René Girard, mimetic desire, and society's biggest rat race

We began with the idea that underpins all of Girard’s theories––imitation. Conflict between people, he believes, is rooted in our propensity for imitation or in what he calls “mimetic desire”—an idea that began to take shape for him through his study of the great European novelists.

Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires