![]() ![]() The characters in the great novels are so realistic because they want things the way that we do-not spontaneously, not out of an inner chamber of authentic desire, not randomly, but through the imitation of someone else: their secret model. Girard’s distance from the subject matter, combined with his penetrating intellect, enabled him to recognize the pattern. Desire, like gravity, does not reside autonomously in any one thing or person. Girard’s discovery was like the Newtonian revolution in physics, in which the forces governing the movement of objects can only be understood in a relational context. Imitation plays a far more pervasive role in our society than anyone had ever openly acknowledged. Humans learn-through imitation-to want the same things other people want, just as they learn how to speak the same language and play by the same cultural rules. ![]() Girard discovered that most of what we desire is mimetic (mi-met-ik) or imitative, not intrinsic. Wanting Book Notes from Wanting by Luke Burgis ![]()
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