IMAGE, literary and arts journal, explains mimetic desire…
Mankind’s basic urge is not want, as Marx might have it, or sex, as Freud would, but desire.
That is the bedrock supposition of critic Rene Girard, and the desire he speaks of is not material or sensual, but mimetic. In other words, the defining impulse that drives existence, quickening the pulse and stirring the breast, is to be just like the next guy—to have what he has, yes—but also to want what he wants.
In fact, according to Girard, I don’t want what I do because of any merit in the object of my fancy; I want what I do because it’s something that you want as well.
