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I have a question that isn't intended to be mean. It's just something I noticed on several YT content creator videos, but there seems to be an interesting version of it on philosophy/atheist videos. The thumbnail of a video is usually a background with the creator's headshot front and center in some sort of pensive or condescendingly amused or other serious thinker pose. It doesn't seem the headshots are simply pulled from the video as, many times, the creator is wearing different clothes in the headshot than in the video. My question is: do content creators 'photo shoot' themselves in these various poses? or pay for 'headshot services'? Because, if so, that would make an interesting video in itself.
So often when we “move past” we fall into the trap of saying “that is not me desiring this so I must not actually want.” This leads to us falling into an inverted version where we hate the things that others desire, because “if they want it must be something we don’t want.” A clear example of this in the whole hipster trends where everyone seeks to be different then everyone else and therefore all looks the same but in a different way.
This coupled with mimetic desire explains the highs and lows of fashion trends. The rise perpetuated by mimetic desires and social conformation, the fall by this need to be different. This seems to create a self-perpetuating cycle of opposing duality eg: tight jeans and baggy pants.
What if it's not hate, but you just lose interest in some of the things we see other people having or desiring? It doesn't necessarily happen all the time. Just with some things and not others. It goes from "I think I want this" to "Eh maybe not."
@@olive4naito right, it’s not a law but something that is something else that can often happen, especially in a culture that highly values individuality.
As someone who has a degree, let me give you fair warning; going into higher education for a topic you love can befoul it for you. What disciplined self motivation makes into a well studied passion, a rigid and demanding university program may make into a depressing academic slog. There is nothing stopping you from independent study of the topics you love. And universities have many benifits over individual independent learning. But I almost stopped playinf music altogether because of trying to get a degree in music. I was far better served getting a degree in something I had no passion for one way or another and enjoying my side classes and self-education.
@@klosnj11aww. University study can be rewarding and is not necessarily a desert wasteland. Nice to read of another’s joy in contemplating pursuing a path not necessarily in accord with one’s own rather jaded experience. 😅
"behind the wish to become someone else is ultimately the wish to escape yourself, and the only real way to do this is to die" i love the content and the delivery of this particular video of yours. very informative and enjoyable
Egodeath np. This social character is just an artficial figure. Its like GTA 5, but i'm the Source Code tho. Silently observing and giving guidance trough intuition.
There is an idiom in my place: infertile land no one wants, but if one starts to plough, all other compete for that land 😂 （瘦田無人耕，耕親有人爭 you can't translate in Google as it is our local language)
I guess Google might struggle with that idiom’s roots in classical/ancient Chinese language, but I doubt it‘s because of local variations. I might be wrong of course. 繁体字, Syntax and rhyming pattern suggest otherwise. Is the negation 無 currently common in your local language?
@@MenschWerdeWesentlich Thank you so much for your interest in our local language. Yes, 無 is still common in our usage. The point is not because of traditional or simplied Chinese, but our written language is different from our verbal language. Many times you even cannot find the meaning of our words in a Chinese dictionary. But sad to say, our local language is now under the risk of extinct.
'Mimetic desire' can also simply be 'influence', which is normal in the growth of any personality. The given personality traits, the 'character', then makes its own version of influences. In all art forms and literature we see this process happening, and there is nothing unusual or dangerous about it. The mundane forms of MD are simply 'group think', exploited by commerce, capitalism, for the sake of extracting money from the masses. And religions etc. are the same thing, because it feels safer to share thoughts as accepted within a group. The more one is individualistic, the better one gets in transforming any influence into something 'of one's own'. If one consciously strives towards the utmost individualism and originality, then there is the danger of lying to oneself about the influences that work upon one's percentions. But in fully embracing influences, and then feeling free to turn them into one's own qualities, to 'personalize' them, wherever this appears to be right or useful or simply pleasant, then one does not 'lie' to oneself. I'm therefore highly suspicious of Girard's philosophy which seems to take a simple mass psychology phenomenon and turn it into 'philosophy'. Which does not in the slightest diminish the great admiration I have for Mr Folley's impressive videos, so brilliantly presented.
I love that you expanded the concept and applied it to several aspects of our lives! And I think you're entirely right about influence playing a role here. Far be it from me to claim that I completely understand Girard's work as I have not read them, but I believe his aim lies in constructing a framework to explain these very occurrences you just described, since influence is quite a broad term and fails to capture the phenomenon in its entirety. Mimetic desire does sound quite silly at first, but it helps by introducing the role of the mediator and the object of desire. This in turn makes the concept of double mediation to lend itself to intuitive explanations regarding these everyday situations. Using only influence here would be amiss, because I would also categorize "me forcing someone else to do something for me even against their will" as me having influence over someone despite the lack of desire being shared by the participants. But I still think you're on the right track here. Could this mimetic desire thing be just a facet of influence, a part of the whole?
@@od12447 It seems to me that MD is a phenomenon typical of people whose identity, and feeling of 'self' is less developed. When you are quite much 'your self', you are not interested in 'what other people desire', simply that. You will have your own desires.....
I think you misunderstood the concept. As I understand it, Girard’s concept of mimetic desires goes deeper than influence, he presents it as the fundamental mechanism by which desires are spawned. Usually, influence and group thinking are understood as social mechanisms, external to the individual. They may provoke some change in an individual's character, then his desires will be informed or tainted by this change but, ultimately, they remain his own desires. In contrast, Girard would argue against calling them “his own”. Desires, according to him, are fundamentally mimetic in nature and there’s no such thing as an autonomous desire. The perceived individuality of any desire is just an illusion. To challenge your point, I don't think anyone can consciously decide what to desire, else we'd all be satisfied. What you described would be acting on the desire for being authentic or distinct from the rest. That one has a strong case for being mimetic in nature: ironically, it’s one the most prevalent and least original in western society. (Of course, that also makes it one of the most exploited to sell us stuff)
@@merxj There is no single evidence of the claim that there is no autonomous desire. This is a problem of psychology not of philosophy. It is in the nature of the human psyche that it is both autonomous and open to outside influences, so: a malleable continuum, and how boundaries are defined is a matter of individual consciousness. We are free to make decisions about boundaries, influences, feeling being part of a continuum, etc. etc. and this is a process happening on different layers, in different contextes, in different cultures with different histories, etc. etc. Therefore any distinct definition of desires being mimetic by nature is as doubtful as the opposite. The main point is individual awareness and character - which is also the same in eastern societies, by the way.
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 Look, we obviously have different styles because I did the over the top presentation, but learning video editing and the graphical effects were so worth learning, it is such a great adjunct skill to have for creators. The kind you will randomly be able to reapply in another endeavor later on that you couldn't predict. I encourage you to just have play/exploration sessions with it if there is any interest. That is what I did. I think one reason that is was so pleasurable to pick up is that since everything you are doing in these programs is very generalizable, following one tutorial to make a very specific random thing actually teaches you enough to start generally doing things. IE a lightsaber tutorial teaches you things like masking, which you then use basically every time you do any aspect of anything. I remember being shocked the first time I tried to just sit down and do precisely what was in my head with what I learned from only 1-2 tutorials making a random whimsical thing. Sorry for the huge exposition, but I was really one of my best decisions ever, so if there is interest, I'm just saying it is an anti-stress hobby even while you are just starting.
Yes, it's also universally applicable. See the modern concept of "Meta-Cognition" if you want to dig deeper, it takes and expands upon these concepts heavily.
Haha wow man that power dynamic is so true! I not only notice it in kids, myself, and society, but also in my doggies. They avoid eating dry hard dog food in hopes of getting some human scraps. The minute one starts to the slightest interest in their dry food, the other goes and eats their own entire bowl!Not because they're hungry, but simply because the OTHER is showing interest in their own food. Great stuff man keep it coming. Been learning a lot through your channel!
My mimetic desire is you in a lot of ways lol. Your interests in literary novelists and philosophical thinkers, your skills and proficiency with delivering eloquent speech and exploring in deep thought, heck even your personality as someone naturally enthusiastic, warm, humble, and just intellectually curious for things, motivates me to be someone like you. I swear it isn't anything of the severe form of metaphysical mimetic desires that was warned to be self-destructive, it's just appreciation and admiration for qualities I'd like to see more in me in my life. In other words, I just absolutely love your channel. Hope you reach 500k (498k rn as I write this, you're so close!)
I read a book, 20 years ago, about counterculture, coolhunting and gentrification. It was by Canadian sociologists and called "The Rebel Sell". It was pretty sobering towards certain forms of idealism and I basically agree with it to this day. Today I found you explaining the basic mechanics that set the processes that I read about, into motion.
@@catriona_drummond Arrogance is ... what? The only thing that makes sense is arrogance is a real academic discipline which is ... nonsensical. Another poor showing for sociology it seems. 🙂
@@angusmcculloch6653 I have to disappoint you I am not as sociologist. But I kow what you are. It's quite shocking that something like you hangs out in such a nice channel.
@@angusmcculloch6653 do you even realise how stupid you come across when you parrot these idiotic lies?? Sociology is an authoritative discipline, it is a science proper, even though seen as a soft science. Sociology and sociologists, social sciences in general informs the largest of entities on the planet, beit nation states, banks, or any organisation or business that operates within or outside of the State. Your entire life is understood and governed through the social, and so it's though a science of the social you can reach proper conclusions.
I think my biggest critique of Girard's notion of mimetic desire is that the only way for Girard to having any sort of footing with mimetic desire is to either presuppose that there is this sort of cabal of mediators unaffected by mimetic desire that set the agenda (i.e., what is desirable and what is not) or to presuppose a sort of p-zombie-esque world where everyone just sort of mindlessly follows everyone else because of this thing called mimetic desire. Either way, it seems that there is this implicit acknowledgement of determinism: our desires are not our own but that of either some cabal's or the mass's. From a meta-psychological perspective, it seems that Girard is implying that humans are necessarily driven by envy; at its logical conclusion, it seems that mimetic desire is a drive only ceased once one has satiated their envy inspired by others. While one has to concede that some humans are indeed driven by their envy of others, I would find it hard to say that satiation of envy is descriptive of every person's motivation. As a matter of fact, we know that a significant proportion of the population are not motivated by the desire to have that which they lack, and others have. Like Kierkegaard, I would hazard a guess that Girard is more so describing himself and assuming that others are like him than abstracting some proposition of human nature.
I feel like autistic people have high resistance to double mediator effect. Looking back, whenever someone starts to compete for something I wanted first, my desire is gone or lessened, then I try to find something new to want. I guess we just in too deep within our thoughts, not someone else's.
Im assuming you are autistic? This video made no sense to me at all, I think I have never wanted to be someone else ever, and I not even satisfied with the person I am... your comment made me slightely worried about myself
Yeah I had a similar thought here, and think this avenue needs exploring, I think this very thing could be the key to the disconnect between us neurospicy and the normals.
yea, a society is like a shared brain that which the social norm endorsing people perpetrate and share, synchronise, while also inadvertently make themselves compete with each other, example be like people fabricating a race, a competition to win a wheel of cheese that could otherwise be had via payment without the fuss of emotionally involving in the game of the cheese rolling down a hill and people end up competing at who rolls/ runs to the bottom of the hill first to catch that piece of cheese
I think it is only partly true. I know for example someone who has little awareness of social norms and therefore isn't very susceptible to fashion etcetera. But on the other hand very susceptible by bargains and such.
Eh... Kind of. Autistics are very easily manipulated and, therefore, fall into the double mediator effect. Though, due to their lack of cognitive complexity, one has to make the mediation more simple
Absolutely knocked it out of the park 🙌🏻 I especially appreciated and enjoyed discovering the specific nomenclature to this….condition..by way of philosophy. Do create more on this topic, please. You’ve got my attention.
I'm very impressed with your videos. Thank you for all the hard work it takes preparing them. You have a real talent for teaching and explaining things clearly!
Well done. This is a very good subject. Well presented. I've had some very interesting spiritual experiences since I was a child, but it always led me to think deeper about the structure of reality and self reflection. This subject has helped me to go deeper. Thank you again.
It should be added that in Buddhist or yogic teachings, it is made clear that our thoughts are in fact not us, but rather the products of our senses. This includes the things we see and may want
All we experience is CNS. We never touch anything. Basically the world outside is happening within us. The body is the VR, the interface to experience universe.
Thx. You just came up on our feed. Luv the presentation; clear, well spoken, well thought through and presented; color scheme great, subtitles brilliant and well lit. We have hearing impairment and your articulation and subtitles were perfect, understood 100% of what you were saying. Subbed. Keep well, looking forward to watching more of your vids.
As someone who had a full on identity crisis to realize that society told me want to have children (but when rubber met the road, I realized it was the last thing I wanted) and had a whole “if I didn’t actually want this, what ELSE have I assumed I wanted but society just told me to?”… yeah this video has me glued to my seat
I'm a Catholic priest. I made a promise of celibacy. Did I freely choose to not have children or did I just want to belong in the group so badly that I was absorbed into this group. Very interesting.
I think in the age of the internet, many of our desires stem more from the actual or imagined presence of the fourth-person; a nebulous and impersonal but ever present audience that we’re always, in some way or amount, performing for.
@ right, because I totally forgot that the guy who said "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." was gen z
@@ellicurus Most people, before waking up, play a role on the stage. But interpersonal play is different from playing to an imagined audience. Most of our interaction is about convincing ourselves of our own stories. Gen Z is playing for an invisible camera, for attention.
@ getting and wanting attention isn’t a bad thing; we’re sentient social animals who actually go insane without it. That being said, I don’t think it’s healthy to never know how or where that attention is going to come from next. To have the constant threat of vitality, in either a positive or negative light, makes everyone feel pressured to be performing at 100% perfection, 100% of the time.
I think this is correct when discussing how we select the majority of our instrumental goals but not terminal goals. We often emulate others to reach some goal we desired beforehand, and that we believe they have achieved by acting the way they do. Meanwhile I would say it is quite rare for someone to truly decide to pursue a terminal goal purely because of another.
Inner child work and silencing the inner critic by understanding that you are not your inner critic, the latter is just a recording of others voices collected in your childhood.
Even the sense of dissatisfaction that leads to the willingness of not being oneself could come out of mimetic desire. One doesn’t feel good being himself not intrinsically, but because others don’t like (desire) him. And since nobody wants to be the undesirable object, this person decides to be someone else, choosing someone who is famous or likable by most
love your channel I discovered it recently! i remember about a year ago I had this moment of realization, this video really put that situation into a logic
I dunno, man. Black swan here. I clinically lack self-deceit, even in trauma, flatline the metric completely. Yet I still have desires and drives which are my own. I can simply face knowing that not all the ideas in my head belong to me and can tell the difference. Identity is a rational superstition that can be taken away from us, as is reason, death, reality, time, object permanency, all sorts of things we think are absolute. You need to have been tortured and broken repeatedly to really understand. But barring that, you could trust me that this line of reasoning is spurious.
You know, I thought (at the end of the intro) that this was going to be extremely revolutionary or terribly mundane (to me specifically). It turned out to be mundane, and I'd even like to tie it into evolutionary psychology: the business of imitating desires and "keeping up with the Joneses" (which I think was the title of TV show) is just psychological shorthand for "that guy's successful, whatever he's doing is working". This is compounded by our modem context of high abstractness in that we need to use psychological shorthand more, and because such shorthand doesn't consider context. It was once true that to be a good hunter, you could completely imitate a good hunter and become a good hunter. If a good hunter cleans his tools, so should you. If a good hunter makes new tools, so should you. But if the Joneses buy a new car, it is not at all clear that you should too, even if you wish to someday become the Joneses. But such psychological shorthand doesn't account for that, so we wish to do it anyways. Personally, I did my best to notice and throw out all such mimetic desires. I might've done a little too well; I don't have many desires left.
I like how when I clicked on this, this first thing I heard was an insurance commercial telling me how good they were for me 😂 perfect fit for the title
It's the desire to be accepted by the "pack" (and ultimately to be accepted by ourself) or to rise in social status (to feel self acceptance, love from others and safety) that makes us desire what other people desire. And those underlying desires are our own.
I don't agree with your conclusion that the underlying desires are your own. If you were born into a society where there wasn't any 'pack' to be accepted by, or any 'social status' above yours and to which you aspire, then you wouldn't be imprinted with these possibilities. They would not exist and likely then to be invisible to you. I suspect that the dominant culture imprints upon you what the society in which you live values, and that constant exposure to this idea through your formative years does indeed constitute the sort of mimetic desire described in the video. Does this make sense to you, or have I unwittingly misunderstood what you meant?
There is much delusion when it comes to the wants and unwanted in life. One hates the wanting but one hates the not having. Evolutionarily, wanting is what keeps us from dying. Why fight that?
Good News! i discovered that the brain/body is capable of setting itself Totally Free of fear, anxiety, sorrow, despair, loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion, contradictions, addictions, irritations, triggers, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, attachment, possessiveness, ill-will, hatred, cruelty, bias, prejudice, and all other mental/emotional disturbances, in each and every moment of daily life, 24/7.
This gives birth to True Love, Peace, Happiness, Creativity, & Clarity, for the very first time. Not the love, peace, happiness, that the I, the me, the self, the thinker, the mind, imagines it to be, which is a limitation, imitation, and distortion. For the very first time, Soul is happening, Spirit is happening, Heart is happening. It is not temporary. It is happening in each & every moment of daily life, 24/7. It does not take time. It has nothing whatsoever to do with time, effort, or choice. It occurs faster than the speed of light. The children are ready to be set Totally Free at the earliest age so they don't waste their whole life with any mental/emotional disturbances.
We are social animals. How would social life function otherwise? Girard is a really interesting philosopher. This put into excellent words a notion I have had for a while. Very good video. Also, accept your mimetic desire as an inevitable part of being human. Being resentful of it is still not escaping it. The Buddha would approve of Girard.
I understand and respect the mimic concept of desire. Desire also has evolutionary and survival forces at play - perhaps intentions and wants are baked into DNA. Another point to make is that sometimes I feel philosophers make volumes on what we all know fundamentally and which can be described in a few words:: Infants desire to walk on two legs and learn language because they desire to mimic their parents and the social way and later they desire to have children for the same reasons, as well as the need for species evolutionary continuance.
Hmmm given how most of the time we're actually bombarded with ads and other forms of psychological manipulation. Our desires aren't our desires. Most of our desires in the survival sense are something we want without thinking of it: Food Shelter Water Copulation Strife Territory And we often desire more of it. So we don't have a lack of.
I think it is a good concept, it may contain truth and be very helpful but also I can think of ways where it can be distorted or held over someone's head when assessing them incorrectly without deeper more nuanced understanding, or possibly a person themselves adopting the notion about themselves without question or without deeper self awareness.
What if your mediator is an ideal version of yourself that you saw in a dream. Sure he shared a lot of traits and qualities of successful people you might see in reality, but would you still consider that memetic desire? I can’t tell if I’m just trying to rationalize this, but I’ve been obsessed with this ideal version of my self for years. It’s basically like finding the key to all your wants and desires, but you have to climb to get it, so you have to build a ladder to get to it, and the ladder didn’t come with instructions.
Watching this feels vindicating, I always try to live by the rule to never worship heros. There is no pyshcial person worth worshipping. We can admire them, and be inspired by them, but should never obsess to become like them. Unsolicited advice continues to bring digestible philosophy to the masses.
Note to self: "mimetic desire" also seems to be social pressure among many other situations. Mimetic desire encompasses too many subjects and makes it hard to derive and recall all the features and situations mimetic desire arises
It seems to simplify the actual psychology behind. Mimetic desire for fashionable items might be partially due to social pressure to conform to fashion trends so when a new one comes and it's allowed it's exciting to be able to do something new
Does Girard discuss whether or not some people purposely seek to _become_ mediators? That could touch on many psychological issues, for example, narcissism.
21:50 One can see that for example in the Taxi Driver movie, where the protagonist is reject by the woman that he admired and loved and start to hate her at the point of wanting to kill the person that she admires.
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Your content ❤is high quality brother
You’re the best!!
I have a question that isn't intended to be mean. It's just something I noticed on several YT content creator videos, but there seems to be an interesting version of it on philosophy/atheist videos. The thumbnail of a video is usually a background with the creator's headshot front and center in some sort of pensive or condescendingly amused or other serious thinker pose. It doesn't seem the headshots are simply pulled from the video as, many times, the creator is wearing different clothes in the headshot than in the video.
My question is: do content creators 'photo shoot' themselves in these various poses? or pay for 'headshot services'? Because, if so, that would make an interesting video in itself.
This is like the plot of The Talented Mr. Ripley
❤ty😂🎉
Watching 2-3 unsolicited advice videos a week is literally about to save my life
Then you’re probably not exercising enough critical thinking.
@@randstrickfaden4148I wonder what you meant? Would you write it out?
relying on youtube videos to progress through life is rather pathetic. just pick up a book.
The e 15:28 nlighted man sharing knowledge vs. the pessimistic youtube commenter. Which way, youtube?
So often when we “move past” we fall into the trap of saying “that is not me desiring this so I must not actually want.” This leads to us falling into an inverted version where we hate the things that others desire, because “if they want it must be something we don’t want.” A clear example of this in the whole hipster trends where everyone seeks to be different then everyone else and therefore all looks the same but in a different way.
This felt like reading Heidegger.
This coupled with mimetic desire explains the highs and lows of fashion trends. The rise perpetuated by mimetic desires and social conformation, the fall by this need to be different. This seems to create a self-perpetuating cycle of opposing duality eg: tight jeans and baggy pants.
What if it's not hate, but you just lose interest in some of the things we see other people having or desiring? It doesn't necessarily happen all the time. Just with some things and not others. It goes from "I think I want this" to "Eh maybe not."
The uniform of the non conformist.
@@olive4naito right, it’s not a law but something that is something else that can often happen, especially in a culture that highly values individuality.
this channel helped me realise that i want to pursue a degree in philosophy. thank you soo much for that!!! hope you had a great christmas :)
Ah thank you! Merry Christmas and I am glad to have helped with your philosophy
As someone who has a degree, let me give you fair warning; going into higher education for a topic you love can befoul it for you. What disciplined self motivation makes into a well studied passion, a rigid and demanding university program may make into a depressing academic slog.
There is nothing stopping you from independent study of the topics you love. And universities have many benifits over individual independent learning. But I almost stopped playinf music altogether because of trying to get a degree in music. I was far better served getting a degree in something I had no passion for one way or another and enjoying my side classes and self-education.
@@klosnj11aww. University study can be rewarding and is not necessarily a desert wasteland. Nice to read of another’s joy in contemplating pursuing a path not necessarily in accord with one’s own rather jaded experience. 😅
"behind the wish to become someone else is ultimately the wish to escape yourself, and the only real way to do this is to die"
i love the content and the delivery of this particular video of yours. very informative and enjoyable
Egodeath np. This social character is just an artficial figure. Its like GTA 5, but i'm the Source Code tho. Silently observing and giving guidance trough intuition.
Some people see this as metaphorical death and rebirth. With the hope that you are becoming a more authentic version of yourself.
“Transgender” people?
There is an idiom in my place: infertile land no one wants, but if one starts to plough, all other compete for that land 😂 （瘦田無人耕，耕親有人爭 you can't translate in Google as it is our local language)
wow greate translation for that idiom
I guess Google might struggle with that idiom’s roots in classical/ancient Chinese language, but I doubt it‘s because of local variations. I might be wrong of course. 繁体字, Syntax and rhyming pattern suggest otherwise. Is the negation 無 currently common in your local language?
@@MenschWerdeWesentlich Thank you so much for your interest in our local language. Yes, 無 is still common in our usage. The point is not because of traditional or simplied Chinese, but our written language is different from our verbal language. Many times you even cannot find the meaning of our words in a Chinese dictionary. But sad to say, our local language is now under the risk of extinct.
'Mimetic desire' can also simply be 'influence', which is normal in the growth of any personality. The given personality traits, the 'character', then makes its own version of influences. In all art forms and literature we see this process happening, and there is nothing unusual or dangerous about it. The mundane forms of MD are simply 'group think', exploited by commerce, capitalism, for the sake of extracting money from the masses. And religions etc. are the same thing, because it feels safer to share thoughts as accepted within a group.
The more one is individualistic, the better one gets in transforming any influence into something 'of one's own'.
If one consciously strives towards the utmost individualism and originality, then there is the danger of lying to oneself about the influences that work upon one's percentions. But in fully embracing influences, and then feeling free to turn them into one's own qualities, to 'personalize' them, wherever this appears to be right or useful or simply pleasant, then one does not 'lie' to oneself.
I'm therefore highly suspicious of Girard's philosophy which seems to take a simple mass psychology phenomenon and turn it into 'philosophy'.
Which does not in the slightest diminish the great admiration I have for Mr Folley's impressive videos, so brilliantly presented.
Exactly my thoughts! Well thought out.
I love that you expanded the concept and applied it to several aspects of our lives! And I think you're entirely right about influence playing a role here. Far be it from me to claim that I completely understand Girard's work as I have not read them, but I believe his aim lies in constructing a framework to explain these very occurrences you just described, since influence is quite a broad term and fails to capture the phenomenon in its entirety.
Mimetic desire does sound quite silly at first, but it helps by introducing the role of the mediator and the object of desire. This in turn makes the concept of double mediation to lend itself to intuitive explanations regarding these everyday situations. Using only influence here would be amiss, because I would also categorize "me forcing someone else to do something for me even against their will" as me having influence over someone despite the lack of desire being shared by the participants.
But I still think you're on the right track here. Could this mimetic desire thing be just a facet of influence, a part of the whole?
@@od12447 It seems to me that MD is a phenomenon typical of people whose identity, and feeling of 'self' is less developed. When you are quite much 'your self', you are not interested in 'what other people desire', simply that. You will have your own desires.....
I think you misunderstood the concept. As I understand it, Girard’s concept of mimetic desires goes deeper than influence, he presents it as the fundamental mechanism by which desires are spawned.
Usually, influence and group thinking are understood as social mechanisms, external to the individual. They may provoke some change in an individual's character, then his desires will be informed or tainted by this change but, ultimately, they remain his own desires.
In contrast, Girard would argue against calling them “his own”. Desires, according to him, are fundamentally mimetic in nature and there’s no such thing as an autonomous desire. The perceived individuality of any desire is just an illusion.
To challenge your point, I don't think anyone can consciously decide what to desire, else we'd all be satisfied. What you described would be acting on the desire for being authentic or distinct from the rest. That one has a strong case for being mimetic in nature: ironically, it’s one the most prevalent and least original in western society. (Of course, that also makes it one of the most exploited to sell us stuff)
@@merxj There is no single evidence of the claim that there is no autonomous desire. This is a problem of psychology not of philosophy. It is in the nature of the human psyche that it is both autonomous and open to outside influences, so: a malleable continuum, and how boundaries are defined is a matter of individual consciousness. We are free to make decisions about boundaries, influences, feeling being part of a continuum, etc. etc. and this is a process happening on different layers, in different contextes, in different cultures with different histories, etc. etc. Therefore any distinct definition of desires being mimetic by nature is as doubtful as the opposite. The main point is individual awareness and character - which is also the same in eastern societies, by the way.
Let's go! He has started adding visual effects now!
Well, my editor has. I remain almost entirely unable to use video editing technology
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 Look, we obviously have different styles because I did the over the top presentation, but learning video editing and the graphical effects were so worth learning, it is such a great adjunct skill to have for creators. The kind you will randomly be able to reapply in another endeavor later on that you couldn't predict. I encourage you to just have play/exploration sessions with it if there is any interest. That is what I did.
I think one reason that is was so pleasurable to pick up is that since everything you are doing in these programs is very generalizable, following one tutorial to make a very specific random thing actually teaches you enough to start generally doing things. IE a lightsaber tutorial teaches you things like masking, which you then use basically every time you do any aspect of anything. I remember being shocked the first time I tried to just sit down and do precisely what was in my head with what I learned from only 1-2 tutorials making a random whimsical thing.
Sorry for the huge exposition, but I was really one of my best decisions ever, so if there is interest, I'm just saying it is an anti-stress hobby even while you are just starting.
Came back to point out that I offerred Unsolicited Advice
Babe, AWAKEN... The King hath posted another Banger 🔥
Haha! I hope you find it helpful
"but do not awaken simply for the sake of mimicking my exemple"
Hahaha, love your comment 😂
none of the people writing this have a babe
@@Joe-sg9ll😂😂 I can vouch for myself…
Double mediation is something my two dogs get involved in every day
Is it just me, or is this unbelievably relevant?
Every video of his always has been 🔫
Yes it is, and why people like Peter Thiel preach Girard.
Doesn't seem relevant to me. I have no problem seeing and admitting that I like stuff I like because I saw others liking the stuff 🤷♂️
Critical aspects of human nature will always be relevant
Yes, it's also universally applicable. See the modern concept of "Meta-Cognition" if you want to dig deeper, it takes and expands upon these concepts heavily.
Haha wow man that power dynamic is so true! I not only notice it in kids, myself, and society, but also in my doggies. They avoid eating dry hard dog food in hopes of getting some human scraps. The minute one starts to the slightest interest in their dry food, the other goes and eats their own entire bowl!Not because they're hungry, but simply because the OTHER is showing interest in their own food. Great stuff man keep it coming. Been learning a lot through your channel!
Man. This helped with a lot of painful things about my last relationship that I stake myself with a lot. Thanks unsolicited advice.
My mimetic desire is you in a lot of ways lol. Your interests in literary novelists and philosophical thinkers, your skills and proficiency with delivering eloquent speech and exploring in deep thought, heck even your personality as someone naturally enthusiastic, warm, humble, and just intellectually curious for things, motivates me to be someone like you. I swear it isn't anything of the severe form of metaphysical mimetic desires that was warned to be self-destructive, it's just appreciation and admiration for qualities I'd like to see more in me in my life. In other words, I just absolutely love your channel. Hope you reach 500k (498k rn as I write this, you're so close!)
I read a book, 20 years ago, about counterculture, coolhunting and gentrification. It was by Canadian sociologists and called "The Rebel Sell". It was pretty sobering towards certain forms of idealism and I basically agree with it to this day.
Today I found you explaining the basic mechanics that set the processes that I read about, into motion.
Sociology isn't a real academic discipline. Every department makes fun of sociologists.
@@angusmcculloch6653 Arrogance however is. It's mandatory for many disciplines and you really embraced it.
@@catriona_drummond Arrogance is ... what? The only thing that makes sense is arrogance is a real academic discipline which is ... nonsensical. Another poor showing for sociology it seems. 🙂
@@angusmcculloch6653 I have to disappoint you I am not as sociologist.
But I kow what you are. It's quite shocking that something like you hangs out in such a nice channel.
@@angusmcculloch6653 do you even realise how stupid you come across when you parrot these idiotic lies??
Sociology is an authoritative discipline, it is a science proper, even though seen as a soft science. Sociology and sociologists, social sciences in general informs the largest of entities on the planet, beit nation states, banks, or any organisation or business that operates within or outside of the State. Your entire life is understood and governed through the social, and so it's though a science of the social you can reach proper conclusions.
I think my biggest critique of Girard's notion of mimetic desire is that the only way for Girard to having any sort of footing with mimetic desire is to either presuppose that there is this sort of cabal of mediators unaffected by mimetic desire that set the agenda (i.e., what is desirable and what is not) or to presuppose a sort of p-zombie-esque world where everyone just sort of mindlessly follows everyone else because of this thing called mimetic desire. Either way, it seems that there is this implicit acknowledgement of determinism: our desires are not our own but that of either some cabal's or the mass's.
From a meta-psychological perspective, it seems that Girard is implying that humans are necessarily driven by envy; at its logical conclusion, it seems that mimetic desire is a drive only ceased once one has satiated their envy inspired by others. While one has to concede that some humans are indeed driven by their envy of others, I would find it hard to say that satiation of envy is descriptive of every person's motivation. As a matter of fact, we know that a significant proportion of the population are not motivated by the desire to have that which they lack, and others have. Like Kierkegaard, I would hazard a guess that Girard is more so describing himself and assuming that others are like him than abstracting some proposition of human nature.
A good analysis. There are some very humble people who don't waste time envying others.
I visit this channel purposefully, this is very much solicited advice.
Love it when my fav philosophical channel is thinking about something so helpful to something I am currently rolling around in my brain.
4:06 wearing skinny jeans to the point of infertility is a WILD thing to say omg 😭
IKR😭
I nearly spat out my coffee when I heard him say that. F***ing hilarious!
He ain't wrong tho.
I heard “infantility”? (edit: nevermind: it’s literally captioned)
This just fell into my lap at the perfect time
Ah I'm glad! I hope you enjoy it!
I feel like autistic people have high resistance to double mediator effect. Looking back, whenever someone starts to compete for something I wanted first, my desire is gone or lessened, then I try to find something new to want. I guess we just in too deep within our thoughts, not someone else's.
Im assuming you are autistic? This video made no sense to me at all, I think I have never wanted to be someone else ever, and I not even satisfied with the person I am... your comment made me slightely worried about myself
Yeah I had a similar thought here, and think this avenue needs exploring, I think this very thing could be the key to the disconnect between us neurospicy and the normals.
yea, a society is like a shared brain that which the social norm endorsing people perpetrate and share, synchronise, while also inadvertently make themselves compete with each other, example be like people fabricating a race, a competition to win a wheel of cheese that could otherwise be had via payment without the fuss of emotionally involving in the game of the cheese rolling down a hill and people end up competing at who rolls/ runs to the bottom of the hill first to catch that piece of cheese
I think it is only partly true. I know for example someone who has little awareness of social norms and therefore isn't very susceptible to fashion etcetera. But on the other hand very susceptible by bargains and such.
Eh... Kind of. Autistics are very easily manipulated and, therefore, fall into the double mediator effect. Though, due to their lack of cognitive complexity, one has to make the mediation more simple
Nice new jumper. The colour works for you.
15:26 im literally stuck in this right now, hell of a time too drop this video, thank you man love your videos
Absolutely knocked it out of the park 🙌🏻 I especially appreciated and enjoyed discovering the specific nomenclature to this….condition..by way of philosophy. Do create more on this topic, please. You’ve got my attention.
Really enjoyed this. I drew comparisons of this 'Mimetic Desire' to how some might form parasocial relationship.
Thanks!
I'm very impressed with your videos. Thank you for all the hard work it takes preparing them. You have a real talent for teaching and explaining things clearly!
Well done. This is a very good subject. Well presented. I've had some very interesting spiritual experiences since I was a child, but it always led me to think deeper about the structure of reality and self reflection. This subject has helped me to go deeper. Thank you again.
I can't wait to see your next analysis about Renee Girard the scapegoat and the origenes of evil and religions.
Thanks
It should be added that in Buddhist or yogic teachings, it is made clear that our thoughts are in fact not us, but rather the products of our senses. This includes the things we see and may want
All we experience is CNS. We never touch anything. Basically the world outside is happening within us. The body is the VR, the interface to experience universe.
Thx. You just came up on our feed. Luv the presentation; clear, well spoken, well thought through and presented; color scheme great, subtitles brilliant and well lit. We have hearing impairment and your articulation and subtitles were perfect, understood 100% of what you were saying. Subbed. Keep well, looking forward to watching more of your vids.
This is the best ever on your channel. This topic is out of sight almost everybody. Great job. Thank you very much.
First video I've seen by you. Thankful that the algorithm thought me a good match for your content. Liked and subscribed.
As someone who had a full on identity crisis to realize that society told me want to have children (but when rubber met the road, I realized it was the last thing I wanted) and had a whole “if I didn’t actually want this, what ELSE have I assumed I wanted but society just told me to?”… yeah this video has me glued to my seat
Go deeper. Society actually does not want you to have children.
Whatd you do about the kid?
I'm a Catholic priest. I made a promise of celibacy. Did I freely choose to not have children or did I just want to belong in the group so badly that I was absorbed into this group. Very interesting.
@@TheJoshestWhite never had kids, which was lucky for me
Always grateful watching and learning from you! You look real good with that new jumper! :*
I think in the age of the internet, many of our desires stem more from the actual or imagined presence of the fourth-person; a nebulous and impersonal but ever present audience that we’re always, in some way or amount, performing for.
That's gen Z psychopathology. It's like an internalized surveillance state that you perform for.
@ right, because I totally forgot that the guy who said "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." was gen z
Oh, that's an awesome reply!.
@@ellicurus Most people, before waking up, play a role on the stage. But interpersonal play is different from playing to an imagined audience. Most of our interaction is about convincing ourselves of our own stories. Gen Z is playing for an invisible camera, for attention.
@ getting and wanting attention isn’t a bad thing; we’re sentient social animals who actually go insane without it. That being said, I don’t think it’s healthy to never know how or where that attention is going to come from next. To have the constant threat of vitality, in either a positive or negative light, makes everyone feel pressured to be performing at 100% perfection, 100% of the time.
I needed to hear this a lot. Thanks for the insight!!
Fascinating. This will definitely give me something to chew on for a few days.
Thank you for the information,happy new year.
I think this is correct when discussing how we select the majority of our instrumental goals but not terminal goals.
We often emulate others to reach some goal we desired beforehand, and that we believe they have achieved by acting the way they do.
Meanwhile I would say it is quite rare for someone to truly decide to pursue a terminal goal purely because of another.
Another great vídeo! Thank you. Greetings from Portugal and happy new year 😊
2:13 as someone with deep seated self-hatred, i am very honest about wanting to be someone else
Inner child work and silencing the inner critic by understanding that you are not your inner critic, the latter is just a recording of others voices collected in your childhood.
luv me sum synchronicities at the end of the year, good timing with this one
¡Gracias!
Merry Christmas and happy new year Joe! 🎄🎊
Keep up the good work!
Even the sense of dissatisfaction that leads to the willingness of not being oneself could come out of mimetic desire. One doesn’t feel good being himself not intrinsically, but because others don’t like (desire) him. And since nobody wants to be the undesirable object, this person decides to be someone else, choosing someone who is famous or likable by most
Thanks
Loved this video. Always great but really touches something in everyone of us nowadays
Wow, what a ride. Thank you so much for these kind of videos.
Thank you for another philosophy video to watch while I study for my EE degree .love this content
What's EE
@@NargesPech electrical engineering
love your channel I discovered it recently! i remember about a year ago I had this moment of realization, this video really put that situation into a logic
I feel like i already know this stuff, But still someone stating it as fact makes this content more intriguing ❤
This reminds me of Gogol’s hilarious story, about the two Ivans, best friends who quarreled over a rusty old rifle.
It's funny because I was just thinking about this the other day. Great video, as always.
I dunno, man. Black swan here. I clinically lack self-deceit, even in trauma, flatline the metric completely. Yet I still have desires and drives which are my own. I can simply face knowing that not all the ideas in my head belong to me and can tell the difference. Identity is a rational superstition that can be taken away from us, as is reason, death, reality, time, object permanency, all sorts of things we think are absolute. You need to have been tortured and broken repeatedly to really understand. But barring that, you could trust me that this line of reasoning is spurious.
You know, I thought (at the end of the intro) that this was going to be extremely revolutionary or terribly mundane (to me specifically). It turned out to be mundane, and I'd even like to tie it into evolutionary psychology: the business of imitating desires and "keeping up with the Joneses" (which I think was the title of TV show) is just psychological shorthand for "that guy's successful, whatever he's doing is working". This is compounded by our modem context of high abstractness in that we need to use psychological shorthand more, and because such shorthand doesn't consider context. It was once true that to be a good hunter, you could completely imitate a good hunter and become a good hunter. If a good hunter cleans his tools, so should you. If a good hunter makes new tools, so should you. But if the Joneses buy a new car, it is not at all clear that you should too, even if you wish to someday become the Joneses. But such psychological shorthand doesn't account for that, so we wish to do it anyways.
Personally, I did my best to notice and throw out all such mimetic desires. I might've done a little too well; I don't have many desires left.
Hey! Thank you, I look forward to your next video!
Bro you're a lifesaver for my brain 😭🙏
I like how when I clicked on this, this first thing I heard was an insurance commercial telling me how good they were for me 😂 perfect fit for the title
Very insightful. Paid attention to every word 👍
Happy new years! 'May your heart's wings fill the air with more passionate flying'
What’s really important is not what you want or why you want it but what you want to want and why you want want it.
Super informative video, thanks tor bringing us these insights
Solid as ever. Cheers and happy new year
2024 went out with a …… banger!!
Excellent discussion, thank you!
It's the desire to be accepted by the "pack" (and ultimately to be accepted by ourself) or to rise in social status (to feel self acceptance, love from others and safety) that makes us desire what other people desire. And those underlying desires are our own.
I don't agree with your conclusion that the underlying desires are your own. If you were born into a society where there wasn't any 'pack' to be accepted by, or any 'social status' above yours and to which you aspire, then you wouldn't be imprinted with these possibilities. They would not exist and likely then to be invisible to you.
I suspect that the dominant culture imprints upon you what the society in which you live values, and that constant exposure to this idea through your formative years does indeed constitute the sort of mimetic desire described in the video. Does this make sense to you, or have I unwittingly misunderstood what you meant?
you keep dropping masterpiece video daily 🤞👍
Thank you! That's very kind of you to say. I am really glad you are enjoying the videos!
Great delivery 👌👏
Happy new year, hope you keep posting interesting topics more 🎉❤
Really interesting and helpful. Thanks.
There is much delusion when it comes to the wants and unwanted in life. One hates the wanting but one hates the not having. Evolutionarily, wanting is what keeps us from dying. Why fight that?
Also, Happy New Year Joe!!!
Great video man!
Good News! i discovered that the brain/body is capable of setting itself Totally Free of fear, anxiety, sorrow, despair, loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion, contradictions, addictions, irritations, triggers, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, attachment, possessiveness, ill-will, hatred, cruelty, bias, prejudice, and all other mental/emotional disturbances, in each and every moment of daily life, 24/7.
This gives birth to True Love, Peace, Happiness, Creativity, & Clarity, for the very first time. Not the love, peace, happiness, that the I, the me, the self, the thinker, the mind, imagines it to be, which is a limitation, imitation, and distortion.
For the very first time, Soul is happening, Spirit is happening, Heart is happening.
It is not temporary. It is happening in each & every moment of daily life, 24/7.
It does not take time. It has nothing whatsoever to do with time, effort, or choice. It occurs faster than the speed of light.
The children are ready to be set Totally Free at the earliest age so they don't waste their whole life with any mental/emotional disturbances.
Excellent video!👏❤
Thanks, unsolicited advice!❤
Thank you for watching!
Excellent content as always
I have noticed your editing is improving. Keep it up!!❤❤
Thank you! I have a video editor now, which definitely helps :)
Omg! You’re absolutely the best!❤❤❤
Ooo a red sweater this time!!
Excellent video ❤❤
Great video.
We are social animals.
How would social life function otherwise?
Girard is a really interesting philosopher.
This put into excellent words a notion I have had for a while.
Very good video.
Also, accept your mimetic desire as an inevitable part of being human.
Being resentful of it is still not escaping it.
The Buddha would approve of Girard.
I understand and respect the mimic concept of desire. Desire also has evolutionary and survival forces at play - perhaps intentions and wants are baked into DNA.
Another point to make is that sometimes I feel philosophers make volumes on what we all know fundamentally and which can be described in a few words:: Infants desire to walk on two legs and learn language because they desire to mimic their parents and the social way and later they desire to have children for the same reasons, as well as the need for species evolutionary continuance.
Hmmm given how most of the time we're actually bombarded with ads and other forms of psychological manipulation.
Our desires aren't our desires. Most of our desires in the survival sense are something we want without thinking of it:
Food
Shelter
Water
Copulation
Strife
Territory
And we often desire more of it. So we don't have a lack of.
Awesome review, Bro💪🏿
happy new year brother!
What a great channel, thank you 🎉
I think it is a good concept, it may contain truth and be very helpful but also I can think of ways where it can be distorted or held over someone's head when assessing them incorrectly without deeper more nuanced understanding, or possibly a person themselves adopting the notion about themselves without question or without deeper self awareness.
What if your mediator is an ideal version of yourself that you saw in a dream. Sure he shared a lot of traits and qualities of successful people you might see in reality, but would you still consider that memetic desire? I can’t tell if I’m just trying to rationalize this, but I’ve been obsessed with this ideal version of my self for years. It’s basically like finding the key to all your wants and desires, but you have to climb to get it, so you have to build a ladder to get to it, and the ladder didn’t come with instructions.
Hell yeah im so hyped for this
Watching this feels vindicating, I always try to live by the rule to never worship heros. There is no pyshcial person worth worshipping. We can admire them, and be inspired by them, but should never obsess to become like them. Unsolicited advice continues to bring digestible philosophy to the masses.
Note to self: "mimetic desire" also seems to be social pressure among many other situations. Mimetic desire encompasses too many subjects and makes it hard to derive and recall all the features and situations mimetic desire arises
You look like a villain but like in a cool way
Haha! Thank you! (I actually get that a fair amount)
😂. He straight up looked like Jeffrey Dahmer in his earlier videos when he was rocking the mustache.
I cant un-see it now 😝
My dad's favourite thinker.
Thanks!
It seems to simplify the actual psychology behind. Mimetic desire for fashionable items might be partially due to social pressure to conform to fashion trends so when a new one comes and it's allowed it's exciting to be able to do something new
Does Girard discuss whether or not some people purposely seek to _become_ mediators? That could touch on many psychological issues, for example, narcissism.
Girard discuss the origen of violence, religions and the role of the scapegoats in order to avoid conflict within any group.
The fewer the desires, the more peace 🙃
Uuum well... ahhh
Great video, I really wanna pick up that book. although I got know clue what a jumper is...
21:50 One can see that for example in the Taxi Driver movie, where the protagonist is reject by the woman that he admired and loved and start to hate her at the point of wanting to kill the person that she admires.