- This lecture presents René Girard’s psychology of mimetic desire — the idea that human desire is not spontaneous but learned by imitating models — and argues that its deepest form, metaphysical desire (the desire to be rather than to experience), is the central motor of human motivation, the root of all sin, and the key to understanding both individual psychology and the sweep of human history.
Mimesis: the foundation of social life
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Mimesis is the human tendency to copy the behaviors, values, and emotions of others, analogous to David Hume’s concept of sympathy: just as one vibrating violin string sets another in motion, we naturally “co-vibrate” with those around us.
- Mimesis is not limited to emotions (as in Hume) but spans the full range of human behavior — judgments, values, intentions, and actions.
- It is a tendency and capacity, not a deterministic compulsion; we retain some agency over whom and what to imitate.
- Empirical support includes Andrew Meltzoff’s finding that infants as young as 40 minutes imitate facial expressions, and the discovery of mirror neurons, which fire both when observing and performing an action.
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Mimesis functions as the primary normative authority — the main source of our certainty about what is good, beautiful, or just.
- Recognition: finding others who share our values affirms them (e.g., the Chinese saying “a man would travel a thousand miles to meet he who understands him”); conversely, value disagreement produces deep alienation.
- Prestige: when a group values something, individuals internalize that value through mimesis, often inflating it beyond its intrinsic worth (e.g., elite universities, luxury goods).
- The sacred: relics of saints have no intrinsic value to a disbeliever, but in a society that treats them as holy, they take on infinite value — value created entirely by unanimous belief channeled through mimesis.
- Girard’s conclusion: human values are like fiat currencies, holding value primarily because others believe they do.
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This challenges modernity’s faith in reason and individual autonomy:
- Even the most independent philosophers travel in packs (2,000 years of Christian theologians, 2,500 years of Buddhist philosophers, the progressive academy, the Enlightenment philosophes).
- Reason often acts as a “defensive lawyer” for intuitions actually grounded in mimesis.
- Those who escape the mimetic orbit — like Van Gogh or Nietzsche — often suffer terrible alienation and madness.
Mimetic desire: acquisitive mimesis
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Within all mimetic behavior, Girard focuses on mimetic desire — desire ignited by observing a model desire an object — because it has the motivational force to drive history.
- Other forms of mimesis (accents, mannerisms) lack this acquisitive force and are less consequential.
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Mimetic desire has two strands:
- Physical desire (desire to experience): aimed at the utility or pleasure of the object itself (e.g., buying a car for gas mileage; pursuing sex for pleasure or intimacy).
- Metaphysical desire (desire to be): aimed at what the object says about one’s identity (e.g., buying a car to be seen as a certain type of person; the Don Juan who pursues conquest to prove something about himself).
- Every specific desire contains both strands in varying proportions; they compete for dominance within us.
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Authentic desire, for Girard, is not about intensity (contra Romanticism) but about desiring things for their own sake — which requires sufficient experience of the object.
- The arc toward authenticity: gaining enough experience that physical desire strengthens and metaphysical desire (vanity, snobbism) weakens.
- Young aspiring entrepreneurs are often motivated entirely by metaphysical desire (the aura of being an entrepreneur); only those who gain real experience sometimes develop genuine physical desire for the work itself.
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Physical desire is still mimetic because our normative frameworks shape our experiences, and those frameworks are formed through mimesis.
- Example: one’s experience of premarital sex is radically different depending on whether one believes it is sinful or the goal of life is leisure — and those beliefs are socially transmitted.
- There exists a spectrum of mimesis: perhaps a newborn’s first breath is non-mimesis, but virtually all subsequent human action contains traces of mimesis. Mimesis is not everything, but everything is mimetic.
Metaphysical desire: the desire to be
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Metaphysical desire aims at being — a concept interchangeable with self-conception, spirit, or identity.
- Example: the allure of fine dining is less about food quality than about the social standing and self-conception it confers.
- Plato’s concept of spirit (the part of the soul that craves honor) captures the same phenomenon.
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Girard identifies three fundamental ends within metaphysical desire:
- Reality: the desire for social existence and recognition — to be real in the eyes of others (e.g., “pics or it didn’t happen”; social media presence treated as more real than physical life; Baudrillard’s simulacra replacing reality).
- Persistence: the desire for one’s identity to endure through time — progeny, books, companies, monuments, the Chinese emperors’ quest for immortality.
- Self-sufficiency: not merely physical independence (the homesteader) but the power to satisfy all needs — including social admiration and belonging — at will (e.g., the coquette who commands suitors; Nietzsche’s will to power; Louis XIV’s “L’état, c’est moi”).
- Even seemingly powerless acts (fasting, asceticism) can be expressions of this drive when they reflect shaping the world according to one’s self-conception.
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These three ideals are highly abstract and malleable, which is precisely what makes metaphysical desire so powerful: it can motivate anything from discovering a particle to committing murder, from writing a play to conquering Europe.
- The shorthand for what we all want: to exist in great measure — glory, immortality, and power.
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This ideal is unachievable, and the gap between it and our lived reality produces a deep, persistent existential shame.
- We recognize our mortality, the rapidity with which we adopt and discard identities, our vulnerability and dependence, our loss of control.
- Girard’s psychology is therefore profoundly pessimistic: we are driven by an impossible ideal, like children chasing expectations they can never meet.
How metaphysical desire operates: triangular desire
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Metaphysical desire is triangular, not linear: subject → model → object.
- We desire objects not for their intrinsic qualities but because a model (celebrity, parent, peer, coworker) desires them, and we believe the model possesses a fullness of being that the object confers.
- The strength of desire has little to do with the object and everything to do with our relationship to the model and our own sense of lack.
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The object must be proximate and core to the model’s being:
- Michael Jordan’s sneakers promise “Be like Mike” — not the utility of the shoes but the being of Jordan. We don’t shave our heads bald (also a quality of Jordan); we buy what we perceive as central to his identity.
- Girard’s analogy: the object is to the mediator what the relic is to a saint — a rosary used by the saint is more valued than a medal merely blessed by him.
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Even the most intimate domains are subject to mediation:
- Dostoevsky’s The Eternal Husband: a protagonist wants his Don Juan friend to seduce his new wife, so that the friend’s desire validates the protagonist’s choice — an exaggerated but revealing case.
- In everyday life, a previously unappealing romantic prospect becomes attractive the moment a rival desires them — nothing about the person has changed, only the social dynamic.
- This extends to career choices, political orientation, aesthetic taste, and even writing style (Girard notes that clarity is unfashionable because prestigious intellectuals like Hegel and Adorno wrote obscurely).
Four qualities that make metaphysical desire the dominant force
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Malleability: its abstract ideals (reality, persistence, self-sufficiency) can take infinitely varied concrete forms, explaining the diversity of human culture — including behaviors that seem to go against self-interest (Christian celibacy and self-mutilation, aristocratic refusal of certain military tactics, modern elites who work harder the richer they get).
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Power: because our identity and being are at stake, metaphysical desire is the strongest motivational force, manifesting as obsession and compulsion (fervent religious rituals, tulip mania, the dot-com bubble). It drives activities we feel we need to do to feel whole.
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Deceitfulness: it always disappoints, because what it aims at (an object) and what it really wants (being) are categorically different things.
- The triangular route is hidden from us: we think we desire the object for its intrinsic qualities, not because of the model.
- After obtaining the object, we lose interest — it does nothing to change our being — and redirect desire toward the next object (the Ivy League wasn’t enough, now it’s $10 million; the car wasn’t enough, now it’s the house).
- Girard’s metaphor: metaphysical desire is a mirage that leads us on one wild goose hunt after another, always promising that salvation is just a few more steps away.
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Ungovernability: it does not fall under the jurisdiction of reason.
- Physical desire can be examined and weighed by reason, but metaphysical desire’s goal is abstract and hidden from the subject.
- Even when we rationally understand the trap, the desire’s strength overrides reason — reason becomes a “lawyer” inventing justifications for what the spirited part of the soul already demands.
- The Platonic ideal of reason holding the reins of spirit is, for Girard, an illusion: when spirit is inflamed, it commands reason.
Metaphysical desire as original sin
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The degree to which one is subject to metaphysical desire is directly correlated with pridefulness — the hubris of believing one can attain the being of a Napoleon or an Achilles.
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Girard translates this into Christian theological language: metaphysical desire is the root of all sin.
- Following Augustine: pride closes us off from God; humility exalts and pride debases. Metaphysical desire is above all an expression of pride.
- More directly: the three ends of metaphysical desire map onto the core attributes of the Christian God:
- Most real → God as the fundamental substratum of being
- Eternal/persistent → God as the Alpha and Omega
- Self-sufficient/omnipotent → God’s omnipotence
- Therefore, metaphysical desire is literally the desire to be God — which is the defining ambition of Satan, the fallen angel who rebelled against God.
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This is precisely the temptation of Genesis 3:4–5: “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
- Satan is the model; Adam and Eve are the subject; God is the object. Through imitating Satan, humanity acquired the satanic drive to rival God’s metaphysical splendor.
- Before this, humanity was content in Eden, even in nakedness. Afterward, “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7) — shame arises only when our petty existence is measured against the glory we now yearn for.
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Metaphysical desire is therefore not just the root of all sin but our original sin itself — a satanic heritage inherited from the Fall.
- It is pervasive: we may tame it, but none of us can fully escape it. Just as no Christian asks “Do I sin?” but only “How do I sin?”, Girard holds that we are always, if only subtly, plagued by this rebellious, tormenting impulse.
- This is what makes metaphysical desire the most consequential force in Girard’s psychology — and why he narrows his focus from all human behavior → mimetic behavior → mimetic desire → metaphysical desire.