David Chapman

This reads to me like an unsympathetic, straw-manning critique using a motte and bailey (MAB) strategy, accusing defenders of MAB while actually kind of using it oneself.

One can apply this strategy to anyone, say, Robert Kegan: Critic: people don’t really progress through the stages Kegan describes in anything like that nicely defined order;

Criticism of Girard is a bit like criticism of Freud. His explanations are way out there and often un-falsifiable, sure. But his observations are profound and deeply useful. And they’re what you read him for.

Is Freud “right”? No, but you’re smarter for reading him. Same here.

@MimeticValue

@Pseudoplotinus

One more thing to note: there are strong evolutionary reasons why we’d have innate desires. If a psychological theory of everything ignores evolution it’s a very bad sign.

Yes that really struck me while reading it too. If it was all mimetic, you’d expect extinction in a generation or two

This is a pretty unsympathetic view, but whatever. I had a similar take on Girard originally (*ALL* desire is mimetic?! *ALL* violence stems from mimetic desire?!). Then I had kids, and it became self-evident: small children ONLY value things that other people around them value.

A random stick on the ground can be imbued with infinite value if it’s held by *somebody else*. There can be fights, tears, even violence. The first instances of a toddler absolutely refusing to back down, all over an object, BECAUSE it’s held by another child.