Saved by Sixian
The Twitter Ban: Handshakes and Emails
What if we spent less time shouting into the void and being washed over with shouting in return—and more time talking in rooms to those for whom our words are intended?
Jenny Odell • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
There have been two major social inventions in history that mitigated the negative consequences of mimetic desire: the scapegoat mechanism and the market economy.
Luke Burgis • Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
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.
David Cayley • The Ideas of Rene Girard: An Anthropology of Religion and Violence
It’s tempting. There is a natural desire to make our voice heard in the cacophony. When confronted with loud voices, discord, and disagreement, the reflexive (and mimetic) response is simply to get louder. To say more, and to say it more forcefully. To do more, and to do it faster. To add rather than to subtract.