The Importance of Imitative Desire

In this episode, I speak with Luke Burgis about Rene Girard, the mimetic cycle, imitation, desire, and scapegoating, and how these things play out in business, commerce and everyday life. We discuss his forthcoming book, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. Themes include how are desires our shaped by others, the leveling of desire through social media, the problem of scapegoating including not only scapegoating of the innocent, but how the the guilty be scapegoated to distract attention from other guilty parties. We also discuss positive and negative mimesis, and a number of writers and entrepreneurs including Max Scheler, Alexis De Tocqueville, Peter Thiel, Nassim Taleb, and why Rene Girard’s insights have much to say about commerce, our contemporary political economy, and our everyday life. We did this interview earlier this year while he was in the midst of writing, but the book is now finished and will be out in Spring of 2021.

Visit https://www.themoralimagination.com/episodes/luke-burgis for show notes and resources.