How We Learn to Desire, the Weak and the Strong, The Wonder Years

T.S. Elliot said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” I, on the other hand, am a shoplifter who immediately runs to the store’s security guard to confess.

The writer I’m “lifting” from is Luke Burgis who writes a substack called Anti-Mimetic. You can find it at antimimetic.substack.com.

My post today is a riff on Luke’s post called “Strongmen, Weak Mimesis, Jokers Wild.” It made a great impression on me, and led me to consider how we arrive at the desires that motivate our lives. I encourage you to read it.

Luke’s post deals with Rene Girard’s theory of “mimetic desire.” Over the past decade, Girard has become popular with the intelligentsia (plus Peter Thiel.)  The mimetic desire theory is simple enough. Most of us are too weak-willed to decide on our own what to desire, so we end up desiring what the stronger and bolder and more famous among us desire. We lack the “strength” (sort of like Nietzsche’s Will to Power) to form our own desires, so instead our entire lives are based on imitating what is thrust daily in front of us by others.

Or, as Dr. Hannibal Lector tells Clarice Starling, “We begin by coveting what we see every day,”  

In our modern culture, what is daily thrust upon us most often are the whims, tastes, and ambitions of famous people. So we covet the wellness lifestyle of Gwyneth Paltrow, the fashions and body-shapes of the Kardashians, the limitless product endorsements of limitless “influencers.” As for politics, we imitate the stances of those politicians and their media supporters who seem the most self-assured in expressing the views we’d like to express if only we had their megaphones and their daring.

When we imitate the distant famous, we can forget that they don’t know we exist, that to them we are lifeless husks, useful only for our attention, our money, or our votes. By the same token, what we see of the famous is almost always carefully choreographed. They prepare a face to meet our faces.

We also fail to consider that great fame carries with it a special risk of moral defect of character. The very famous live their lives surrounded by their fans, their acolytes, and their yes-men (“yes-people?”).  As a result, when the facades of the famous are lifted, we often see ugly, unrestrained, entitled arrogance. We worship them as gods until they’re revealed as beasts.

Now of course there are nuances as to how much we imitate the desires of others and, more importantly, who we choose to imitate. I’d like to think that my own desires have been fully formed from the internal workings of my mind and heart, but of course that’s not true.

A mimetic desire can be as petty as a commercial that triggers a craving for Lay’s sour cream and onion potato chips. (Does it make me weak to succumb to that? Maybe a little, but it’s not a character flaw!)

Or, a mimetic desire can lead to a deadly sin. In our consumerist society, the most obvious sin is unbridled greed in order to imitate what the famously wealthy have. There’s also lust, as all around us are provocative images of the ideal female and male forms.

Even when the rich and famous are portrayed as deeply flawed, we still envy their circumstances. The luxurious settings and trappings in shows like “Succession,” “Billions,” and “White Lotus” inspire our desires to travel to those gorgeous settings and to wear those classic clothes, no matter how miserable the characters are.

Imitating the material desires of the famous is one thing, but imitating how they act is something quite different. But can we separate our mimetic desires for material things from who we choose as role models in terms of character?

My answer is yes, but it’s difficult. It’s seductive to think of the famous as role models, because we see them so often in circumstances that we naturally envy. But imitating the characters of the famous makes us more vulnerable to being led astray. Because even after some of their beastliness is revealed, we’re STILL tempted to admire them. That continued admiration is corrosive to our own character.

So I think we have to try hard to select role models and mentors who are NOT famous, but are familiar people in our lives who we can observe and interact with consistently. We have to think about what traits in our familiar role models we want to imitate and what traits we want to avoid. I don’t think this is an easy way of thinking. It’s not the default setting to our natures.

I’m 61 and only in writing this post am I realizing how easy it is to revert to the mimetic default and not be discerning about this subject.

As for me, I’d like to imitate those who I think have true strength of character, which I define as a consistency of wisdom, humility, integrity, and kindness.

A role model for me in business was Michael Gordon, co-founder of Angelo Gordon from which I recently retired after thirty years. Michael was consistently adamant that we act painstakingly fair in our dealings, especially with clients, but also generally with all counterparties. And by fair, he meant not only honest and following the terms of a deal, but also revising a deal in the other party’s favor if it turned out the deal we’d negotiated was too good for us. That was a rare and beautiful thing.

Sometimes, contra “Succession,” you can find  good role models in fictional characters. As I was writing this post, I recalled a scene I saw thirty years ago from the TV show “The Wonder Years.”  It was a scene where the father (typically grumpy and gruff) conveys to his teenage son in a gentle way that true heroes and role models are not necessarily those who accomplish what we typically think of as heroic exploits, in this case a high school basketball star worshipped by the son.

After the basketball star shows his true character (a sore loser) the father tells his son, “You know, it can be hard to be a hero.” And for the son, it’s at this moment that the ”penny drops,” and he understands that it’s not the basketball star who is his hero but actually his father, a middle manager in a stressful job, carrying all the responsibilities of a sole breadwinner (the show was set in the 1960s.)

When I first saw that episode, I was the father of very young children. But after watching it, I knew that I wanted to be that type of heroic father. Always there when needed, responsible, moral, and fair. That would be enough.

 Below is the clip from the Wonder Years. It’s on the long side at almost nine minutes.

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