This episode is the second lecture in a series on René Girard’s mimetic theory, focusing on the psychological architecture of mimetic desire and its identification with original sin; it argues that human motivation is fundamentally structured by imitation (mimesis), that desire is triangular (subject–model–object) rather than linear, and that the dominant form — metaphysical desire, or the desire to “be” rather than to experience — is a prideful, insatiable, and ungovernable drive that Girard equates with the satanic impulse to rival God.
Mimesis as the foundation of social being and normative certainty
Mimesis is the human capacity to copy external behaviors, values, and emotions, making us fundamentally social creatures who “co-vibrate” like violin strings in Hume’s metaphor of sympathy.
Unlike Hume’s sympathy, which only traffics in emotions, mimesis spans the entire gamut of human behavior: experiences, judgments, actions, intentions, values.
Mimesis is a tendency and a capacity, not a deterministic faculty; we retain agency to choose whom to imitate and can resist co-vibration.
Empirical support includes Andrew Meltzoff’s findings that infants as young as 40 minutes mimic facial expressions, and the discovery of mirror neurons that fire both when observing and performing an action.
Mimesis functions as the primary authority for normative certainty: we gain confidence in what is good, beautiful, or just by internalizing others’ values through mimesis.
This operates at three ascending levels: recognition (pairwise affirmation), prestige (group consensus inflating value beyond intrinsic worth), and the sacred (unanimous belief conferring infinite value on objects like relics).
Human values are like fiat currencies — they hold value because others believe they do, not because of intrinsic worth.
This undermines modern philosophical assumptions: reason cannot ground normative certainty alone, authentic desire is not self-generated, and individuality is an illusion for co-vibrating social animals.
Even reason’s strongest practitioners (philosophers, theologians, academics) travel in packs, suggesting belief in reason itself rests on mimetic unanimity.
Those who escape the mimetic orbit often face alienation and madness (e.g., Van Gogh, Nietzsche), confirming mimesis as a necessary psychological support.
Mimetic desire: physical vs. metaphysical desire
Within mimetic behavior, Girard focuses on mimetic desire — acquisitive imitation where observing a model desire an object ignites the same desire in the subject.
Other mimetic behaviors (accents, mannerisms) lack sufficient motivational force to drive history.
Mimetic desire splits into two species: physical desire (desire for experience, utility, the object’s qualities) and metaphysical desire (desire for being, identity, what the object says about the self).
Examples: sex for pleasure/intimacy (physical) vs. sex to prove one’s desirability (metaphysical); a car for gas mileage (physical) vs. a car to signal status (metaphysical).
Every concrete desire contains both strands in varying proportion; they compete for “real estate” in motivation.
Girard systematically prefers physical desire and suspects metaphysical desire: pursuing things for what they say about you is perverse, prideful snobbism.
Authentic desire requires strong physical desire grounded in experience, not the strength of desire itself (contra the Romantic view that intensity = authenticity).
The arc toward authenticity: accumulate experience of an object to desire it for its own sake, letting metaphysical desire give way to physical desire (e.g., young entrepreneurs motivated by the “aura” of entrepreneurship gradually developing love for the work itself).
Physical desire is still mimetic because normative positions (shaped by mimesis) color experience: e.g., one’s experience of premarital sex differs depending on whether one mimetically holds the norm that it is sinful or that leisure is the highest good.
Mimesis permeates all desire: there is a spectrum of increasing mimetic degrees; “mimesis is not everything, but everything is mimetic.”
The three ends of “being” (metaphysical desire’s abstract ideals)
Metaphysical desire aims at “being” — interchangeable with self-conception, spirit, ego, or Plato’s spirited part of the soul that craves honor.
It pursues three abstract, exaggerated ideals that make it infinitely malleable across cultures:
Reality (social existence): not spatiotemporal reality but social recognition — “pics or it didn’t happen”; Instagram presence matters more than the vacation itself; we want to be “real” in the eyes of others.
Persistence (immortality): the desire for identity to last through time — progeny, books, companies, monuments, emperors’ quest for immortality; photography eternalizes an instant to increase its reality.
Self-sufficiency (power/domination): not material autarky (the homesteader) but social omnipotence — the coquette who commands admiration at will; Nietzsche’s will to power; Louis XIV’s “L’état, c’est moi”; even asceticism can be a mode of exerting will by shaping the world to one’s self-conception.
These ideals are so abstract they can power any concrete form: glory via discovery or murder; immortality via children or a play; power via conquest or fasting.
The gap between this “existence in great measure” (glory, immortality, power) and our lived reality as mortal, contingent beings produces a permanent existential shame — we are like children disappointing impossibly ambitious parents.
Girard’s psychology is deeply pessimistic: we are driven by an unachievable ideal, motivated by an unpleasant force.
Metaphysical desire’s triangular structure and four defining qualities
Metaphysical desire pursues objects by imitating models who appear to possess fullness of being (celebrities, parents, entrepreneurs, the “cool kid”).
The faulty logic: acquiring the model’s objects will grant the model’s being.
Triangular structure: desire runs subject → model → object, not subject → object; the object’s allure derives from its proximity to the model’s being.
Mediation: the object is to the mediator what the relic is to the saint — value depends on closeness to the model’s core being (e.g., Jordan’s shoes, not his bald head).
This extends to intimate domains: Dostoevsky’s The Eternal Husband shows a man needing his Don Juan friend to desire his wife to validate his own choice; everyday romance shows increased desire when a rival appears.
Even intellectual taste is mediated: Girard notes clarity is unfashionable because prestigious models (Hegel, Adorno) wrote obscurely.
Four qualities making metaphysical desire the dominant analytical focus:
Malleability: abstract ideals (reality, persistence, self-sufficiency) take kaleidoscopic concrete forms depending on mediators — sexual conquest, philosophical treatise, dying for the emperor; explains puzzling self-denying behaviors (Christian asceticism, aristocratic honor, modern elites overworking).
Power: so much is at stake (one’s spirit, identity, echo through time) that it becomes compulsive — “need” to date someone, live somewhere, hold a job; manifests in religious fervor, tulip mania, dot-com bubble.
Deceitfulness: the object and the true goal (being) are different types of things; the triangular route is hidden — we think we desire the object intrinsically, but desire vanishes upon acquisition (Kanye’s $100 white t-shirt); disappointment leads not to renunciation but to a new object (Ivy League → $10M → actor); Girard’s metaphor: a mirage promising fulfillment just a few steps ahead.
Ungovernability: reason cannot tame it because the goal is abstract/elusive and the pursuit is disguised as passion for the object; reason becomes a “lawyer” inventing justifications for desires it doesn’t control (Plato’s charioteer is an illusion); “He who needs a how can make up almost any why.”
Original sin as metaphysical desire
The preceding analysis applies only when metaphysical desire is primary; physical desire (utility, taste, independent judgment) avoids this fate.
The proportion of metaphysical vs. physical desire depends on experience, proximity to alluring models, upbringing, humiliation — but the root cause is pride.
Metaphysical desire aims at glory, immortality, dominance — exaggerated ideals whose exemplars are Napoleon, Achilles; believing we can attain them requires unreasonable arrogance.
Thus all humans are prideful creatures; metaphysical desire = pride.
Augustine: pride is the root of all sin (closes us off from God); Girard translates: metaphysical desire is the root of all sin.
Direct theological reading: the three ends of being map onto God’s metaphysical attributes — most real (ontological ground), eternal (alpha/omega), all-powerful (omnipotent). Metaphysical desire is the desire to be God.
Satan is defined by the desire to rival God; metaphysical desire is the satanic drive.
Genesis 3:4–5: the serpent (model) tempts Eve (subject) to eat the fruit (object) to “be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Before this, humanity was content as God’s servant; through imitation of Satan, we acquired the satanic drive for divine fullness of being.
Genesis 3:7: “they knew that they were naked” — shame arises only when we compare our petty existence to the divine glory we now crave.
Metaphysical desire is original sin: formed at the Fall, inherited by all, inescapable.
Just as no Christian asks “Do I sin?” but “How do I sin?”, Girard holds we are always subtly plagued by this rebellious, tormenting impulse.
It is the most pervasive, unique, consequential force driving humans — our core motivational nexus is a satanic heritage.
