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| Peter Paul Rubens, The Fall of the Damned, 1621 |
This is a reflection by Bora Mici on René Girard's mimetic desire and rivalry based on the original text by Girard, the French-language philosophy podcast Le précepteur by Charles Robin as well as the author's own experience. It is written in French and English, and the last part in English navigates all the questions surrounding the topic of why we all like to imitate each other and how this animates a cycle of violence that came to me as I was thinking through and writing about this topic. The last part is written in very plain English, has not been edited but represents my original train of thought and choice of words, and should be accessible to anyone who is willing to read with an open mind.
Une courte réflexion sur ma vie pour commencer avant de rentrer dans le vif du sujet
I was thinking about how my life has become and I just think life is so lonely and alienating these days. Life may have been harsher before but at least everyone belonged. At least that’s what Fellini’s Amarcord shows. Now there are so many interlopers and lonely people and screen addicts and self-addicts of all sorts. Everyone is just looking in the mirror more than ever before, whether they want to look like the stars or be an influencer or simply spend all their time online. It’s just you and your projection of yourself in there, especially when the algorithm never bursts your bubble. But in order to really understand the world and not be afraid of it you have to experience it firsthand. That’s the only way to know what is possible and what is not and to understand human nature and behaviour.
J’ai eu envie de revenir sur le sujet du désir mimétique de René Girard qu’il expose dans son livre Mensonge Romantique et Vérité Romanesque. J’ai déjà lu une bonne partie de ce texte et je viens d’écouter un podcast de vulgarisation philosophique là-dessus, à savoir, le podcast La philosophie pour tous du Précepteur Charles Robin, que je vous recommande vivement. L’idée principale du désir mimétique c’est qu’en tant qu’êtres sociaux et aussi vaniteux, épris par le souci de mouler notre image de nous-mêmes sur un modèle extérieur, on est toujours à la recherche d’une autre personne qu’on est susceptible d’admirer et d’imiter. J’ai déjà discuté dans un autre article d’Arttists Speak d’où mène notre tendance à nous retrouver dans le regard d’autrui, c’est-à-dire une ruée conformiste irréfléchie et une existence inauthentique. Ici on va examiner plus en détail le problème des engouements de masse et leur antipode, la diversité sociale, à l’aune du désir mimétique et ses retombées logiques, ou parfois irrationnelles en l’occurrence.
Pour commencer on se focalisera sur la structure triangulaire du désir mimétique que relève Girard. À titre d’exemple, la médiation débute par le sujet qui souhaite posséder un objet ou une qualité dont fait preuve déjà l’être spécial pour lui. Pour reprendre les mots du titre de l’ouvrage de Girard, le mensonge romantique relève de la fiction que notre désir nous apparteint et qu’il est foncièrement original comme le croyaient les écrivains romantiques du 19è siècle. On les associait à une existence solitaire, houleuse au niveau des émotions et animée par une sorte de génie créatif porteur d’une sensibilité éperdument religieuse et passionnée. Cependant la vérité romanesque vient démentir l’apanage singulier de ces esprits libres de se projetter dans des élans inouis. La littérature et la fiction nous apprennent la vérité profonde qu’on dissimule à nous-mêmes, à savoir qu’on est toujours dans un procédé d’imitation issu de notre vanité, de notre désir de faire nôtre une identité favorable à l’image sociale qu’on se fait de nous-mêmes et que les autres admireront à leur tour.
Alors moi j’y ai réfléchi et je me suis dite que cette théorie est pertinente au niveau de nos agissements psychologiques et symboliques mais qu’elle perd un peu de sa puissance si on considère les choix qu’on fait tous pareils et les démarches qu’on execute tous de la même manière parce que c’est plus efficace d’agir ainsi au niveau de l’existence physique. À titre d’exemple, si un appareil electrodomestique est moins polluant, moins gourmand en énergie et abordable de prix par comparaison aux autres sur le marché, ne serait-il pas vraisemblable qu’on le préférerait tous et que cela ne reléverait pas juste du désir mimétique mais bien du pragmatisme rationnel? En plus, qu’est-ce qui se passerait si on se rendait compte de ce méchanisme caché? En réalité, je ne sais pas si on peut complètement échapper à sa prise parce que parfois nos désirs se révèlent insondables, mais on peut s’habituer à se poser la question-justement pourquoi je brigue ce que je souhaite pour moi et pour les autres-et en prendre conscience de manière plus active. Ça pourrait mener à une plus grande diversité et une meilleure ouverture d’esprit et on ne se comporterait plus comme des moutons de Panurge à une telle échelle qu’on pourrait effectivement être susceptibles de suivre les tendances et de créer des bulles économiques qui après se retournent contre nous. Selon Charles Robin on veut incarner quelqu’un d’autre parce on vit dans le manque d’une essence de l’ordre de l’existentiel, et la médiation triangulaire selon laquelle on accède à l’identité d’autrui par le biais d’un objet dont on a la possibilité de s’accaparer, se renverse et on commence à s’approprier l’identité même de l’être admiré pour finalement posséder les mêmes objets que la personne dont on voulait imiter le mode de vie tout au début de ce cycle qui se répète à l’infini. C’est à la suite de ce procédé de homologation qu’on devient tous semblables. C’est pourquoi la publicité nous vend des modes de vie et non pas des objets forcément utiles. L’engouement c’est un phénomène d’imitation de masse et on peut dire de même pour les petits groupes d’élite qui puisent leur prestige dans l’exclusivité. La distinction n’est jamais originale selon l’analyse de Robin du texte de Girard. Elle cache toujours un désir d’imitation et de la “supplantation existentielle” par quelqu’un qui semble avoir plus que nous ou une meilleure vie, même si le choix de notre objet d’admiration peut être subjectif dans une certaine mesure. C’est cette subjectivité qu’il faut encourager et décliner de la manière la plus variée possible. On nous dit que la diversité génétique est propice à la survie d’une espèce. Mais on nous dit également que l’unité fait la puissance. Donc voilà une petite contradiction logique qui défie l’intuition. Qu’est-ce que vous seriez plus enclins à croire, la première affirmation ou la deuxième? L’intuition est censé nous permettre de dépasser la contradiction en nous permettant de puiser dans l’ensemble de notre expérience vécue. Par exemple, comme l’explique Charles Robin dans un épisode sur le philosophe Henri Bergson, si on considère de façon mathématique qu’une flèche parcourt une certaine distance par moitiés successives, elle n’atteindra jamais sa destination, parce qu’après avoir parcouru une moitié du trajet on peut s’imaginer qu’elle ait toujours la moitié de la moitié restante à traverser. Mais notre expérience vécue nous montre qu’une flèche part d’un endroit précis et arrive toujours à un autre endroit précis un peu plus loin. Donc notre intuition, en s’appuyant sur notre observation passée, nous dit que dans le cas de la flèche, elle arrive toujours à destination, avec un minuscule décalage peut-être. Pourtant le calcul infinitessimal est bel et bien applicable sur des distances plus grandes, et à ce point-là notre intuition défaillit. Donc est-ce que vous pensez que c’est mieux de se faire nombreux et conformistes ou différents et un peu moins soudés, un peu plus en proie au processus de la découverte de nos différences, peut-être? Que signifie la vraie solidarité selon vous?
Questions and Answers about Rivalité mimétique
I don’t get why we want to imitate the desire of others. That’s the crux of the question. According to the analysis of Le précepteur if our mediator becomes internal rather than external, distant and unattainable, we become their rival. And we want to immitate their desire and participate in a competition for an arbitrary object, that might or might not be valuable or useful. We just want it for its symbolic value or for its symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s words. But why? Why can’t we want something else, not what someone else wants? The cycle he paints is love, loss, jealousy, violence, and when the violence becomes too widespread, a scapegoat. I don’t really understand it yet. Why does the scapegoat appease everyone temporarily? Desire is a feeling that subsists only through the delay or impossibility of its fulfillment. Is that true? When I get what I want and I enjoy it, I want it again. Why? Was there something unfulfilling about it or did I just get what I wanted and it was good and not perversely denied in the end, and the satisfaction I felt made me want to repeat the experience so I would feel not like I was lacking. We always respond to lack by seeking a way to fill the emptiness. If we don’t know something we go looking for the answer. But are there things we cannot have that would lead us to jealousy and violence? Kids who all want to play with the same toy, there’s always an exception. Even if there is no scarcity, do people still compete? Is it because they want to impress their friends? But surely there is a constructive way to do this, by sharing for example and by not instrumentalizing objects or people symbolically. Do people only care about the symbolic value something has? What if they just focused on utility and cooperation? What if they were taught not to cede to their vanity? What does my vanity instruct me to do? I am trying to understand this cycle in order to break it. I don’t need a scapegoat. Is coveting what your neighbor has sin? Desire is supposed to be an illusion because according to some it can never be fulfilled. But desire is what keeps us alive. We just need a less hungry relationship to it. In order to relate to other people we need to take their point of view. Is this possible? I hope there are other people who think like me. I am using my vanity to break the cycle of violence based on need. Is vanity what we need in order to relate to other people? My image of myself affects my interactions with others. And at the point where I am, if I think I have no self, then I think it’s pointless to exist or do anything, even though I still write and try to make sense of this non-dual contradiction. I guess I have to use my sense of self to deconstruct the problem of the self, because if it leads to violence and suffering based on a perceived scarcity or rarity, which is a cognitive bias, according to that theory, then it needs to be solved so our lives can be enjoyable, unless people enjoy violence, but I don’t think they do. Everyone shirks at the idea of enduring violence or suffering and I have empirical proof of this, noticing how everyone avoids it. That’s a good basis to start on. No one likes violence or suffering done upon them or anything or anyone they love. So why do they assume anyone else does? Why do they always like to transfer the violence which arises from a sense of rivalry that is not even real, that is purely an instinct of some kind that we need to identify and release? What is release? For me release is when I can externalize some internal question or strife or energy? Well we need to find non-destructive, non-violent ways to direct this conundrum. How do we do that? We go for a walk, we let our thoughts and our feelings subside, and we write or make art or talk to someone in a thoughtful purposeful manner. We become less reactive. We can probably rechannel the energy within our own bodies without doing harm. Where is this energy coming from anyways? An external stimulus or our own internal disorder? I suppose both are possible. But how does wanting what someone else has relate to our self-regulation? Do we need competition for the same resources or the same markets and consumers or can we all try to invent something that is different and of our own stamp? I think organizing ourselves in small collaborative entities that produce a similar commodity that is somehow useful is a good idea. The smaller the groups the smaller the egos and the ability to do harm based on competition and the desire to lead or conquer. The more variety there is the less impetus for sameness and competition over the same objects or positions. If we value diversity over sameness and we don’t become defensive or say that we are somehow in competition with each other then we are happier and everyone belongs. I think it’s part of our vanity to say we are different and therefore deserving of more or less than another, but if we say we are different but all worth of the same dignity and esteem then we all win because we are all accepted, not more not less. No one is more worthy than another. If we understand this then we end all wars and discord and our egos become smaller and more tranquil. So who likes their ego? Does your ego give you pleasure? I think it does or you would not insist on being better than everyone else. Well think about your ego and what you want it to be doing? And then decide. And think about the consequences. Will they aggrandize your ego and your lack? The two are often proportionally related? The more you seek the more you feed the hungry wolf in your consciousness. But killing your ego does not work either if you want to participate in being alive. So learn to moderate it and always keep in mind that violence comes from lack and giving that lack power over your actions. Often the lack is not real. It’s just you comparing yourself to others. That’s why you should learn to be yourself and not step on anyone else’s toes unless you come in friendship and love. What is love and friendship? It’s when you respect someone for their differences and accept that they are just as worthy as you are. Stop instrumentalizing life symbolically.
What is being good or doing a good action or speaking well or engaging in a beneficial activity? It is doing something that can feel good but also that benefits someone else without hurting anyone. The good subscribes to Kant’s definition of the categorical imperative. Whatever you will to be true ought to be a universalizable concept that everyone would accept to be done onto them and to all those they love. First we are born, then we see someone do something, then we mimic their behavior without really being able to judge its quality or utility or goodness/beneficiality for ourselves because we lack the experience of it. And we also lack the experience of greater things around it or around us. Our world is small and we are thus born into prejudice. Prejudice means judging something before hand, before we can really judge it for itself. We merely copy another person whom we trust or to whom we are entrusted. And this person presumably has more experience than we do but that experience is important in quality and quantity and in all the bias and prejudice it carries with it. Prejudice is also related to doing harm etymologically. If we judge something based on our vanity, which is formed progressively through mimicry and social expectations as we grow up and become integrated into the social fabric of symbolic prejudice running amok, then we are doing harm because we are putting ourselves above others. We think we are in a competition but this is a socially constructed illusion. What are we competing for? We are competing for who is the best. And what does that mean? Nothing if we judge for ourselves. If we judge for ourselves we will realize that symbolic value comes from peer pressure and rivalry, and not from intrinsic value. Everything is necessary to life, so everything has intrinsic value. And if we judge for ourselves we will create diversity and difference in equal worth for us all because we will realize that our self-worth does not depend on what others think. And thinking you are better than someone else means being prejudiced and doing harm and not thinking for yourself or being beneficial to yourself and others. I need to think about the material implications of this worldview, but therein lies the difference between things of equal moral worth we must respect while helping each other live a fulfilling life not defined by symbolic lack or unlivable material lack and therefore emphasizing that we recognize everyone’s worth and right to exist in non-violence.
