René Girard: Identity and Desire

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Good evening. This is
Radio Free Beszel. I

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am Alphonse. Tonight:
Identity and Desire.

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The Industrial Revolution posed
a challenge for manufacturers.

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Because factories benefit
from making

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more objects rather
than fewer,

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the more you make the cheaper
each one is. So

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they wanted to make a lot
to stay competitive.

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But consumers didn't want
to buy that much. They

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needed to create new demand
- more desire. The

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solution, of course,
was advertising. Now

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early advertising was
informative: it would

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tell you about the features
of the product, and

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assume that therefore you
would want to buy it.

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So an ad for beer might
say, "buy this beer,

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it tastes good." An ad
for soap might say,

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"buy the soap, it'll keep
you clean." An ad for

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a car might say, "buy this
car, it goes fast."

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But advertisers soon realized
that's not the best

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way to sell a product. If
you really want someone

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to want the product, instead
of focusing on

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the product and its features,
you focus on

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how it makes you feel. You
focus on an identity.

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You suggest that if you own
this thing, then this

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is how you feel, this
is the kind of person

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you will be, this is how
people will see you.

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And these ads very
frequently show

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someone owning or using
the product.

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In fact, sometimes the
product itself is not

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shown at all, just the feeling.
So, for example,

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an ad for beer might say,
"if you drink this

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beer, you'll be this kind
of person with these

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kinds of friends. An ad
for soap might say, "if

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you use this soap, you'll
look like this person."

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An ad for a car might say,
"if you drive this

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car, you'll feel like the
person in the ad."

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In other words, advertising
makes us buy things

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by making us think that
we will feel or be like

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a certain kind of person.
It gives us a role model

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- something to copy, a desire
to copy, with the

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idea that that will make
us happy. Well, this is

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basically René Girard's theory
of memetic desire.

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Now Girard wasn't talking
about advertising - he

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based his idea on a study
of great 19th century

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novels - but what he says
is that most or all

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human desires don't come
from within. They're not

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unique. We copy them by
looking at other people

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and desiring what they have
or what they want.

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Imagine you have a room
full of all sorts

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of toys. And you put
a couple of boys in

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the room. And one of the
boys puts his hand on

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a red sports car toy. And
the other boy sees

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the first one - and now
he wants that car.

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Now a moment ago he was
looking around the

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room. He didn't know what
he wanted. But since

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his friend seems to want
the car, so does he.

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Maybe his friend never
wanted the car

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at all. Maybe he just
put his hand on it

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without thinking about it.
But now he wants it

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too - because his friend
wants it. This is how

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Girard describes desire.
We see what other people

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want, we see their desires
- and we share them,

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because we want to be
like those people.

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The child who sees the
other child with the

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red car thinks, "oh,
that car is making

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him happy - it'll make
me happy too."

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So we pick our desires not
so much for the objects

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as for the people who desire
the objects. We think

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he wants that thing,
and I want to be

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like him, so I want
that thing too.

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He gives an example of a
saint's robe. You know,

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a tattered piece of fabric
from a saint's robe is

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something that someone who
wants to be close to

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the saint spiritually would
want much more than

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they would want, say, a
goblet that the saint

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had touched at some point.
But the scrap of

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fabric isn't what matters:
it's that closeness,

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it's that identification.
Desire, in other words,

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is really about identification.
It's not about

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having things, it's about
identifying with people.

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It's about having an identity
ourselves. The

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problem, Girard says, is that
this creates strife.

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Because if I see what other
people want, and then

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I want it more, and then
they see what I want,

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and they want it more, you
get this this spiral,

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this vicious circle, this
whirlwind of desire,

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as more of us want more and
more and more. We all

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want the same thing, but
we can't all have it.

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So we end up in competition.
And this,

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Girard says, can lead
to violence. Also,

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it's unsatisfying. We
know this from being

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consumers. Often we buy
things thinking,

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If I own that thing,
it will make me

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feel good. But when
we get the thing,

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we're basically disappointed.
The desire before we

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had it was more powerful
than the feeling after.

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Because it didn't change
us. Whatever we

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bought did what it was
supposed to do,

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but that wasn't the thing
that we were trying to

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address. We were trying
to fill a void inside.

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Girard says that modern
people are basically

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given the message that they
are free: that each

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of us has the potential to
realize our desires, to

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realize our dreams, to become
the person that we

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want to be - identity and
desire, again, are

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basically the same thing
- but we fail. And,

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he says, we fail because
we're copying. If that

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desire came from within,
then maybe we'd be able

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to satisfy it. And if we
satisfied it, maybe we'd

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feel whole. But since that
desire actually comes

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from outside, it doesn't
fill up that void but

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that leaves us feeling like
we've been betrayed.

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We were given the message,
the promise, "you can

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be happy, you can be whatever
you want to be":

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but even when we achieve
our dreams, even when

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we achieve our desires,
just like the consumer

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we end up not satisfied.
And then, Girard says,

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we look around at everybody
else who seems to be

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satisfying their desires,
and we think, "What's

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wrong with me? How come
everybody else is happy?

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I've been given the same
freedom that they have,

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yet I've failed. What's wrong
with me?" And so we

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keep that a secret. We don't
tell anybody else.

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He quotes a line that Dostoevsky
gives about the

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feeling of one of his characters
- that "I am

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alone," he says, "but they"
- meaning everybody

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else - "are together."
The irony, of course,

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is that everybody is together
in the sense

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that everybody feels alone.
Everybody feels that

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they have failed but nobody
shares the truth.

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There are other reasons
to make secret

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what we really desire,
Girard says,

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because if we're in
competition with

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everybody else for
what we desire,

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the best way to get it is
to conceal it. Don't let

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them know. If I don't let
them know what I want,

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then they're not
going to compete

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with me, and maybe
I can get it.

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Of course at some point I
have to actually admit

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it, I have to actually go
for the thing that I

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want but, it's sort of
like a game of chicken

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we're the first person
to admit what he wants

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is the first person to lose,
and the person who

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holds out the best, who
pretends disinterest,

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may be the person who
succeeds in the

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end. There's another
problem, of course.

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Just as we believe that we're
free to be whoever

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we want to be, we all want
to be unique. We all

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want to be special. We
don't just want to be

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someone who's copying what
somebody else wants.

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We don't just want to be
like somebody else. We

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want to be ourselves. But
that romantic idea that

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everybody is unique, with
our own desires that

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come from within, Girard
says, just isn't so.

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But what happens when you
realize that? What

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happens when you realize
that all of your

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desires are copies, that
you're just imitating

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other people? Well, he
suggests there are two

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possible outcomes. One
is to just give in and

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say, "you know what, I'm
copying my desire

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but I'm going to go with
it. I'm just going to

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imitate this person and
try to be like them."

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He describes that as
being like a slave.

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The other option is to
maintain one's pride

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and say, "I'm not going to
let other people control me.

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I'm going to be my own person."
But the only way

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to do that then is to give
up desire - to say,

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"I don't want anything.
I don't care." It's a

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nihilistic perspective that
Girard compares to

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progress toward death. Girard
says there's another

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way that we can resolve our
problems around desire

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if we're failing to satisfy
our desires, if we're

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failing to become the people
that we want to be.

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If we're all competing for
the same thing we find

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that there's strife among
all of us, then we can

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turn on someone else. We
can turn on someone who

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seems to be different,
an outsider, and blame

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them. Maybe they caused all
of this strife. Maybe

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they're the one who's blocking
me from finding

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my identity. Maybe that person
is the person who

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needs to suffer, to be punished
for creating this

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whole problem. And then
the desire for objects

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turns into the desire to
victimize that person,

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the desire to scapegoat that
person. And then the

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group that might have all
been competing and might

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have been hating each other
turns out now to all

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be in agreement, all on the
same side all against

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the one. And that one is
scapegoated. And then

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the problem is resolved,
at least temporarily.

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So Girard proposes that
collective violence is the

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result of people imitating
one another's desires,

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trying to achieve their
identities, failing,

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and finding a scapegoat
to resolve the issue

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and restore some harmony.
And Girard proposes

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that throughout history
one of the most common

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solutions for competition,
where everybody has

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the same desire, for the
failure to achieve our

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identities - although he
doesn't use that word -

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is scapegoating. It's collective
violence. This

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is Alphonse for Radio Free
Beszel. www.beszel.ca.

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Good Night.