Manias and Mimesis: Applying René Girard’s Mimetic Theory to Financial Bubbles
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Manias and Mimesis: Applying René Girard’s Mimetic Theory to Financial Bubbles
“Each person must ask what his relationship is to the scapegoat,” wrote René Girard. “I am not aware of my own, and I am persuaded that the same holds true for my readers. We only have legitimate enmities. And yet the entire universe swarms with scapegoats.”
Luke Burgis • Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
In the meme economy, the market performance of a stock or cryptocurrency is less about forecasting business revenue than it is about gauging a traded asset’s “memeability.” This user-generated, virality-based investment strategy can best be explained by René Girard’s mimetic theory of desire, which argues that “human desire is not an autonomous pro... See more
Harry Jones • The Meme Economy
Girard discovered that most of what we desire is mimetic (mi-met-ik) or imitative, not intrinsic. 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. Imitation plays a far more pervasive role in our society than anyone had ever openly acknow
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