People learn what to want by observing what others want, so desire is triangular rather than a direct relation between a person and an object.
Girard's claim is that the model who desires the object is what makes the object desirable, which means the model is simultaneously guide and rival. It explains why competition intensifies as rivals converge rather than diverge, and why an object can lose its appeal the moment no one else wants it.
In practice
- A candidate becomes attractive to three employers because one made an offer.
- A house viewed by nobody for six months sells within a week of a second viewer appearing.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is triangular: the model who wants an object is what makes the object desirable, so the model is guide and rival at once, and rivalry intensifies as the two converge.
- In its favour
- It accounts for patterns that direct theories of preference struggle with, including fashion cascades, bidding wars and the intensity of rivalry between similar competitors, and social learning of preferences is well documented.
- Against it
- It is a literary and philosophical theory rather than an empirical one, with no measure of when desire is mimetic rather than direct, and the accompanying account of scapegoating is considerably more contested.
- Standing
- A literary and philosophical theory rather than an empirical one; the accompanying account of scapegoating is considerably more contested than the imitative core.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change