One of my favorite shows on Netflix is Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Of the three “C’s”, I really only like comedians, but that’s enough to get me watching. In each episode, Jerry shows off his vintage car, picks up another comic, drives them around town to get coffee, and talks about life and comedy. It’s great!
One of the episodes features John Mulaney. If you don’t John Mulaney, not only is he a white guy who hangs out with Pete Davidson, he’s a witty stand-up who previously wrote for SNL.
In the episode, John is wearing a thigh-length, unbuttoned, beige mac jacket with the collar popped. For some reason, I had to have that mac jacket. The point of this article is to explain why.
Mimetic Desire
I came across the term Mimetic Desire through a podcast interview with Luke Burgis. Burgis is the author of a new book called Wanting that summarizes the philosophical writings of a French thinker named René Girard, the original progenitor of the term Mimetic Desire. The book is excellent and I highly recommend it. I’ll explain the essence here, but read this if you want an even better synopsis.
The basic idea is as follows: instead of having a direct relationship to the things we want, desire is mediated through other people.
We like to think that our desires are our own, uninformed by outside opinion, stemming from rational thought or heartful need. Yet aside from the necessities of life—food, security, love—most desires come to us through someone else who models the object, hobby, lifestyle, etc.
There are two types of mimetic models: internal and external. Internal models are the people closest to us like friends and family members or people at church, work, or in our general income bracket. External models are outside our immediate sphere, like a celebrity.
The true marker of an internal model is whether or not we feel any competition with them, whether we find ourselves comparing our lives to theirs. An external model can still influence our desires, but it comes without an extra layer of rivalry.
Proximity doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to Mimetic Desire. We can feel competitive with someone in our office or a friend on Instagram who lives across the country.
Our desires move in one of two directions thanks to a model. Either it leads us to seek the same things as our model, to mimic them, or it leads us to differentiate ourselves. Girard has this great quote from the book that says, “the effort to leave the beaten path forces everyone into the same ditch.”
Often, differentiation leads us to find new models. For example, think of hipsters. Hipsters try to be different from the mainstream, but hipsters themselves start acting alike and mimicking each other. It only took one person to successfully and authentically leave the mainstream; the rest were simply following along.
Why it Matters
I can’t stop thinking about Mimetic Desire and seeing its effects everywhere. One of the things I like about this idea is that it wraps up so many truisms that I’ve heard before (don’t chase the wrong goals, you’ll become like the people around you, objects don’t bring satisfaction, etc.) into one cohesive framework.
Since reading the book, I’ve started to develop what I’ll call a mimetic radar. It’s a little siren in my head that pings anytime I feel a little jealous or suddenly obsessed with something. When the radar goes off, I ask myself, why do I want this? Who modeled this for me? How temporary is this desire? I then have a better mechanism for rejecting unnecessary desires or for accepting and analyzing productive desires.
To me, there are three really important takeaways from Burgis and Girard.
First, none of us actually want many of the things we desire. We only think we do because our neighbor wants it, or Lebron James wants it, or that really cool influencer who lives in a van and wears clothing made from bamboo wants it.
Second, obtaining the objects of our desire never brings the fulfillment we expect. We didn’t actually want the object; we wanted the status, the lifestyle, the prestige.
Third, any status we do obtain is short-lived because there’s always a new model. Even as we climb whatever ladder, someone’s always a rung above us.
What follows are some ideas from Burgis on how to identify and combat Mimetic Desire. I’ve also looked at three of my own desires (including the mac jacket) to show how to put some of these principles to use.
Identifying Mimetic Desire
Burgis has a short quiz on his site that presents some scenarios to help you identify your susceptibility to mimetic desire. Here are a few examples. Ask yourself how true they are of you.
When I hang around people with distinctive accents or vocabulary, I catch myself talking a little bit more like them.
I have at least one rival that I check up on.
My college major was influenced by family, friends, or mentors.
I support one political party and generally support its platform, with a few minor exceptions.
Another helpful question is to ask what groups you belong to. It’s easier to see this in others through the products they own (Tesla, Traeger Grills, iPhone & Airpods, or Goldendoodle dogs), experiences they spend their money on (Disney Land, concerts, beach trips, Europe), and the hobbies they pursue (yoga, Crossfit, cooking & baking, cycling). Enjoyable as all these things are, chances are a model introduced it to you first or continues to keep you involved.
The Antidotes to Mimetic Desire
Burgis suggest two ways to relieve the pressures of the mimetic cycle: find better models and focus on firm, enduring desires.
If we’re inevitably going to mirror someone else's desires, we had better associate with people we would be glad to mimic. Additionally, we should analyze our desires and ask ourselves, do I really want this? Do I want to be more like this person? If the answer is no, we should find a new model.
Burgis’ second suggestion is harder to achieve but better for us in the long run. We should focus on enduring desires, or what Burgis calls firm desires. These desires won’t disappear after a few weeks and aren’t centered on physical objects or external measures of success.
Instead, a firm desire might take years to obtain. It may be an emotion, a skill, a personality trait, or a relationship. By focusing on firm desires, we can eventually become anti-mimetic, better able to see ourselves clearly and disciplined enough to obtain worthwhile goals.
Analyzing my own sources of desire
To drive things home to myself, I’ll look at a handful of my own desires and attempt to identify the source.
The Mac Jacket
Let’s return to where we started with the mac jacket for an object-oriented desire. Why was I so obsessed? This purchase wasn’t logical—I already own two raincoats, and the only time I spend in wet weather is accidental. A mac jacket isn’t even that effective at keeping off rain because it doesn’t have a hood. Presumably, one who wears a mac jacket is fashionable enough to pair it with a nice hat which will shield the head. I don’t wear fashionable hats, making the entire operation even more absurd.
Clearly, the purchase was more mimetic than rational. But what was I really desiring? I think it was the circumstances in which John Mulaney wore the mac jacket, out-and-about with my favorite comedian, Seinfeld, in my favorite city, New York.
Owning a mac jacket wouldn’t get me any of those things, but as the only part John’s experience I could replicate, it was the best I could do. All in all, it’s a pretty dumb reason to buy a jacket. Let those without mimetic desire cast the first stone.
Writing
It’s easy to identify the model for a physical object. Here’s a harder one: a hobby.
One of my biggest desires is to be a writer. Why? It probably started when I was in high school and began to view writing as a way to differentiate myself (shout out to those who remember my cringey blog). My models then were novelists, mostly dead men who I read for English classes. Now, I think my models have changed to contemporary writers, especially those writing online. Writing on Substack was undoubtedly a mimetic choice.
Substack authors are a fine mimetic model and writing is arguably a good desire. It’s productive, creative, and fulfilling, and I’ve felt more satisfied with my life since I started writing these monthly articles. Nevertheless, competition has the potential to ruin writing for me if I become too focused on results. For the first three months of writing this Substack, I checked my pageviews and subscriber count multiple times a day. It was totally obsessive. I’m still checking a few times a week even after I acknowledged my lunacy.
Where to Live
How about a lifestyle desire?
I heard an entrepreneur on a podcast talk about their decision to live in Victoria, Canada. He said that living in Victoria means he runs into fewer people like himself than if he lived in Silicon Valley, New York, or Miami. In short, he’s removed himself from the competition. Of course, in the business world, his peers are still out there, but his daily social circle is full of people unlike himself.
I had the same realization about my life in and out of Utah. In Utah, everyone was just like me. White, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, college-educated, working at a startup, married, and starting a family. It was impossible not to look around and see a thousand people against whom I had to measure up.
In Maryland, my internal models are notably fewer. I’m still the same person—white, Mormon, BYU graduate, married, father—and so my desires are very much the same, but I live without the immediate pressure to examine myself against others. At work, I’m the only member of my Church, one of the only men under 30, and the youngest person with a child. There just isn’t the same opportunity for comparison.
Relatedly, I spend a lot of time thinking about potential places to live if we moved out of Maryland, especially since I can work remotely full-time. A logical choice might be somewhere affordable, say Des Moines, Iowa. It’s a mid-size city with a low cost of living, decent weather, and lots of green space, plus it’s closer to our family than Maryland.
These points mean nothing to me because I have no model for Des Moines, Iowa. In fact, I have a lot of models who don’t live in Des Moines. No one I know is moving to Iowa for cheap living, so I don’t find myself wanting to either, even though on paper, it could be the best choice. Instead, we’ll probably pay more than we should to stay in Maryland or another big coastal city because that’s what people I admire are doing.
A speed round of my desires would reveal why I like Brooks running shoes, Seinfeld, living near trees, Indian food, and more.
What would an inventory of your desires reveal? Who are your models? What are you chasing that you really don’t want, and what are you chasing that’s meaningful and firm?
The Madness Of Desire
shucks, this was eye opening. I need to clean up my amazon cart now.