I finally finished listening to the Joe Rogan podcast with Peter Thiel. I prefer reading and writing but I put it on at 1.5 speed while exercising and eventually powered through
I usually prefer peace and quiet when I workout, but I thought it would be nice to catch up on popular culture. It’s something others enjoy so why not engage in some mimicry. And it did inspire some of yesterday’s writing if only tangentially.
I’m lucky enough to be internet friends with the peerless Luke Burgis. His hugely successful book Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life introduced popular culture to philosopher Rene Girard.
I’d first encountered Girard at university and through Thiel’s influence pursued further understanding of the topic thanks to Luke’s scholarship on the topic. A quick orientation on the thesis is as follows.
What Gravity Is To Physics, Mimetic Desire Is To Psychology”
Why do you want the things that you want? Well to get back to the Rogan/Thiel podcast, humans are still “monkey see, monkey do” when taking action and pursuing a desire. Mimicry is a powerful explanatory principle for human nature.
Not knowing who or what to emulate is surely a source of anxiety in our current moment. What constitutes the good and the true seems especially unclear in our long now modernity. Which way western man? As social animals we look to each other. If you want to give others something worth mirroring you have that power. Equally who you choose to emulate impacts others. Choose wisely.