn. Greek gods, such as Apollo, enter into human society during war – or, at least, people perceive this to be the case – and become mimetic rivals with human heroes. Christ, on the other hand, is always at a safe distance and, unlike other models, will never become your rival. 

Second, the imitation of Christ itself will not start mimetic rivalries with others. Again, the idea here can be drawn out with a comparison to Greek religion. A woman can claim to have had sex with Dionysus because of the latter’s frequent presence, and have that relationship be the object which sparks mimetic rivalry with her peers. Christ, however, is so withdrawn that no one can really say to “possess” him in any meaningful way. 

Third, because Christ is distant, he does not imitate any worldly person. Girard advises: “the aspect of Christ that has to be imitated is his withdrawal,” specifically, his refusal to imitate anyone at all. 

Fourth, after the resurrection – when his divinity is unquestionably confirmed to all – Christ could have become a model widely esteemed and imitated by everyone. Instead, in Girard’s own words, “he withdraws at the very point when he could dominate.” What must also be imitated then, alongside his refusal to imitate, is, paradoxically, his refusal to be imitated. Since we have developed the intimate connection between esteem, metaphysical autonomy, and imitation, the imperative to not be imitated must be interpreted as a commandment to not be esteemed as to not appear autonomous and worthy of imitation. Indeed, this is Girard’s exact intuition: “To imitate Christ is to refuse to impose oneself as a model and [in order to not be a model] to always efface oneself before others. To imitate Christ is to do everything to avoid being imitated.” We must remind ourselves that, in internal mediation, to be imitated is just as dangerous as to imitate given how mimetic rivalries corrupt model and subject alike. 

These four aspects of imitating Christ, specifically his withdrawal, force the individual to renounce violence. Specifically, imitating Christs renounces violence because it renounces any worldly imitation: one does not imitate and one is not imitated by any other human whatsoever. Girard is quite literal in his advice of withdrawal. Holderlin, the 18^th century poet and philosopher who retreated into a tower for the last forty years of his life, is Girard’s example par excellence.

But it is not enough to just renounce violence. Fifth, to imitate Christ is to see all other humans through Christ and His love. This enables us to be undifferentiated and identify with others as, in Girard’s words, “brothers ‘in’ Christ.” 

Girard’s embrace of Holderlin’s renunciation might seem an extreme conclusion. But his hand is forced: to develop love one must be undifferentiated from others. Yet, if one is also exposed, then one enters into internal mediation succumbing to, as Girard puts it, “the irresistible attraction that others exercise upon us, and that always leads to violent reciprocity.” Thus, the only way to both cultivate love and renounce violence is to be unexposed – distant and withdrawn from society. 

Certainly, Girard’s advice to withdraw should not be read as an insistence that every single relationship in modernity is a mimetic rivalry, that those who interact with society are all delirious with metaphysical ambitions. Our historical conditions do, however, encourage development along these lines while removing resources for reconciliation. To frame the complexity of the situation in the psychological, historical framework we have already been developing: because of diminishing sacrificial resources, mimetic rivalries can no longer be diffused and will increasingly end in violence. Since there is no reliable way of preventing object competition from descending into mimetic rivalry, all internal mediation has to be avoided. 

We can either reintroduce differences or limit exposure. The former is not only impossible but will also thwart the cultivation of love. Thus, the only, or so it would seem, available choice for an individual – and this certainly is not feasible for all of society – is to drastically limit one’s exposure to anyone whatsoever.

Our sympathies to the complexity of Girard’s problem, however, does not preclude our dissatisfaction with the defeatism of his solution. Commentators, echoing this sentiment, are troubled by “Girard’s embrace of Holderlin’s mystical quietism.” They are quick to point out that Girard’s late pessimism ignores the positive potential of humanity in his earlier writings. The dark road that mimesis leads down in Girard’s last work is a far cry from the hopeful picture he paints in his earlier works when he declares: “Mimetic desire is intrinsically good.”

Immanently within Girard, one may ask: what good was Christian love for Holderlin if he was so distant from the ones whom he identified with? If there was any love developed at all, it was an impotent love. One may challenge Girard’s depiction of Holderlin as “innocent” and “holy”, treating visitors “ceremoniously.” A commentator points out: “contemporaries of Hölderlin found their visits to him harrowing: unable to converse, devoid of companionship, Hölderlin's demeanor was characterized by acute anxiety rather than contemplative peace.” One may wonder whether there is a deep incompatibility. Girard first describes, within a deeply humanistic theology, a non-interventionist and withdrawn Christ, only to lay the entire burden of founding the Kingdom of God on his, rather than human, shoulders. In the final analysis, Girard’s solution ironically succumbs to the escapist flaws he attributes to Buddhism: “the nonviolence of Eastern religions is the search for a position outside of violence, nirvana, etc., at the price of all action. But this search abandons the world in a way to itself.”

Externally to Girard, one may wonder how many Holderlins a society can sustain. One may question whether an abstinence from all the channels of innovation that have created, in Girard’s own words, “the most energetic and creative [society] that has ever been” is a fair personal price for nonviolence. Most worryingly, to those outside the Christian faith – a group that has easily accessed Girard’s other insights due to his humanistic interpretations – this individualistic solution spells nothing less than the end of humanity with no salvation in sight. 

It need not be so. 

Part 3: Antidotes to Apocalypse

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form – The Heart Sutra

Chapter 7. Renouncing Violence

Without a strategy to dam the flood of metaphysical desire in internal mediation, the waters of modernity will continue to thwart safe passage. For then, our only options would be Holderlinian retreat or intoxicated mimetic frenzy. To chart a middle way between the Scylla of escapism and Charybdis of delirium, we must chart a course of internal mediation that does not inevitably crash on the reefs of metaphysical desire and mimetic rivalry. We must find strategies to be engaged with society yet remain a degree of sobriety. 

Recall, the necessary conditions to be mediated by someone – the precondition to metaphysical desire and mimetic rivalries – are threefold. The rival needs to be proximate. We need to consider the rival as metaphysically autonomous. And we need to feel a sense of shame. 

The Holderlinian proposal tackles the problem through proximity: be close to Christ and be distant from all other humans. But what about changing the two other conditions? Why do we feel shame and seek metaphysical autonomy in the first place? 

Girard’s investigation into the origin of shame proceeds as follows. Because of our natural tendency towards pride, a tendency particularly inflamed in the past few centuries without the restraint of religion, we readily attribute metaphysical autonomy to humans. Reality, self-sufficiency, and autonomy, can be and have been achieved by people we think; it is an ideal we, as humans, can reasonably aim at. But in the “solitude of [our] consciousness”, Girard describes, we discover through first-hand experience that we ourselves are clearly not metaphysically autonomous. We are only mortals after all. (Here, we can add – alongside the immanent and social reasons for the impossibility of metaphysical autonomy – a theological reason. For Christians, metaphysical autonomy is reserved for God not man.) Shame, then, Girard argues is the violent “contrast between this marvelous promise [of metaphysical autonomy] and the brutal disappointment inflicted by [human] experience.” What sustains shame and renders it even less bearable is the fact that we believe this fate to be uniquely our own – the deceitful character of metaphysical desire. Because we don’t have access to others’ intimate experience but only to their outward appearance, we falsely believe that they, at least the ones who are wealthy recipients of esteem, are metaphysically autonomous. Of course, this only serves to further exacerbate our sense of shame and fuel our quest for metaphysical autonomy. 

Notably, in this explanation, shame, despite being depicted as the “original sin”, isn’t primary. It is pride, the personal yearning for metaphysical autonomy, which generates expectations in conflict with reality that creates shame. Girard elaborates: “what impoverishes the ego is the very desire to be that ego — the desire for the kind of narcissism that is never ours but can be seen radiating from the other to whom we enslave ourselves." The good news, then, is that shame isn’t part of our human constitution but merely a byproduct of pride. Furthermore, pride can be diminished through the process of conversion. 

Despite its Christian connotations, conversion is not an experience reserved for the religious but simply the process of becoming disillusioned with the promise of metaphysical autonomy. There are certainly Christian conversions, like that of Augustine, which are Girardian conversions. But Girard uses the term more broadly to describe “a liberation from desire.” Seeing through the vanity of metaphysical autonomy, one naturally renounces the futile violence within mimetic rivalries, develops an identification and love for the other as false differences diminish, and is even imbued with a newfound “creative energy.” Post-conversion, or so Girard makes it seem, we can continue to engage deeply with society without being trapped in the pernicious games of metaphysical desire. But if it is possible to remove or, at least, greatly tame our pride and shame, why is the Holderlinian option offered at all?

Conversion, while indeed plausible is, for three reasons, unreproducible. First, the conditions for conversion are extremely specific. While necessary, it is not sufficient for the desirous subject to just intellectually comprehend the impossibility of metaphysical autonomy. Girard explains: this will only encourage a deceitful “sense of having achieved such victory.” Even “the slightest degree of progress” would additionally require the delusion of metaphysical autonomy to be “vanquished on the most intimate level of experience.” Furthermore, this experience “must succeed in collapsing ... our ‘ego’, our ‘personality’, our ‘temperament’, and so on.” That is to say, conversion relies on a rare experience that fundamentally changes what we conceive the self is or could be. 

Second, the conditions for conversion cannot be pursued directly. What is necessary to produce such a strong, life-changing experience is a “fall.” We must utterly fail at securing our cherished metaphysical autonomy in, as Girard puts it, “the trials that desire obliges us to suffer.” Since the fall is defined by, above all, failure, it cannot be pursued directly. It is not as if one can work towards a fall in hopes that it will lead to conversion for then it would cease to have the necessary destabilizing shock. Instead, the fall must result from a genuine and intense metaphysical desire that is inevitably thwarted. 

Third, even when all the conditions for conversion are met, it is still, to some degree, up to chance. Girard’s discussion on the possibility of reconciliation between rivals – a corollary if not subsidiary experience to conversion – proves illuminating. “This process is possible, but it is not under our control. We are immersed in mimetism. Some are lucky enough to have had good models and to have been educated in the possibility of taking distance. Others have had the bad luck to have had poor models. We do not have the power to decide; the models make the decisions for us.” In other words, even when all the conditions of conversion and reconciliation are in place, we are still left with a choice: to deepen our pride or renounce it, to enact violence on the rival or to seek reconciliation. Unfortunately, this choice is not completely up to us and will be determined, at least in large part, by the models we have been exposed to. 

It should now be clear why conversion and the escape from mimetism is a path only for lucky “geniuses and saints.” Its irreproducibility prevents it from being a reliable antidote. Therefore, what seemed to be an easy Christian solution to the Girardian problem is no longer available. The hopeful line of thinking went as such: our original sin, shame, is due to our misplacement of pride. Thus, we need only to redirect our gaze towards the rightful recipient of pride – God, who alone is metaphysically autonomous – to resolve our shame. The problem, however, is that one can be Christian without experiencing Girardian conversion. (And it is not like being Christian makes conversion any more reproducible.) In other words, one can attribute metaphysical autonomy to and love God all they want, but until they become disillusioned about metaphysical autonomy in the human realm – the outcome of Girardian conversion – they will continue to experience shame and be seduced by metaphysical desire as soon as they come in contact with society. The first commandment to direct one’s sights towards God is incomplete without the tenth commandment to divert one’s gaze away from others. Due to the irreproducibility of conversion, Girard cannot offer any more advice, even to the God-loving Christian, than he already has in his praise of Holderlin: stay away from others, imitate Christ. 

Our quest to rescue internal mediation within modernity, has led us to explore all three conditions for metaphysical desire – shame, pride, and proximity – to no avail. Within Girard, it seems that to the extent one accepts his psychological, anthropological, and theological descriptions, one must also abide by his eschatological prescriptions. However, our journey is not for naught, for we have outlined what the solution must look like. Since pride and shame can be tamed, if not completely abolished through conversion, we only have to find a way to make conversion systematic to uncover a way to engage with the world without spiraling into delirium. To make conversion – the removal of pride and shame – reproducible, we first have to reproduce a deeper explanation of pride and shame than what Girard has to offer. To the Buddhism of David Loy, we must now turn. 

7.1 How do you Reproduce a Triangle?

The existential sense of shame that has taken central place in our discussion is, so Loy argues, “the most important concept in Buddhism: dukkha.” Dukkha, more often translated as “suffering”, is interpreted by Loy as lack. What makes this lack a meaningful equivalent for Girardian shame is, and I will elaborate further, its similar and intimate dependency on a “delusive sense of self.” By “meaningful equivalent” I do not imply identity – Dukkha is too multivalent to find an exact Western equivalent – but simply that the two states broadly share the same manifestations, causes and, therefore, the same solutions. In his existential and psychoanalytic reading of Zen, Loy claims that the Buddha had only one thing to teach: the cause of “Dukkha and the end of Dukkha … the Buddhist path is nothing other than a way to resolve our sense of lack.” 

The cause of this lack is explained in the Second of the Four Noble Truths as three kleshas, or mental distortions: misknowledge, craving, and aversion. While these three distortions reinforce each other, misknowledge is the root cause of which the latter two are, in a sense, reactions. 

Crucially, misknowledge is not only an ignorance of reality but seeing reality for exactly what it is not. For Buddhists, phenomenal reality is marked by Śūnyatā, or emptiness. That is to say, phenomena do not exist independently from the causes and conditions that give birth to them; they are impermanent, not eternal. Phenomena do not exist independently from mereological relationships they are in; they are constructed, not indivisible. Lastly, phenomena do not exist independently from the subjects who perceive them; they are dependent, not autonomous. Misknowledge then, is to treat phenomena as if they had “intrinsic existence”: as if they were eternal, indivisible, and autonomous. Evidently, emptiness and intrinsic existence are opposites. Specifically, emptiness is an ontological claim negating the possibility of intrinsic existence. It is not an unqualified denial of reality altogether. 

As is the case with shame and Dukkha/lack, there is a meaningful equivalence to draw between intrinsic existence and metaphysical autonomy as both describe a real, solid, self-sufficient, and autonomous mode of existence. By “meaningful equivalence” I don’t imply identity: while intrinsic existence describes all phenomena, metaphysical autonomy appears to be primarily a state reserved to describe human beings. “Meaningful equivalence” means that the individual’s pursuit for reality and autonomy in metaphysical autonomy is none other than the rejection of impermanence, constructedness, and dependency in the pursuit of intrinsic existence. I draw this specific identity not through a metaphysical deduction of these concepts but through the, and I will soon draw this out, psychological similarity in consequences, manifestations, and motivations both authors use to describe these pursuits. Immediately, this equivalence implies that emptiness presents a fourth and most fundamental phenomenological impossibility of the Girardian ideal in addition to the immanent, social, and theological impossibilities. Reality and autonomy are futile goals in a world where the nature of phenomena, including the phenomena of self, is constructed and dependent. Buddhism goes one layer deeper than Girard in critiquing the quest for metaphysical autonomy.

But it would be a mistake to think misknowledge as only a rational, reflective error with our consciously held views of ontology. A greater, deeper, and more problematic dimension of misknowledge is the perceptual way we treat phenomena, independent of our held opinions. The analogy of an optical illusion is helpful at differentiating between these two faces of misknowledge. Even though we rationally know the Müller-Lyer illusion to be constituted of lines of equal length, they still appear to us in different sizes. In like manner, even though we may reflectively agree that all phenomena are empty – impermanent, dependent, and constructed – we still cannot shake the natural cognitive reflex of taking them to be intrinsically existing – lasting, indivisible, and independent. This deeper side of misknowledge is an empirical claim, gleaned from observation. One ought only observe the universality of the desire to establish the self after death through symbolic gestures to see our reluctance to accept impermanence. One ought only notice the instinctiveness with which we posit an unchanging "I" behind the superficial changes and an autonomous core through which the "self" acts to see our refusal of constructedness. And one ought only examine how natural the idea of a discrete subject observing external objects is to see our difficulty in grasping dependence. Regardless of our held metaphysical positions, we treat and expect all phenomena and, specifically, the phenomena of self to be not empty but intrinsically existing. In Girardian language, we consider the self to be a legitimate candidate for metaphysical autonomy. 

But deep down, we develop a suspicion through lived experience that the self is in fact empty. We develop this rationally by recognizing our mortality. We develop this intuitively through the rapidity of which we adopt and dispose of identities in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. We develop this emotionally in times of despair when we are vulnerable and dependent. We develop this physically if we ever lose control of our environments, such as in a car crash. With a move in harmony with Girard, Loy explains that lack results from the difference between one’s expectation of the self as intrinsically existing and the growing suspicion, gleaned from intimate experience, that the self is empty.

This lack, Loy explains, takes on the immediate form of a pervasive and foundational anxiety “at the very core of one’s being, which becomes almost unbearable because it gnaws on that core.” As a result, we repress this deeply uncomfortable lack, only to have it return in distorted forms, projected on the world. In service of its own agenda, lack furnishes our lives with pursuits that, unbeknownst to the subject, have a hidden but foundational aim of establishing ourselves as intrinsically existent. This logic of repression and projection reveals that mediation and rivalry itself is a reflex from a more fundamental fear. This is a fear that Girard himself had hinted at: “rivalry is intolerable, but the absence of rivalry is even more intolerable. It brings the subject up against nothingness." But Loy goes one layer deeper in explaining the origin of the yearning for metaphysical autonomy. It does not originate merely from an act of rebellion by a prideful self, but from an even more fundamental error with how we treat phenomena altogether. 

The logic of these self-establishing pursuits is objectification, identifying with objects in hopes that doing so will give us a sense of reality. The logic goes: if I own objects, I can see that I ‘am.’ If I can identify with intrinsically existing objects, then I too must be intrinsically existing. When identifying with objects, one projects the remedy of their lack externally and pursue or guard it with fervor. We can also identify against objects. In this case, we project the cause of our lack externally and seek to punish and expel it. 

Through the logic of objectification, misknowledge transforms into the two other poisons: craving and aversion. These urges are more than an expression of simple preference and distaste but are motivated to establish the self as intrinsically existing. To swoon after objects with zeal thinking "I am this; this grants me reality!" is craving. To chase objects away with hatred thinking "I am not this; this threatens my existence!" is aversion. Objectification, then, adds a second layer of deceit upon phenomena. In addition to considering them as intrinsically existent, we now label all phenomena as “mine” or “not mine”. Furthermore, this label itself is considered to be not empty. That is to say, we consider the quality of “mine” to be an intrinsic property of objects and not just a mind-dependent label. After all, if through identifying with the object, I hope to become real, then this object has to be “really” mine.

But identifying with objects will not fill this lack for the simple fact that they too are empty. How can identification with impermanent, constructed, and dependent objects grant me the lasting, indivisible, and autonomous sense of self I seek? Of course, we begin to suspect their emptiness only when we are in close proximity to them, when they are already in our possession where we can examine them through intimate experience. One may, for example, attribute intrinsic existence to Ivy League universities from afar in highschool. No doubt, this can be a deeply motivating force. Yet, after a few years of enrollment, it becomes blatantly obvious that they too are institutions that will one day cease, constructed by departments and people that come and go, and whose prestige varies depending upon one’s perspective. Identifying with an Ivy League no longer fills their lack for it is recognized as being empty. Instead of rejecting the quest for intrinsic existence – for it is not even conscious to them – their gaze merely gets redirected to the next object that has not lost its metaphysical allure. 

Since disillusionment almost exclusively occurs after we have already achieved the goal – only then do we have enough intimate experiences to suspect their emptiness – we end up on one wild-goose chase after the other. Objectification furnishes our lives with games – fame, immortality, fitness, knowledge, beauty, etc. – that appear varied and may indeed confer different and numerous physical (experiential) rewards but nonetheless are motivated by the foundational metaphysical promise of intrinsic existence. Within these games that we construct – a fact that is hidden from us since we must believe these games reflect the objective way things “really” are – we demarcate internal standards of success and failure, attributing glorious metaphysical autonomy to the former and abject despair to the latter. We may, for example, believe fame to be the key to intrinsic existence and the lack of it as a state worse than death. This is not to say that there aren’t plentiful of experiential states worth striving for, but that this metaphysical injection means these games, in Loy’s own words, “cannot be won.” If one fails to meet the internal standards, one is condemned – or, it would be more accurate to say, condemns oneself – with abject despair. But if one meets them, they are not greeted with abundant reality and autonomy but disappointment and disillusionment, followed by a new game to play. Loy elaborates: “when we do not understand what is actually motivating us—because what we think we need is only a symptom of something else—we end up compulsive.”

Loy’s description of the pursuit for intrinsic existence is structurally aligned with Girard’s depiction of the quest for metaphysical autonomy. But even among the details, Loy shares Girardian intuitions: we naturally gravitate towards specific people who appear to be real; “the sense of reality we crave is largely socially determined”; imitation is intimately connected with reality: “If he was real, I can become real by imitating him.” Girard, then, completes Loy by drawing out Loy’s phenomenological analysis and social intuitions of lack into a complete social theory. Because lack is an inherently social experience, its analysis would be incomplete without investigating the social mechanisms by which lack is generated, sustained, released, and responsible for the best and worst of culture. The lacking individual in Loy becomes the shameful social subject and citizen in Girard. This is not to say that Loy himself has not written prolifically about the social dimension of lack – what makes him a fruitful Buddhist interlocutor for Girard is precisely his uncommon engagement with the social forms of Dukkha – but to say that Girard identifies a social logic that is independent from yet interfaces with the phenomenological origins of lack and shame. While both authors engage with the phenomenological and social causes of lack and shame, Girard focuses on the social catalysts; Loy, on the other hand, investigates the phenomenological origins.  

Therefore, Loy also completes Girard in two equally important ways. Firstly, because shame is an inherently phenomenological experience, its diagnosis would be incomplete without investigating into its phenomenological origins. Loy goes as deep as Girard goes broad. Beyond the Girardian explanation of pride and shame as merely original dispositions, Loy, and Buddhism as a whole, locates their cause in the misinformed way human subjects treat phenomena. 

The Girardian triangle, where the pursuit of objects is secondary to the rival, is the social origin of the Buddhist triangle, where craving and aversion are mere projections from misknowledge. Conversely, the Buddhist triangle is the phenomenological origin of the Girardian triangle. The outcome of misknowledge is to enter into mediation with a model we consider to be metaphysically autonomous. And the logic of objectification, manifested in craving and aversion, take upon its social forms in the positive and negative stages of mediation respectively. Without Girard, we cannot understand how society manufacturers and allocates reality and why we crave or are averse to specific objects. Without Buddhism, we fail to grasp why we desire reality in the first place.

Having offered a deeper explanation for lack, Loy is also at a better vantage point to prescribe a solution. Thus, Loy completes Girard, secondly, by providing a reproducible path to conversion. 

7.2 There is a Cessation to Rivalry

The Buddhist path of liberation is as radical as it is simple: transform your phenomenological experience such that you directly perceive phenomena to be impermanent, constructed, and dependent. If it is the dissonance between your cognitive reflexes and the reality of phenomena that creates lack, then you can only change the former through the realization of emptiness.  

The Buddhists anticipate Girard’s concern that "no purely intellectual process and no experience of a purely philosophical nature” can help overcome the allure of metaphysical autonomy. While philosophical argumentation which establishes the rational necessity of emptiness is important, it is impotent without the corresponding meditative practices to hammer it into our cognitive substratum. Different Buddhist schools prescribe different techniques in realizing emptiness, the dazzling variety and complex instructions of which lie beyond the scope of this project. What they all share however is the quality of being reproducible. That is to say most of them prescribe, more or less, algorithmic instructions – the simplest of which include directing one’s attention on a specific object – that through the sheer force of repetition slowly but surely alter our phenomenological experience. Girard’s examples of conversion all included overwhelming, irreproducible events that triggered near instantaneous Gestalt shifts. These Buddhist prescriptions, while not easy and certainly not instantaneous, are reproducible and, because of this, reliable solutions to the problem at hand. Furthermore, these meditations usually tackle our coarser, more obvious reflexes of an intrinsically existent self, such as narcissism, before moving on to dissolving its more subtle manifestations. Progress is gradual instead of instantaneous; the degree to which and arenas in which one treats phenomena as intrinsically existent will decrease. Thus, even though the entire path of realizing emptiness is long, one need not wait until full completion before seeing corresponding reductions in lack. 

While the idea of renouncing an autonomous self may be unthinkable to the modern west, it shouldn’t be for the Girardian. Girard constantly advocates a rejection of the Romantic ideal of an autonomous self in favor of the "interdividual" that is profoundly influenced by and interconnected with other humans. Recall that, for Girard, the necessary experience for conversion requires a “collapsing, or at the very least shaking to their foundations [of] our “ego”, our “personality”, our “temperament”, and so on.”  This is precisely what the aforementioned meditative practices aim to achieve in a reproducible and controlled way. Even Girard himself compares the requisite “fall” necessary for conversion to how "Oriental religions" liberate their practitioners from cycles of suffering. To those who still remain skeptical that Buddhist meditations on emptiness can reproduce Girardian conversion – a relation that has not escaped Girard’s commentators – I can only appeal to the likeness between Girard’s own descriptions of conversion and Loy’s description of the Buddhist path. Girard:

This time it is not a false but a genuine conversion. The hero triumphs in defeat; he triumphs because he is at the end of his resources; for the first time he has to look his despair and his nothingness in the face. But this look which he has dreaded, which is the death of pride, is his salvation. The conclusions of all the novels are reminiscent of an oriental tale in which the hero is clinging by his finger-tips to the edge of a cliff; exhausted, the hero finally lets himself fall into the abyss. He expects to smash against the rocks below but instead he is supported by the air: the law of gravity is annulled.

And Loy: 

To become completely groundless is also to become completely grounded, not in some particular but in the whole web of interdependent relations. The supreme irony of my struggle to ground myself is that it cannot succeed because I am already grounded in the totality. Or, better: as the totality. Buddhism implies that I am groundless and ungroundable insofar as delusively feeling myself to be separate from the world; yet I have always been fully grounded insofar as I am not other than the world.

Both descriptions share an understanding that it is the radical exposure to what was previously dreaded – defeat, despair, nothingness, abyss for Girard and groundlessness for Loy – that liberates the subject. 

But what is left when “I am not other than the world?” How does one operate with an empty self? To be sure, the phenomenology of liberation is widely debated, but this much I can say without controversy. To realize the self as empty is not to cease to inhabit one’s social roles or fail to respond to one’s name, since emptiness is not a wholesale rejection of existence. Instead, it is to recognize the self, alongside all its labels and possessions, as impermeant, constructed, and dependent in our everyday lived experiences and not just in argumentation. To contemplate emptiness is to understand viscerally that the self is situated in an interconnected world without an autonomous existence. 

Using the demarcation between being and experience we developed in the section on metaphysical desire: the Buddhist path of liberation corresponds to a decreasing concern for being and increasing focus on experience. In fact, Loy goes as far as to say that Nirvana, the final state of liberation, “is simply the nature of our experience when there is not the sense of a self-conscious yet ungrounded self that has the experience and therefore feels something to be lacking in it. The joy of that experience is deeper than the heart’s agony.” Only with the solution in sight can we fully appreciate the philosophical reason for positing a desire “to experience,” in addition to a desire “to be,” when interpreting Girard. Since conversion entails an abandonment of all pursuits for being, if there only were metaphysical desires and instinctual needs, then the post-conversion subject would be nothing but a vegetable with no desire to help others and even less creative energy to do so.  

Chapter 8. Cultivating Love

To be sure, the way I have described liberation may be hugely misleading. It is not as if one can realize emptiness by just dissolving being, free to pursue any experience hedonistically. Being and experience are, as I have repeatedly emphasized, not completely exclusive categories but merely a fruitful heuristic. This distinction gradually loses its productivity, however, as coarser layers of an intrinsically existent self are dissolved and one is faced with more subtle modes of being that are inexorably intertwined with experience. There are clearly self-centered experiences, such as esteem, that naturally encourage a reification of being and counteract, if ever so subtly, the realization of emptiness. It should come as no surprise then that our experiences too must gradually become other-centric, or, compassionate, on the path of liberation.  

Karuṇā, translated as compassion, is a foundational moral value for Mahayana Buddhists and the second antidote, alongside emptiness, for Girard’s modernity. As is the case with Dukkha/lack and shame, and intrinsic existence and metaphysical autonomy, Buddhist compassion and Girardian love are meaningful equivalents for they share two key structural similarities. First, a prerequisite for both kinds of care is to recognize similarity in the other. These are neither the care out of pity nor care resulting from admiration which presuppose difference. Recall, the necessity of undifferentiation for love. Girard confirms that the reconciliation of rivals will only occur: “if they recognize that they are similar, if they identify themselves with each other.” Likewise, I will soon show the importance of the recognition of sameness as a prerequisite for compassion. Second, while both forms of care undoubtedly contain an affective component – a desire to help the other – they are incomplete without the motivation, actions, and continued engagement that actualize this desire. Girard describes love as “very active. It saves many people, works in hospitals, and even operates in some forms of research.” Similarly, Buddhists heed that compassion is “not a mere desire. That is sloppy sympathy, and benefits nobody. Instead it is a genuine commitment manifested in thought, speech and physical action.” By “meaningful equivalent” I do not imply identity: both are heavily loaded with respective religious connotations. Equivalency means that, given the role Girard needs love to play in modernity – namely, an active force of other-concern predicated on identity – compassion is a valid substitute. Of course, as is the case with emptiness, the contribution to the Girardian here is reproducibility. There are a variety of meditative techniques that systematically cultivate compassion. Loving thy neighbor is no longer, as Girard lamented, “not under our control.”

I have shown compassion to be a meaningful equivalent to love and, in the previous section, that emptiness helps the subject renounce violence through the process of conversion. 

But there is an even deeper synergy between emptiness and compassion yet to be explored. The rest of this section will tackle two projects: how emptiness aids in the cultivation of love; and how compassion aids in the process of conversion. 

8.1 Emptiness and Love

Given the equivalency between compassion and love, we only need to uncover how emptiness is conducive to the cultivation of compassion to realize how it will, in like manner, develop love. 

A central way that emptiness gives birth to compassion is by helping us recognize the sameness of the other. Recall, we project two layers of delusion upon phenomena. First, we mistake them to be intrinsically existing and, second, we attribute to them an equally non-empty label of “mine” and “not mine”. We label not only external objects but also our experiences: “my” lack, “not my” lack. The Buddhist claim is that we treat lack as “bad, per se, regardless of whose it is.” So when the realization of emptiness gradually erodes the reality of this “mine”/“not mine” distinction we are simply presented with the phenomena of lack itself which we are intuitively inclined to abolish. As a result, we naturally and without conscious effort act to alleviate the lack of others as if it were our own. To be sure, realizing emptiness does not remove our capacity to differentiate between mine and your lack but transforms how we differentiate it. Before, the distinction of “not mine” appeared autonomous and abundantly real, cutting out a chunk of spacetime that was independent from my domain. After, I still recognize the subject of lack to be external but no longer treat this external subject as independent and irrelevant to me. In fact, it is their phenomenal experience rather than externality that is now the emphasis. With the dissolution of this second layer of delusion, the difference between “mine” and “not-mine” takes a backseat to the sameness of our phenomenal experience. To describe this process in a less detailed but more relatable manner: as the strength of the boundaries of “mine” and “not mine” are eroded, I become unalienated from a world filled with phenomenal experiences of joy and lack that I now have as much motivation to improve as if it were all my own. 

It is not surprising then, that the great Mahayana philosopher Nagarjuna claimed: “Emptiness is the womb of compassion” (sunyata-karuna-garbham). That is to say, it is through the realization of emptiness that compassion naturally arises. Compassion emerges not as a positive phenomena with the addition of something but as a negative phenomena with the erosion of the boundaries erected by misknowledge. It is precisely this negative force of emptiness that is needed to cultivate love in an undifferentiated age. At a time when, Girard reminds us, “war is fed precisely by the nothing that alone remains between the adversaries and that is nourished by their very identity”, nothing can be added to bring about reconciliation. Instead, it is the false differences that prevent rivals from seeing their similarity which needs to be removed by the force of emptiness. 

8.2 Compassion and Conversion

To say that emptiness gives birth to compassion does not preclude the reciprocal dependency that compassion aids the realization of emptiness. In fact, we can identify three ways in which the direct cultivation of compassion through meditation accelerates the realization of emptiness and, therefore, conversion and the renouncing of rivalry and violence. 

Firstly, compassion is, by definition, an increasing concern for and focus on the other. Just by virtue of directing less focus on ourselves, we pay less attention on our quest for metaphysical autonomy. 

Of course, if what one focuses on is the being of the other, one can become more obsessed with metaphysical autonomy as one shifts their gaze increasingly towards the other. It is important then that compassion, secondly, changes what one focuses on in the other. During mediation, the model is reduced to their being which we aim to acquire with no regard to whatever harmful experiences we may subject them to. Compassion, on the other hand, is a direct concern for the other’s phenomenal experience with little attention paid to the being of the other. Mediation focuses on their being, treating them as a means to an end – literally, a mediator – of one’s own quest for metaphysical autonomy. Compassion focuses on their experience, treating them as ends unto themselves. This may be why Girard describes love and “identification … as a means of correcting our mimetic tendencies.” The idea might be this: love pauses our mimetic tendencies by treating the other as a subject of experience and not an object of being. This ipso facto removes the possibility of mediation and, thus, of rivalry and violence because there is no being to be acquired in the first place.  

Thirdly, compassion is a negative, leveling force against the games laid out by objectification. Recall, objectification manufactures games that promise intrinsic existence according to contingent standards, say, beauty. To practice compassion in the way I have described, one must do so indiscriminately; that is to say, one must perform acts of care regardless if the recipient is successful according to the contingent internal standards of one’s games. By doing so, one subverts the legitimacy of these very games. This is because, to care for another’s experience in the way I have described is to implicitly affirm that they are worthy of joy and deserving to be freed of lack not because of contingent reasons but the very fact that they are creatures who experience. This directly contradicts the logic of objectification that promises release from lack only upon the fulfilment of contingent conditions. In addition to “mine” / “not mine”, we see here another distinction losing its force: the “successful” / “not successful” distinction of games. Just as sameness gives birth to compassion, acts of compassion actualizes the realization of sameness by tearing down barriers. This dependency of truth on love did not go unnoticed by Girard who termed it an "epistemology of love." Love is the “basis of any real knowledge" because "it manages to escape the hateful illusion of the doubles." That is to say, it is only by loving one's rival does one tear down the false differences and see radical sameness in the other. 

In the final analysis, the negative force crucial to reconciliation is present in both compassion and emptiness. Emptiness reveals the constructed nature of the distinctions we erect between self and other, giving birth to compassion. Compassion tears down these distinctions directly, making the realization of emptiness more accessible. 

Chapter 9. Accelerating Innovation

How will the two antidotes of emptiness and compassion affect our capacity to control the world and our ability to improve upon this capacity, innovation? After all, the love cultivated would be an impotent love without the requisite means to actualize it. Furthermore, if, in the quest to renounce violence and cultivate love, we lost our ability to control the world or our drive for innovation, then we could be directly inviting the existential threats to civilization we aimed to contain. What is at stake is, on one hand, the creative perspective to identify innovations and, on the other, the motivational force to actualize these innovations and to continue engaging with the world through them. Without the latter, we would be idle dreamers. Without the former, we would be diligent in our stewardship of the world without the flexibility to adapt. 

9.1 The perspective of Emptiness

Recall, the requisite perspective for innovation, as identified by Girard, is twofold. Negatively, we must see the world as constructed, malleable, and incomplete – a “minimal respect” for humanity’s achievements. But we must also obtain a “mastery of” of these achievements by, positively, seeing the world as worthy of engagement and capable of being understood. This section does not investigate if all Buddhist beliefs, if such a set even could be identified, are compatible with this perspective of innovation. I only aim to address, in alignment with the rest of this essay, how the antidote of emptiness and compassion may or may not be conducive for innovation. 

We begin with emptiness. Given that emptiness is prima facie a negative statement negating a solid, reified ontology, it should come as no surprise that it produces a constructed, malleable picture of the phenomenal world as demanded by the negative perspective. What this perspective warns us against is an outlook that sees the world and its processes as permanent, sacred, or immutable. Through its negating force and an emphasis on the ontological lack of phenomena, emptiness dissolves this delusion by showing how nothing is solid and independent from causes and conditions, mereological dependencies, and conceptual projections. 

But what about the positive perspective? After all, if the world lacks intrinsic existence, what reasons do we have to take it seriously, let alone learn about and engage with it? The nihilistic and escapist connotations of emptiness are hard to resolve until we uncover its positive formulation lurking right beneath the negative surface. To say that phenomena do not exist independent from causes and conditions, mereological dependencies, and conceptual projections is to say, once we remove the double negation, that they do exist dependent upon causes and conditions, mereological dependencies, and conceptual projections. This latter formulation is termed dependent origination, and it provides a positive ontology of phenomena. The equivalence of emptiness with dependent origination is an argumentative move made by the Tibetan master Tsong Khapa to rescue his intellectual climate from the extremes of negation and nihilism.

By reframing the negative into a positive, Tsong Khapa wanted to provide us license to reengage with the phenomenal world. To call the phenomenal realm empty connotes, even if it does not intend, a rejection of it. Framed in the negative, we naturally but mistakenly conclude, due to our yearning for intrinsic existence that the phenomenal is lacking and unworthy because it lacks intrinsic existence. One might feel an urge to renounce and escape from this ontologically deficient realm. But that would be to make the mistake of thinking only the intrinsically existing is worthy of engagement. 

Tsong Khapa's positive formulation, implicitly affirms the worthiness of that which exists non-intrinsically. Emptiness claims that phenomena do not have intrinsic existence. Dependent origination claims that phenomena do exist upon certain dependencies. Indeed, no new information is provided, but the emphasis has changed drastically from lack to malleability. It is no longer about how phenomena are deficient in their ontology but the conditions that bring them into existence. Instead of escaping a reality that is lacking, we are given license to engage with the world and figure out the specific dependencies that would result in a better phenomenal reality. Therefore, alongside this license to engage, dependent origination also contains an inquiry into the conditions and laws that govern this rescued reality. One Buddhologist explains:

The standard formulation of this doctrine, occurring frequently in the Pāli canon and quoted countless times in canonical literature, is “when this arises, that arises; when this does not occur, that does not occur.” That is, dependent origination is spelled out as a kind of brute regularity, and brute regularity is taken to characterize reality quite generally. The world is not random; it can be characterized by laws.

Within the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness, we find both perspectives for innovation. In its negative form, emptiness dissolves the solidity and immutability that is so detrimental to innovation. In its positive form, dependent origination provides us license to engage with reality and the imperative to understand its workings. To be sure, one can realize the emptiness of phenomena and still believe that certain aspects of a system are immutable. One may conclude, as Girard has, that unless there is a drastic change to the human psyche, violence and vanity will be a permanent part of human society. Clearly emptiness at the base-level of phenomena does not prevent one from taking on a non-innovative perspective – sometimes warranted, sometimes not – for the various systems which phenomena constitutes. What I do hope to have shown is that emptiness as a fundamental outlook – with its refusal to reify and the subsequent inquiry into dependencies – is aligned with the innovative perspective outlined by Girard. Furthermore, emptiness is a perspective all the more powerful as it is not only reflectively held but drilled into one’s cognitive reflexes through meditation. 

9.2 Compassion as Motivation

Thus far my discussion has focused on how emptiness furnishes one with a creative perspective – reflective and reflexive – conducive to innovative insights. But what about the source of motivation to generate these insights in the first place, to actualize them in concrete systems, and, for the large part of the population who do not directly engage in innovation, to productively engage with these systems. Even if one believes that, through continued cultivation, we can transform our psyche such that compassion is our fundamental orientation, one can still doubt whether such an orientation has the requisite motivational forces necessary for sustained innovation and engagement with the world. 

After all, a skeptic could remind us that it was the selfish motivators in object-competition and mimetic rivalries that drove modern innovation. Our public virtue does not have its roots in compassion but private vice. As a commentator points out, it is precisely the inflammation of mimetic rivalries creatively channeled by the market which has become “an engine of prosperity.” To be sure, this is precisely what makes a resolution to Girard’s modernity so difficult. Violence and innovation stem, in large part, from the same psychological drive of metaphysical desire. What is needed isn’t only a removal of shame and, thus, metaphysical desire, but also to replace it with, speaking analogously, an alternative fuel source. 

A skeptic would object: even if shame and metaphysical desire could be removed by the processes I have proposed, to think that metaphysical desire could be replaced as a motivating fore is to fail to recognize how reliable it is as a motivator. 

It is reliable, first and foremost, because it is so flexible. Unlike simpler modes of selfishness – such as taking sexual advantage of another or stealing their property – which can only take on limited forms, metaphysical desire is a private vice that can take on infinite forms, even that of private virtue. We can imitate the whole spectrum of human actions and commitments depending on our model. In this view, we can imagine entrepreneurs benefiting society through innovation not because they seek money or even recognition but because they are mediated by the exemplar of Steve Jobs. We can picture doctors saving countless patients motivated in no small part – although nonetheless unconsciously – by their desire to remove their own shame. We can point to academics making groundbreaking discoveries because they objectified themselves into their work – by perfecting their theories, they inch closer to metaphysical autonomy. If channeled properly, metaphysical desire can take on flexible forms that are incredibly productive for society. 

But it is not only society that can benefit. Metaphysical desire is reliable because, secondly, it can hand out legitimate rewards to the desiring subject. This may be puzzling given my numerous claims on the impossibility of its satisfaction. Indeed, metaphysical desire will always be a failure according to its immanent standards, but it can also hand out instrumental rewards along the pursuit. First, mediation can direct us to experiences that are incredibly enjoyable and meaningful even though it does not contain everything that we had hoped for. One may, invited by the lie of metaphysical desire, work one’s way into a particular professional position that, despite its metaphysical disappointments, nonetheless confers legitimate experiential rewards such as friendship or a sense of accomplishment that would have been unreachable without the seduction of a falsehood. Second, and more internally to the structure of metaphysical desire, the very pursuit of an ultimate goal may help orient the subject and even offer a sense of meaning. Even though this meaning and orientation has, at its core, a sense of shame and is ultimately deceitful, it may nonetheless be preferable to the boredom, nihilism, and disorientation that awaits us without it.

Thirdly, metaphysical desire is such a reliable motivator because it is unending. The qualities of metaphysical desire that render it chronic and compulsive – impossibility, deceitfulness, relativity – are also what makes it lasting. Because of its impossibility and deceitfulness, we can always count on the human subject to be a striving and active subject. And because of its relativity, we can be sure that this subject will not be content with the status quo and, instead, constantly seek new ways to improve and standout, the side effect of which could be continued progress. 

Lastly, metaphysical desire is reliable because it is so strong. The last two qualities that make it so untamable – its enormous strength and the fact it cannot be governed by reason – are often demanded by progress, especially when that progress seems to require a superhuman will and courageousness that trumps the heed of reason. 

Such a skeptic would conclude that the most selfish drive – what could be more self-oriented than the state of one’s being – can not only be extremely beneficial to others but also be so at an enormous cost to oneself. Despite the instrumental rewards, metaphysical desire is ultimately disappointing after all. Under this view, metaphysical desire, when channeled properly to serve the ends of society, is oddly self-sacrificing even though the subject never intended it to be so. It seems, then, that societies should not help its citizens wane off this drive, as I have suggested, but to encourage it and direct it towards productive models. 

This line of thinking raises valid objections but suffers from two major problems. First, even if such a society were possible, it would not be desirable. While metaphysical desire does confer legitimate rewards upon the subject both instrumentally and immanently, it pales in comparison to the degree of shame and disappointment when one’s metaphysical ambitions are inevitably thwarted. To be sure, by removing metaphysical goals and experiences, we undeniably remove a species of human good that is not recovered. This is not a pareto-efficient move, and we must not fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. There is a certain thrill at the peak of metaphysical accomplishment, an adrenaline rush to feeling like god in a Roman Triumph, and a glory to uttering “L'etat c'est moi” that we must undeniably recognize as a species of good which is not preserved. But that does not mean there are no strong reasons to wane off this drive. As an analogy: to the drug-addict, we do not try to help them by arguing that the extreme moment of pleasure isn’t enjoyable, nor that it will be preserved in the sober life, but by appealing to the overall life of degeneracy that this extreme moment inevitably leads to. Waning off of drugs is not a pareto-efficient move either in the economy of human goods, but one we ought to make nonetheless. In like manner, we do not deny the intensity and momentary satisfaction of the highs experienced by the metaphysical-addict but appeal to the negative outcomes this overall orientation of life inevitably leads to. Whatever instrumental and immanent rewards metaphysical desire may confer, subjects are almost always better off long term without them. 

Beyond the concerns of the subject, metaphysical desire can, I concede, result in societal benefit. Indeed, likely a large part if not most of humanity’s greatest achievements are attributable to it. But it is not a reliable fuel source – usually producing more disaster than good – simply because societal benefit is not its aim. Second, and more fundamentally, this path of inflaming metaphysical desire is closed off to us. For all the reasons mentioned in our reconstruction of Girard’s modernity, to inflame metaphysical desire now is to invite rivalry and violence. It is not possible, at least in internal mediation, to be sustainably mediated by a “productive” model. Rivalry too often leads us astray into vain pursuits. 

9.2.1 Wheel-Turning Monarch

With that said, given how much of history Girard identifies as a product of mediation and how many of our current institutions Loy sees as being powered by lack, it is hard to even conceive of an alternative. The philosopher who wishes to address the skeptic’s valid concerns, and replace metaphysical desire with compassion in a societal-wide solution faces an epistemic roadblock. “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings at the end of dusk.” Our contingent circumstance is so different from that of such a utopia that it is impossible to determine its plausibility. That is not to say that it is impossible to actualize. But to even conceive of this actuality now, we would need to make so many assumptions, reconsider so many institutions, and inhabit a frame of mind so alien to our own that it would be hard to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Perhaps, in the journey to actualize this ideal, we find that, given the rigorous demands of meditation, only a select few can be meaningfully freed from metaphysical desire and still engage with society. Perhaps, by encouraging transcendent ideals to be in such close proximity to worldly life and its trappings, we destroy the legitimacy and integrity of the former. Perhaps, with the size of the societies that we have, mimetic illusions and dogmatic falsehoods alone can unify us. Perhaps, we are just inviting people to disguise their self-interested pursuits in transcendent, grandiose, and altruistic language which leads to more perversion. Philosophy can only say so much beforehand.

Where philosophy still has ground left to cover are the specific challenges and synergies a single individual may face in trying to cultivate compassion while participating in the historically-specific channels of innovation we have today. This methodological turn away from the social to the individual is indeed motivated by the epistemic limitations just discussed. But it is also motivated by two strategic concerns. 

First, if we take Girard’s psychological claims seriously, then a large portion of western political philosophy – which I will use Marx as a chief exemplar – is confused about the levers of societal progress.  If alienation, vanity, fetishization, suffering, and deceit are the natural consequences of social interaction produced by innate psychological mechanisms, then utopia cannot be established by only changing the political-economic base. For example, if fetishization – imbuing metaphysical value into objects – is part of our constitution, then Marx, while warranted in identifying production relations as that which channels fetishization, was incorrect in concluding that they were also its chief cause. Indeed, as history has revealed, the negative drives Marx identified in capitalism were often just redirected, sometimes in more grotesque ways, to a different channel in the communist “utopias” of the 20^th-century. In like manner, the tools of emancipation – chief among them private property and political equality – that liberal thinkers used to fight the oppression of tyranny have been seen by some to be, in some sense, oppressive. Similarly, pioneers of the internet had hoped it would bring about a free, connected, and truthful world. Social media platforms, in recent years, have proved to be just as much vessels of surveillance, division, and falsehoods. We should always be cautious of the extent to which changing external structures of the world can alleviate its evils.  

Under the light of this – granted uncharitable but hopefully revealing – figure that I am constructing, the history of western political philosophy has been a three-millennia-long search for scapegoats and gods. Identifying the political structures, economic relations, and cultural norms that are either the sole cause of our miseries or will bring about ultimate salvation – scapegoats and gods are identified one after the other in this intellectual victimage mechanism. The fundamental error is to confuse avenues that merely channel our collective evils as their root cause. When one does this, one usually invites the same evils to come back through new channels. 

The Girardian lens – which sees alienation, vanity, fetishization, suffering, and deceit as constitutive of social interaction – reveals the tradition of political philosophy to be just rubbing ointment on the skin of society without treating the deeper psychological wounds. Furthermore, without understanding the true cause of our ills, emancipatory and justice-seeking ideologies – in so far as justice means to undifferentiate and to make equal – only create societies more susceptible to mimetic contagion. This is not to disregard the meaningful progress that political theories and movements have made nor to underestimate how much the political-economic base can affect our psychology. Certainly, the political-economic organization may be so toxic that no meaningful progress can be achieved before they are transformed. And, of course, at a certain scale and to achieve a certain degree of psychological transformation, it is inevitable that this base must also change. My point here, however, is this. If our societal ills are indeed created by these psychological mechanisms constitutive of humanity, no societal reorganization – no change in external structures – will ever resolve them. We need to tackle these mechanisms directly. The Girardian and Buddhist approach to political philosophy is to always have the psychological subject front and center. The only effective antidote must, at its core, be a psychological one. 

The second strategic reason to investigate the possibilities available to an individual today – rather than, say, how society may be adapted to better suit compassion – is that to work towards this, granted, utopian ideal while not ignoring all the possibilities of failure listed above, it is best to proceed incrementally. A necessary first step is to have an individual or a few individuals realize these psychological transformations while remaining deeply engaged in society and its channels of innovation, at which point, they would be at a better vantage point to determine the next step. Indeed, due to either our contingent historical circumstance or the fundamental limitations of human nature, we may come to find that this path is only available for a select few. But we shouldn’t even take this achievement, however modest, as a complete failure. In his book Psychopolitics, Jean-Michel Oughourlian, Girard’s collaborator and co-creator of mimetic theory, reminds us of the considerable influence just one enlightened leader can have on society: 

There is perhaps only one solution left, one that Plato and a few other philosophers imagined long ago: a leader or a politician who is an enlightened sage and who guides his people along the road to wisdom. And what does wisdom mean in the case that concerns us? It means waging a struggle against oneself. … By encouraging people to overcome their rivalries, to struggle with themselves and to transform themselves individually, I think that it would be possible to channel and harness violence, but this requires great wisdom at the head of the state, which in turn implies a great deal of personal effort, a type of asceticism.

We must now turn to an investigation of the specific challenges and synergies such an individual will face. The same contingent circumstance – the world being driven by metaphysical desire – that make a compassion-driven society so hard to imagine is also the greatest challenge that will face the individual. The worry is threefold. First and most fundamentally, certain environments may explicitly encourage specific interpretations of the world that are so antagonistic to compassion as to render its cultivation near impossible. Imagine the case of a wartime general who conceives of the enemy – and has good reasons to do so – as a threat with opposed interests, as an object to be tracked and analyzed, and as an alien to be expelled and annihilated. More common and less extreme examples of this are perhaps business, athletic, and academic environments where one must hold a cautious, if not directly antagonistic, view towards one’s competitors. Environments like these and attitudes like such aren’t bad per se – they have been a necessary component of strong and independent societies – and the cultivation of compassion is not impossible within them. But being inundated with and forced to inhabit perspectives that are so antagonist will be a hinderance to cultivating compassion and may prove a challenge too great for most. Those who remain in power will cease to be compassionate. 

Second, the very logic of certain environments may punish precisely those individuals who have managed to cultivate a considerable degree of compassion. Imagine the same general refusing to use biochemical weapons out of humanitarian principles and, as a result, losing to an opponent without such concerns. The nature of certain environments is to, in a Darwinian fashion, render the compassionate extinct. Those who remain compassionate will cease to be powerful. 

Third and elaborating on the first point: there may be subtle mechanisms which thwart the development of compassion. For example, an environment may be so infected with mimetic contagion that members do not have any headspace to think about anything but metaphysical rewards. Consider a reality show participant whose every move is being judged by millions, whose peers are almost exclusively concerned with fame and, in turn, invite the participant to imitate their desires. Even in environments without the first two qualities, there might be such a strong economy between esteem – in this case, fame – and metaphysical autonomy as to drown out any physical concerns whatsoever, including the cultivation of compassion. We must not underestimate the vast array of mechanisms that can encourage the selfish pursuit of metaphysical autonomy and all the innocuous forms they can take. One such form is romantic pursuits. The basic idea is this: we tend to desire our romantic interests more than others because of some hard to articulate allure. Naturally, we wish to be desired this way in reciprocation. We then conceive of ourselves as and try to be “more than others” with an “allure” of our own. It should come as no surprise now that this urge often conceals within it a pursuit of metaphysical autonomy detrimental to compassion. The danger in both examples I have provided is being exposed to an exaggerated sense of esteem. Indeed, esteem – both too much and too little of it – is what the individual should be most cautious of as an inhibitor of cultivating compassion.  

But by outlining the characteristics of environments that would pose a significant challenge to cultivating compassion, we also get an idea of the qualities for synergistic environments. Such an environment should encourage one to see the interests of others as in harmony with or, at least, not antagonistic to one’s own. Such an environment should reward or, at the very least, not punish acts of compassion. And such environments should be metaphysically-sober; that is to say, not suffer from an overdose or deficiency of esteem. Indeed, not all channels of innovation in our contingent historical circumstance fall under this criteria. But now that we have presented these criteria explicitly as a conscious and important choice, it provides individuals with some degree of freedom to choose and construct their environments. The author, cautious of the bondage of esteem, may choose to publish to a more limited audience. The entrepreneur, heedful of toxic company culture, may prioritize job candidates with certain dispositions. 

There is another reason to be hopeful: compassion is a complete source of motivation. Its use and cultivation are not limited to more apparent manifestations. One is motivated by compassion not only in instances when one is directly helping another. If that were the case, the compassionate would be condemned to a frenzied hurry of addressing the needs of everyone else without time for their own development. Recall, compassion contains the imperative to act. Actions require, to a varying degree, resources, skills, and dispositions. Compassion, then, is also responsible for motivating, at a deeper level, these seemingly self-centered developments which are intended for other-focused ends. In other words, compassion is only genuine if it contains a commitment to action, a commitment that cannot be fulfilled if one does not spend considerable time working on one’s own capacities. In fact, many Buddhist sources are more critical of those who only seek to benefit others than those who only seek to benefit themselves (of course, both are inferior to those who aim to benefit all) for the simple reason that by seeking to help others without developing the abilities to do so, no one benefits. The completeness of compassion as a source of motivation opens up the possibility of it motivating and, thus, being cultivated by a wide array of actions. It is not as if only a nurse in an emergency room has the conditions to use and develop compassion. By setting the aim of one’s self-development to the benefit of others, even, say, reading philosophy on one’s own time is an adequate channel of developing and practicing compassion. Even the writing of this project, presents me with a choice. I can choose between being motivated by the recognition it will confer upon me, the author, or the clarity it might bring to others.   

I hope to have shown how, despite challenging contingencies in society, there are realistic choices an individual can make to close the dissonance between participating in society and cultivating compassion. Compassion is comprehensive enough – that is, it can take upon a wide variety of forms – such that it could be the primary source of motivation as one engages with the world at least in theory. To gain any more certainty of its reality in practice, is an endeavor that can only be pursued outside the pages of this project.   

Conclusion

In this still unfinished manuscript, I hope to have completed Girard in three substantive ways. 

First, I offered a novel interpretation of Girard that draws a clear demarcation between experience and being, between two species of mimetic desire – completing Girard’s account of our psychological landscape. 

Second, with this distinction, I was able to introduce Girard to a fruitful interlocutor in Mahayana Buddhism in general and David Loy in particular. This exchange showed that there existed meaningful equivalences between: shame and lack, metaphysical autonomy and intrinsic existence, and love and compassion. The ambition of this dialogue is to show that mimetic theory and Buddhism complete each other. The former informs the latter on how Dukkha and misknowledge manifest in the social sphere, how they are generated by interpersonal relationships, and how they can lead society towards collapse. The latter informs the former of the deeper, phenomenological causes of lack. In this second way, I aimed to complete Girard, by introducing to him a more sophisticated phenomenological account of our mimetic pathologies. 

Third, this Buddhist diagnosis comes hand in hand with reproducible prescriptions – emptiness, compassion, and the meditative techniques to obtain them – which can rescue Girard from the escapism of Holderlin’s tower. Girard often described his project as exclusively one of interpretation and description, leaving prescription for those who have digested his work. I aim to have completed Girard in a third way by answering his call.  

To be sure, my prescriptions might seem unachievably difficult. Scholars from both traditions may have good reasons to doubt whether these ultimate Buddhist goals can be completed in conjunction with such a deep engagement with the world by even a single individual, let alone an entire society. But even if they can’t be achieved fully, this project at the very least offers practical value in orienting praxis. That is to say, it illuminates the landscape of our social miseries and personal sufferings alongside their antidotes such that one can make incremental but nonetheless meaningful progress. Furthermore, less concretely but perhaps even more importantly, it assures the Girardian that we are not necessarily enslaved by metaphysical desire and the goal of personal and societal liberation is, at least, in principle achievable. We don’t need to hide in towers. While there is no guarantee that, because of our contingent historical circumstance, there is a path to this – granted, utopian – ideal, there is also no a priori guarantee that no such path exists. It provides a Rousseauian hope and an impetus to action. 

If Christ, on the cross, revealed the source of our collective sufferings, then Buddha, under the tree, discovered the antidotes to our social salvation. What Girard once rejected as escapist, has come full circle in rescuing him from escapism.

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?”(Matt. 21:42)

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