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- We all exist in this world where we can tweet at somebody
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or engage with somebody,
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could even be the President of the United States.
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And they might react to us back.
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Social media has thrust us all onto the head of a pin,
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socially speaking, existentially speaking.
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Even if they're on the other side of the planet,
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even if they have a lot more money than we do,
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we can still interact with them.
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We can still compete with them on engagement.
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They're inside of our world.
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We have a mimetic machine in our pocket
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where all of these people exist.
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So, what is mimetic desire?
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Mimetic desire means that we're adopting
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another person's desire as our own,
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usually without even realizing that we're doing it.
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So, social media has given us millions of mimetic models
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that we now have to contend with.
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Some people have went from having 10 mimetic models
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to now having a million,
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and we haven't quite come to grips as a culture
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with what that means for our mental and emotional health.
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There are two kinds of mimetic models.
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The first kind is called an external mediator of desire.
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These are models that are outside of our world;
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whether because they exist in a different social sphere
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there's no possibility of us coming into contact with them
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and certainly not becoming rivals with them.
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They're in some sense, outside of our world of desire,
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outside of our world of competition.
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Now, these external models of desire
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can be real, or they can be fictional.
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The other kind of model is inside of our world
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called internal mediators of desire.
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These are people that we do come into contact with,
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and there is a possibility of conflict
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or rivalry with these people.
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These are people that are in our family;
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these are people in our workplace;
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these are people that could even be our friends.
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It's easier to compare ourselves to them.
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These are the kinds of people that we look to as benchmarks,
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and we're far more likely to be envious
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of somebody that we went to high school with
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who now has a great job and a beautiful spouse,
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than we are to be envious
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of the richest person in the world.
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The danger with external mediators of desire,
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with keeping up with people that are very successful,
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with people that have modeled a certain kind of lifestyle,
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is that there's no end to that process.
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All desire is a form of transcendence.
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We desire to go beyond the boundaries,
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to go just over the mountain,
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to be the kind of person
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that we don't feel that we currently are.
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Having positive models of desire to emulate
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is a very good thing.
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It's important to have people that model virtues
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and goodness that we would like,
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but we have to understand the limitations of any model.
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And understanding how the dynamic
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between us and our models changes in that scenario
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is really, really important.
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It's also important to understand
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when somebody is an internal model of desire to us
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because, in that case, we have to have boundaries.
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All desire comes from us feeling like we lack something,
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and that can bring us into a dangerous, vicious cycle
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because there will always be another model to find.
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We have to choose our models wisely.
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We also have to know when the model
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is inflaming us with the desire
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for something that's gonna bring real fulfillment
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or whether it's going to bring a dopamine hit
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or allow us to fantasize about a life
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that we'll probably never have.
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And even if we did have,
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it would probably make us miserable.
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All you need to do is go on Instagram
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and spend five minutes,
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and you see lifestyles modeled,
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you see vacation destinations modeled, fashions,
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manners of speech, ways of engagement,
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ways of speaking, political preferences.
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All of these desires are modeled for us 24 hours a day,
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billions of them, and we need to understand
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the mimetic landscape of social media
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or else we'll become totally controlled by it.
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00:04:43,040
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