When we imagine the act of imitating, we always have the impression that it is not only a secondary act but a positive act. Indeed, if we reproduce something, and this is the paradox of imitation, it is that it produces something in relation to something previous or to something already given in front of us. If we reproduce something, it is first and foremost because we admire it. Even Plato, who criticized imitation, still saw in it first and foremost the imitation of a model, and this term model has something positive: we want to reproduce what is good . In moral, social and political practices, we first think of imitation in relation to the one we admire. There are role models, as they say in the United States, and advertising seeks to give us positive models from which we draw inspiration, from whom we seek to imitate everything that seems good to us. There may be danger in there, but perhaps not fundamental violence. Imitation therefore even seems to be something positive, perhaps we are not choosing the wrong model, rather imitate the good people than the bad ones, rather imitate good people than criminal people but ultimately there would be no problem with the imitation itself.
“Mimetic violence” according to René Girard
Now it seems that making imitation as such neutral or even positive consists of masking what is at the heart of imitation itself between humans at least which is its indestructible part of violence. This mimetic violence is at the heart of a great work of the 20th century, that of Rene Girardwho even made this concept “mimetic violence” the heart of his theory of violence in general and of war with rivals, the rivalry which rises to the extremes and which would explain, for example, the mechanisms of war and conflict between humans, including obviously at the political level that we constantly relive today.
When desire gets tangled
What is the mechanism of this mimetic violence, of the fact that Mimesis can become violence? For René Girard, it’s very simple, it’s when desire is involved. It is when we compete, when we imitate not only someone else’s behavior, someone else’s appearance, but someone else’s desire for a common object. It is this rivalry of desires, this Mimesis of desire, it is the concept of desire which makes the link between imitation and violence. I quote a masterful passage from Violence and the Sacred : “two desires which converge on the same object become mutual obstacles. Any Mimesis relating to desire automatically leads to conflict. Men are always partially blind to this cause of rivalry.” Same, similar evokes an idea of harmony, but what will happen if we really have the same desires? Only a few great writers have been interested in this type of rivalry.
Violence generated by imitating the desire of the other
Thus imitation becomes violence when it builds competition, rivalry between humans for the same object. It can then lead to total destruction and according to René Girard, this is perhaps a more questionable part of his analysis… According to him, to get out of it this violence must be directed in a common way against a third party, i.e. This is what he calls the scapegoat. Thus, the violence generated by the imitation of the desire of the other would have no outcome in itself. The only way out remains the fact of deporting oneself towards a third party or against a third party or on the contrary in a form of moral revelation of listening to a master who diverts us from this war of mimetic desires. Perhaps there is another solution, perhaps that despite everything the desire to imitate a positive model is also a positive outcome to the tragic violence, contained in the imitation itself…
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