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In Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, Luke Burgis summarizes Rene Girard's mimetic desire theory, and he then criticizes the shallowness of Silicon Valley's companies, corporate culture, and cultural contributions. I wanted to learn about Girard.

Summarizing Girard

Maslow has a hierarchy of needs, but Girard distinguishes needs from desires. We all need some calories, water, and a box shelter (these are Maslow’s basic needs). For most people in the developed world, day-to-day life consists of desires—the things we want or choose. To say “I want�� is, conventionally, to assert that “I�� have an intrinsically idiosyncratic desire. Girard argues that “I�� statement is wrong. We don't want things. We want what we see others wanting. We imitate them—inescapably—like herd animals. Burgis includes a fantastic quote at the start from Dayna Tortorici: "It's penciled-in eyebrows all the way down."

Therefore, for Girard, people are similar. Jocks and nerds, for example, think of themselves as different but they are the same age and are from the same culture and are quite likely from the same socioeconomic background. They both long for status within the same community. If people are similar, why do they come into conflict?

People don't have to come into conflict, but they are likely to if they see someone as similar and then as a rival. This rivalry dynamic appears to depend on a) whether or not people have a zero-sum mentality and b) whether they can be made to support a shared vision within discrete roles. However, if the two people think of themselves as being in competition with each other for a limited resource (i.e. status?), that competition will escalate. To some extent, what may be happening is that people want to think of themselves as being unique and imitating another or being imitated by another is threatening. We’ve developed an ethical code of copying in which it is OK to model one’s career off of LeBron James, a distant celebrity, but it’s not OK to model one’s career off of a rival from one’s immediate community.

Girard argues that groups minimize internal conflict through sacrifice. A threat or an outsider is identified, one person declares that person wrong, and the group crowds in.

Thinking about Girard��

-It's not surprising that a Silicon Valley person would find Girard interesting. How much has social media done beyond establishing models to copy?
-Girard nudges us away from trying to discover our essential passions. Instead, we’re left thinking about ourselves a bit more loosely and less grandly. We can choose better or worse models to imitate, although I don't really understand how that can happen if it is indeed "penciled-in eyebrows all the way down." What are we as individuals if our desires are so arbitrary?
-Many people hack mimetic desire in advertising, but it can also be hacked to effect a change. When people post inspiration walls or when they join communities (an AA or weight watchers community might be good examples), they are using their mimetic desire for a productive aim. When people “fall in with a bad crowd,�� their mimetic desires are leading them astray, I suppose.
-Girard worries more about how quickly people who should be friends become enemies. Girard would remind us that Romeo and Juliet begins "two households, both alike in dignity..."

Is this a good book?

For me, it was not. I’ve noted this before on ŷ������, but I rarely enjoy Silicon Valley writers.
-Every example must focus on a titan of industry like Steve Jobs, as if Steve Jobs is relevant to every argument beyond his wealth and celebrity.
-The tone is always too exuberantly focused on start up success for my taste, and Burgis includes a moment in which he reads 4 Hour Work Week and experiences existential despair for working more than 4 hours/ week. Sigh. I often find that I’d like to hear from these people in twenty years when they’ve had their heart trampled on a few more times or, having just read a book about Freud, after they've gone through some form of psychoanalysis.
-There’s also too much shameless name dropping (e.g. Peter Thiel and Tony Hsieh). I sometimes see entrepreneurs and their allies dismiss MFA writers. Fine. But the entrepreneurial writers are also annoyingly one note.
-The second half is about how Burgis turns his back on Silicon Valley after his start up fails and searches for wisdom that mitigates shallow mimetic behavior. I find it difficult to believe these writers when they discuss joy, wisdom, and fulfillment rather than consumerism. I'd recommend reading David Brooks' Road to Character, the introduction of which he turned into a TED talk about resume virtues and eulogy virtues.

2.5 stars.