On Girardian Apocalypse
A quick note on sources
I pulled from many different sources for this essay, and I’ll add a more formal works cited section at the end. But, I wanted to make sure the most prominent sources were upfront.
Daniel Schmatenberger’s appearance on The Portal podcast and Johnathan Bi’s summary of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World played the biggest role in my research (most of the diagrams below were taken directly from Bi’s work). David Perrell’s essay on Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan’s essay on technology, Justin Murphy’s essay Exponential Satanism, and this Youtube Video from Then & Now were also extremely helpful.
Hope you enjoy.
The Problem of Mimetic Rivalry
The threat of a Girardian apocalypse stems from a subtle and seemingly arbitrary observation: the fundamental aspect of humanity is imitation. More than anything else, we live by mimicking those around us.
Mimetic Desire
To survive, we must desire. Our impulses to eat, reproduce, and build shelter are imperative to our continued existence. But, Girard notes that desire continues long after we should be satisfied. Once we have what we need to survive, our desires turn mimetic.
Mimetic desire — without an obvious object to pursue, man often mimics the desire of his neighbor.
In the image below, diagram one is how desire appears to the casual observer. But Girard would argue diagram two is much closer to the truth.
Of course, someone must be the first to see value in an object. Diagram one must happen (at least) once before diagram two takes over. We can see this phenomenon in the power of social media influencers. Because we copy our desires from others, a few select people can quickly and easily influence millions. When Kim Kardashian wears something on Instagram, she has the potential for millions of followers to mimic her fashion choice. The product becomes instantly popular. When Joe Rogan announces his intention to vote for Bernie Sanders, many quickly imitate his support.
Mimetic desire becomes a problem when too many people desire the same finite item. If two people want one thing they cannot share, they all too often resort to conflict.
Object Competition
Mimetic desire guarantees competition on a mass scale. If only one person wants a unique object, they can have it without conflict. But if their neighbors mimic their desire, peace and harmony become more difficult. The original influencer must now compete with those whom he influenced. Girard calls this object competition.
Object competition — the competition that ensues when more people want something than can have it
For example, imagine two people who desire the same romantic partner. There's only one partner, and both suitors cannot have them. If neither is willing to rescind their desire, they must compete for the person’s affection.
If the competitors remain faithful to the object (or, in this case, person) of pursuit, the conflict is only temporary. It ends when the romantic partner chooses a suitor. Then, theoretically, we could return to stability. But that rarely happens.
Mimetic Rivalry
Instead, the competitor's focus turns from winning the object of desire (object competition) to besting his rival (mimetic rivalry). It's in this subtle transition where the opportunity for stability is lost. There is an endpoint if the competitor's goal is to win the prize, but dominance over a peer is never complete. There is always another challenge, another fight, another war. Mimetic rivalry creates conflict without end—permanent instability.
Mimetic rivalry — the continuous conflict that happens when a competitor’s goal shifts from obtaining the prize to besting his rival
To continue with the previous example: the winner often loses interest in the romantic partner—because their initial desire was imitated rather than authentic—and quickly looks for other ways to prove their dominance.
This dynamic occurs around the world and across levels of magnitude.
Instead of two people competing for a romantic partner, imagine two countries competing for oil—a bit more serious. Then, imagine two countries are competing for oil while both countries' political parties are internally engaging in disinformation warfare, all while racial tensions are rising. You can see how quickly this gets out of hand.
Scapegoats
As mimetic rivalry permeates through society, it quickly becomes too complicated to identify a clear starting point. With multiple destabilizing conflicts at once, the community can rarely find the right person to blame. So, it chooses someone arbitrarily—a scapegoat.
Like a mass placebo, the people feel as if they solved the problem and can return to stability. Of course, they haven't, and the cycle eventually begins again. But, the temporary relief provided by the scapegoat is vital. Short-term stability is better than none at all (for everyone except the scapegoat, of course).
The Religious Solution
Mythology
This pattern of instability and conflict left civilizations with a complex problem: how do they avoid or, at least, slow down this cycle? The most clever societies dealt with this problem by embedding their lessons in mythology. To prolong and even permanently maintain the stabilizing effect of the scapegoat, the story was told and retold for generations.
Over time, the story becomes a myth, and the scapegoat slowly rises to the level of a god. Jesus Christ is the most obvious example, but there are plenty of others—Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln are quick to come to mind. Emmett Till and George Floyd have shown elements of this phenomenon more recently.
Justin Murphy had an interesting tweet about this. He wrote, “René Girard explains race relations in America. He says “lynching” is the best word to describe the sudden mob dynamic at work in the single victim mechanism. He also says victims become mythical Gods. White Americans lynched Black people, now Black people must become Gods.” I’d argue that many are already well along their way.
Prohibitions and Rituals
According to Girard, the lessons ingrained in myth were implemented into culture in two ways: prohibitions and ritual.
Prohibition prohibits (like, literally) specific groups of people from doing certain things. If a society denies a section of its people certain privileges, the oppressed group cannot imitate desire and compete for that privilege. At the cost of major oppression, prohibitions stopped mimesis before it happened.
As prohibition stopped some mimetic rivalries before they started, rituals stopped the others from going too far. As an alternative outlet for violence, the community would sacrifice something or someone not vital to the community's survival. It could have been an animal—a lamb, a goat—or, in the most primitive societies, a non-vital member of the community.
In modern society, we have deemed prohibitions oppressive and rituals barbaric (which they undoubtedly are). But, we also are at risk of major repercussions as we remove them, one by one, without an adequate replacement. Luckily, we stumbled on an alternative.
The scientific solution
The Temporary Solution of Innovation
The enlightenment, which embraced logic over religion, has allowed us to focus on objective reality. We can now better understand and manipulate the world around us. We can now improve the world through innovation and organization.
Like ritual and prohibition, technology acts as a temporary break in the mimetic cycle. The purpose of technology is to eliminate scarcity. Innovation creates something from nothing, making the world less finite (0 to 1). Organization finds ways to mass distribute it at the lowest possible cost (1 to n). This makes the world a positive-sum game. People can now improve their lot without stealing from (or competing against) their neighbors. As long as the economic pie is growing, there is something to give everyone.
A finite world means more people want things than can have them, which leads to rivalry. If too much of the world is scarce, we're in a constant state of instability. So, as long as we are eliminating scarcity, things remain peaceful. It's when our technological progress (and therefore our economic growth) stagnates that the threat of mass violence rises.
The Increasing (Potential) Threat of Exponential Tech
However, the potential repercussions of violence increase with technological power. A shotgun pointed at a deer is dinner, but pointed in the opposite direction is suicide. Both have the power of the gun, but the outcome depends on the wisdom of the decision-maker. We have never had so much leverage attached to our decisions, and, historically, we have always decided to cause harm. If we repeat the choices of previous civilizations (with our newfound exponential technology), we will quickly find ourselves staring down the barrel of self-termination.
Eric Weinstein has dubbed this the "Twin Nuclei Problem." With the ability to understand and manipulate the cell and atom, we have gained the ability to engineer bio-weapons and atomic bombs.
Exponential Technology — technology helps make better technology
For example, both computers and CRISPR are examples of exponential technology. Computers give us insight into how to make better computers, and CRISPR will provide us with a better understanding of biology. But, a nuclear bomb does not give us insight into how to make atomic bombs. Computers and CRISPR are examples of exponential tech, and nuclear weapons are not.
Exponential tech doesn't just mean exponentially more powerful tech, it also means exponentially more distributed tech—not just better weapons, but more people have access to better weapons. As information and resources become more widely available, it will quickly become possible for less and less stable actors to obtain these weapons of mass destruction. This makes the (mis)use of these weapons significantly more likely.
When technological innovation is applied to the previous diagrams, one can see that we have moved from figure 1 to figure 2. Here, we can see that innovation acts as a stopping point on objection competition by slowly eradicating scarcity.
If fewer objects are scarce, there is less need to compete. But, technology also heightens the stakes of mimetic rivalry by adding machine guns, drone strikes, and nuclear weapons. It’s as if we’re on an innovation treadmill. As long as we continue, things get better and better. But, the minute we get off, we’re at risk of mass destruction.
Summary
Girard believes the fundamental aspect of humanity is imitation. Without an obvious object to pursue, man imitates the desire of his neighbor (mimetic desire). Mimetic desire becomes a problem when too many people desire the same finite item. If two people want one thing they cannot share, they must compete (object competition).
If the competitors remain faithful to the object of pursuit, the conflict is only temporary. But that rarely happens. Instead, the competitor's focus turns from winning the object of desire (object competition) to besting his rival (mimetic rivalry). This transition leaves the competition without a clear endpoint and therefore creates long-term instability.
With multiple destabilizing conflicts at once, the community can rarely find the right person to blame. So, it chooses someone arbitrarily—a scapegoat. Like a mass placebo, the people believe they've solved the problem and can return to stability. The scapegoat provides temporary relief. Of course, they haven't solved anything, and the cycle eventually begins again.
To slow down the cycle, the most clever communities embedded their scapegoats in mythology. Over time, the scapegoat slowly rises to the level of a god. Girard argues societies implemented the lessons ingrained in myth into the culture in two ways: prohibitions and ritual. Prohibitions limited the population that could compete for an object. This distinction stopped some mimetic rivalries before they started. Rituals acted as an alternative outlet for violence, which stopped the others from going too far.
In modernity, we have abandoned the crutches of religion in favor of logic and rationality. This has allowed us to better understand and manipulate the world around us, and trade rituals and prohibition for innovation.
As long as innovation is continuous, the economic growth temporarily solves the problem of mimetic rivalry. But if it grinds to a halt, we are quickly at risk of mass destruction.
A finite world means more people want things than can have them, which leads to rivalry. Innovation creates something from nothing, making the world less finite. This allows technology to act as a temporary break in the mimetic cycle, like ritual and prohibition. It's when our technological progress stagnates that the threat of mass violence rises.
However, the potential repercussions of violence increase along with technological power. When there is rivalry, we are able to cause more damage. With the ability to engineer bio-weapons and atomic bombs, a prolonged cycle of mimetic rivalry would likely cause mass destruction, and therefore must be avoided at all costs.
Sources
Daniel Schmatenberger’s appearance on The Portal podcast
Johnathan Bi’s summary of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
David Perrell’s essay on Peter Thiel
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry’s essay Peter Thiel and the Cathedral,
Peter Thiel’s Portal Episode
Justin Murphy’s essay on Exponential Satanism
This YouTube Video from Then & Now
Balaji Srinivasan’s The Purpose of Technology
