An individual desires an object, not for itself, but because another individual also desires it. This mimetic desire, Rene Girard contends, lies at the source of all human disorder and order. In brilliant readings of Dante, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevski, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others, Girard draws out the thesis of mimetic desire -- and ponders its suppression in the West since Plato: "The historical mutilation of mimesis ...was no mere oversight, no fortuitous 'error.' Real awareness of mimetic desire threatens the flattering delusion we entertain not only about ourselves as individuals but also about the nature and origin of that collective self we call our society."
- ISBN10 0801821142
- ISBN13 9780801821141
- Publish Date 1 September 1978
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 14 September 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 229
- Language English