If You are Competing, You Already Lost | Girard’s Mimetic Rivalry Explained

Summary

This lecture delves into René Girard's concept of mimetic rivalry and how it challenges modern theories of human nature. Jonathan Bi explains that misunderstanding human nature leads to flawed societal structures. Modern frameworks perceive humans as rational utility maximizers, but Girard proposes that people are primarily motivated by social factors like pride, envy, and rivalry. The lecture highlights the concepts of mimesis, mimetic desire, metaphysical desire, and mediation, emphasizing their roles in shaping human behavior and societal issues. The lecture also explores the negative aspects of mimesis, such as social distancing and resentment, while underscoring the psychological and social pathologies embedded in human nature due to these desires.

Highlights

• Mimetic rivalry challenges the idea of humans as rational agents, emphasizing pride, envy, and rivalry instead. 🤔
• Bi-directional mediation in mimetic rivalry fuels social competition and perceived differences. 🔄
• Social media's connectivity shrinks social distance, intensifying mimetic behaviors. 📱
• The romantic lie of individuality is debunked, showing societal influence even in attempts to differ. 🏃‍♂️
• Negative mimesis reveals how aversion to certain groups or ideas is socially driven. 🚫
• Pathologies like fetishization, alienation, and oppression are seen as inherent to human nature. ⚠️

Key Takeaways

• Mimetic rivalry exposes the flaws in modern frameworks by highlighting social motivations over rationality. 🔍
• Understanding human nature through Girard's lens reveals deep-rooted societal and psychological complexities. 🧠
• Girard's theories challenge the romantic notion of individuality, illustrating the profound social influence on desires. 👥
• Mimetic behaviors drive both desires to imitate and to differentiate, often through rivalry. 🤼‍♂️
• Social media and global connectivity amplify mimetic rivalry and social comparison. 🌐
• Recognizing mimetic rivalry can lead to tranquility by setting realistic expectations about human nature and society. 🕊️

Overview

In this insightful lecture, Jonathan Bi unpacks René Girard's concept of mimetic rivalry and how it confronts traditional understandings of human nature. The discourse begins by contrasting modern views of rational utility maximizers with Girard’s perspective that humans are primarily driven by socio-emotional factors like pride, envy, and desire for social standing.

Bi explains that mimetic rivalry isn’t just about imitation, but also about differentiation and competition over shared desires. This is particularly pronounced in our hyper-connected world, where social media intensifies these behaviors by reducing social and spatial distances between people, making desires and rivalries more contagious than ever.

The lecture further explores the consequences of this rivalry, such as increased alienation, shame, and societal pathologies. By recognizing these patterns and understanding their origins, Girard offers a means of achieving a tranquil acceptance of our social and competitive natures, challenging us to redefine progress and individualism.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to Memetic Rivalry This chapter delves into the concept of memetic rivalry and explores Gerard's theodicy. It highlights the importance of understanding Gerard's work to challenge and improve our modern theoretical perspectives on human nature. The transcript suggests that misconceptions about human nature can lead to flawed political structures.
• 01:30 - 04:00: Foundations of Girard's Psychology The chapter contrasts the idealized versions of people we wish existed with the reality of human nature. It suggests that modern frameworks like 'homo economicus' (the concept of humans as rational, utility-maximizing agents) are limited and overly simplistic. Instead, it argues for René Girard's perspective that human behavior is driven more by the desire for glory than by rational utility.
• 04:00 - 09:30: External vs Internal Mediation This chapter explores the motivations of pride, envy, and rivalry as social drivers, contrasting them with the traditional view of individuals as rational, utility-maximizing agents.
• 09:30 - 17:30: Social Consequences of Proximity and Competition The chapter "Social Consequences of Proximity and Competition" explores key concepts of Gerard psychology. It emphasizes four important topics: mimesis, which is the human tendency to imitate others, and memetic desire, where desires are borrowed from others. These components highlight the inherent social nature of humans and the influences that proximity and competition have on individual behavior.
• 17:30 - 23:30: The Logic of Resentment This chapter, titled 'The Logic of Resentment,' discusses different forms of desire. It introduces the concept of physical desire and contrasts it with what Gerard termed 'metaphysical desire.' Metaphysical desire is characterized as a pursuit of fullness, reality, persistence, and self-sufficiency. This chapter highlights how individuals strive to achieve these qualities by identifying and emulating models or figures who appear to embody these traits themselves. It explains the notion of 'mediation' where the metaphysical desire entails wanting objects desired by these models. The exploration of metaphysical desire forms a key part of the chapter's focus.
• 23:30 - 31:54: Mimetic Rivalry in Historical Context The chapter 'Mimetic Rivalry in Historical Context' delves into the psychological insights of Gerard, focusing on the concept of desire. It characterizes desire as malleable, powerful, deceitful, and beyond the control of reason, arguing that it propels us into continuous futile pursuits and is fundamental to sinful behavior. The chapter builds upon previous discussions to complete the psychological framework Gerard aims to illustrate. A significant point discussed is mediation, which the chapter elaborates can occur not only in a unidirectional manner but also bidirectionally among equals. This nuanced understanding of mediation is central to the ongoing exploration of mimetic theory in the text.
• 31:54 - 44:30: Negative Mimesis and Distancing from Groups The chapter explores the concept of Negative Mimesis and how memetic rivalry acts as a catalyst for human violence throughout history. It discusses the dual nature of mediation in relationships—how it can draw us closer to those we admire, and conversely, push us apart from those we resent. This negative aspect is part of memetic behavior, underscoring our nature as social creatures, even in our quests for independence and distancing from groups.
• 44:30 - 58:54: Psychological and Social Pathologies This chapter explores the concept of psychological and social pathologies and how they are intricately linked to human dependency on social structures. It builds upon the idea of 'original sin' in the context of human nature, arguing that mediation - or the way humans interact with the world and each other - introduces inherent pathologies that are integral to the human experience. The chapter suggests that these pathologies are not merely incidental but are deeply embedded in how humans function within society. Through various forms of mediation, these psychological and social conditions are exacerbated, making them pervasive aspects of human life.
• 58:54 - 88:00: Girard's Theodicy and Its Implications In this chapter, the focus is on Girard's theodicy, which aims to provide a comprehensive explanation of the origins of evil. The chapter explores the concept of memetic rivalry as a key component of this theodicy. It highlights the systematic and exhaustive approach that Girard takes, which is contrasted with moral psychology. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper understanding of mediation by delving into the concepts and consequences associated with memetic rivalry.
• 88:00 - 93:30: Conclusion: Critique of Critical Theories The chapter provides a critique of critical theories by examining the concept of external mediation as coined by Gerard. It uses the example of celebrity advertisement, specifically Michael Jordan's shoes, to illustrate this concept. The author explains how external mediation describes the way people are influenced in their desires by external factors or figures, such as celebrities. In the context of Michael Jordan's shoes, the desire to purchase them is not just about the shoes themselves but a deeper yearning to embody or associate oneself with the celebrity's qualities. The desire to be 'like Mike' exemplifies how personal desires can be shaped through the influence of public figures and their endorsements.

If You are Competing, You Already Lost | Girard’s Mimetic Rivalry Explained Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 lecture three memetic rivalry and Gerard's theodicy among the many benefits of studying Gerard's work is exposing how our modern theoretical understanding of human nature is flawed but but what's the problem with that aren't these just theories the problem is that when we misunderstand human nature we build political structures for
• 00:30 - 01:00 the kinds of people we wish existed and not the kinds of people who actually do it's like flying an airplane with a manual for driving trucks the dominant modern framework which we think of man is homo economicus as rational utility maximizing agents but Gerard shows us that this understanding is terribly Limited reason is quite weak and most of us aren't driven by utility we desire Glory
• 01:00 - 01:30 Prestige social belonging and fame we're motivated by Pride envy and rivalry the Gerard tampers our hopes and teaches us what to expect from a world filled not by rational utility maximizing agents but by spirited social animals in this lecture you're about to enter a social world that will be both barely recognizable to
• 01:30 - 02:00 the modern eye but also I bet undeniably familiar to your personal experiences lecture we've covered four important topics that are foundational to Gerard psychology first mimesis it's the core capacity and tendency for us to imitate others it's what makes us social creatures second it's memetic desire desire that is borrowed from others the medic desire always has two components
• 02:00 - 02:30 there's a desire to experience physical desire and a desire to be what Gerard called metaphysical desire third then this metaphysical desire is striving for a fullness of being to be real to be persistent and to be self-sufficient it tries to accomplish this goal by searching for models that seem to possess this fullness and being and Desiring the objects that they too desire this is called mediation last but certainly not least metaphysical desire
• 02:30 - 03:00 is malleable powerful deceitful and ungovernable by reason it leads us on one wild goose chase after another and is nothing other than the root of all sin in this lecture then we are going to continue building off this Foundation to round out the psychological picture that Gerard is trying to paint first we're going to flesh out our understanding of mediation not only can mediation happen unidirectionally but bi-directionally amongst equals this is what we are going
• 03:00 - 03:30 to discuss on our section on memetic rivalry which will reveal itself to be the motor of violence throughout human history the second thing we're going to discuss today is that not only can mediation draws closer to Those whom we admire it can also push us further apart from Those whom we resent this negative Force if you will is also a subset of memetic behavior and shows the extent to which we are social creatures even our radical Pursuits for Independence going away from a group a carving of one's own
• 03:30 - 04:00 path render Us in some sense more socially dependent last but not least then with this full picture of mediation and view we will continue to further develop this idea of original sin far from rescuing or baptizing The Human Condition from the uncharitable picture from last lecture these new ways of mediation inject even more forms of necessary pathologies Into The Human Experience these depravities are going to be so pervasive likely and yes in many cases
• 04:00 - 04:30 unavoidable that what Gerard is doing is more exhaustive it's more systematic and with a stronger modal status than moral psychology he's presenting us with nothing less than a theodicy an exhaustive explanation on the origins of evil so let us begin with our first move of expanding our understanding of mediation by interrogating the concepts and consequences of memetic rivalry now most of the forms of mediation that we've talked about in the last lecture
• 04:30 - 05:00 are what Gerard coins external mediation and take the example of uh celebrity advertisement something you brought up and that of Michael Jordan's shoes that we talked about that we want to be like Mike when we buy those shoes mediation here refers to the fact that Jordan mediates my desires for the basketball shoes which he sells that my desire for those shoes is really the desire for me to be Michael Jordan I acquire the object in hopes that I too will exist in great measure through my active possession in this example I hope it's
• 05:00 - 05:30 evident and obvious mediation is unidirectional Jordan imbues me with a desire but I do not do so to him however there's also another species of mediation that is bi-directional where each person is both model and subject competing over the same object let's extend the analogy two kids in school mediating each other's desires to buy new Jordans right each inspiring jealousy and desires he acquires the newest release and competes for The Prestige of having the best collection this form of bi-directional mediation
• 05:30 - 06:00 Gerard calls internal mediation a relationship where both parties won fight for the same objects and two mediate each other's desires and increases them what determines whether a mediation is internal between two parties bi-directionally or external between two parties unidirectionally depends on the distance between model and subject in internal mediation the pair is close enough that they end up Desiring and
• 06:00 - 06:30 competing converging on a similar set of objects in external mediation the pair is distant enough that even though one mediates the desires of the other they never really converge onto the similar object because of how far apart they are now when we talk about distance there are two types of distances that matter here the first type of distance is spatial temporal distance and it's quite trivial and easy to understand because it prevents the pair from competing by making sure the pair is not exposed if
• 06:30 - 07:00 I'm being mediated by Michael Jordan that is because I am exposed to him through advertisements and commercials yet Jordan is not exposed to me in any way we are far enough apart that he mediates me but I do not mediate him the Ark of History has reduced this type of distance before it was hard to be physically exposed to more than those in your city but now both advances in transportation as well as in communication have rendered the entire
• 07:00 - 07:30 world smaller much more proximate and therefore the slogan of social media companies like Facebook of connecting the world is not a celebratory declaration for Gerard but a terrifying damnation for Gerard because it renders us all the more capable of mediating and competing with each other this reminds me of a time when I was driving in Upstate New York in a town called Poughkeepsie and when you go just north of the city on the left side you see this big estate of the former American
• 07:30 - 08:00 president FDR and you see the signs but the estate's pretty far back there's big walls and it's hidden behind trees and I think it was I think that represents the way that wealth used to be that it would be far away it'd be hidden like the Gatsby parties weren't visible to the common person but now you can just sit on your couch open up Instagram and see Dan blizzarian and his yachts and his private jets the women all the fun stuff and I think this speaks what you're saying about communication Technologies
• 08:00 - 08:30 reducing the cognitive distance between people that used to exist precisely and Gerard would say not only do communication Technologies like social media reduce this distance but literal physical distance is reduced by means such as air travel now there's a second type of distance that's a bit more subtle and more interesting and that's social distance social distance prevents the pair even if they're exposed from identifying with each other and believing that the same objects which
• 08:30 - 09:00 satisfy one will also be fitting for the other this social distance this differentiation if you will prevents metaphysical Czar from contagiously spreading from subject to subject class for example acts as such a mode of differentiation in my own life I find it quite curious and somewhat humorous that I'm probably much more jealous of the other 23 year old entrepreneurs than I am of the multi-billionaires in my life and Prima facia from an external
• 09:00 - 09:30 perspective that's a ridiculous person to be jealous of because the billionaire has so much more than me whereas the 23 year old and I may be indistinguishable but Gerard's point is that jealousy and envy are emotions that operate between similars the object the billionaire deserves aren't the objects that I think I deserve because we are so different as to be in completely different classes but the other 23 year old well we are much more socially close and I'm much more easily and readily take on his
• 09:30 - 10:00 desires as my own but not just Class cast gender roles Guild lineages all serve as distance here whatever makes us consider ourselves as different in stock or in essence is enough to prevent mediation of course history has closed down on this form of distance as well with the introduction of the ideal of equality we no longer consider that there are these fundamentally different groups of people we tell our children you can be anything
• 10:00 - 10:30 you want to be and we demand the same opportunities for all because we think everyone is equally deserving while Gerard ultimately affirms this trend and finds it praiseworthy laudable and in essence Christian he is worried because it means that desire will have fewer barriers of spreading and be much much more contagious now rest assured desire can still be kept in check by differences which do still exist in modernity the example of class that I just highlighted is one of them an even
• 10:30 - 11:00 more trivial example is I've noticed that while sophomores in college may be more threatened if another sophomore gets a great internship they aren't so much when a junior gets an equally promising one because they reason well you know they got another year on me so they should be getting something better even such minute differences is enough to create social distance when the subject and model are both socially and physically proximate then the relationship becomes one of internal mediation or the medic rivalry are those
• 11:00 - 11:30 two words synonymous internal mediation and medic rivalry that's a good question and I think there are technical distinctions between the two but I won't bore our listeners in this introduction to Gerard so yes you can essentially understand them as one of the same describing a relationship or subject and model are competing over the same objects and mediating each other's desires Gerard as we discussed in the last lecture sees human desire as being made up of two competing strands right the desire to be which he calls metaphysical desire and the desire to
• 11:30 - 12:00 experience which he terms physical desire metaphysical desire the one that is shown to be original sin is directed at what objects say about me physical desire is directed at the experience conferred by the qualities of the object if I pursue a romantic partner for the experience of sexual gratification or intimacy then that is physical desire if I pursue someone because of what dating such a person says about me then that is metaphysical desire for reasons that are hopefully obvious Gerard defines sanity as being primarily motivated by physical
• 12:00 - 12:30 desire the utility and experience of things and not what objects say about us but what objects can do for us primary problem with memetic rivalry this is why it's so much worse is that it tends to inflame metaphysical desire the bad desire that we don't want and crowd out this healthy and sober physical desire such that we primarily become concerned about what things say about us instead of what they can do for us we become obsessed with identity and
• 12:30 - 13:00 give up utility the first and most obvious way that memetic rivalry tends to inflame metaphysical desire and make us disregard the object is that you and your rival reciprocally increase each other's metaphysical desire think about it like this in external mediation there's one unidirectional mediation and that's it Jordan makes me desire his shoes but in internal mediation in memetic rivalry the two Rivals mediate each other I have a small desire for Jordan shoes you latch onto that desire
• 13:00 - 13:30 and suddenly I copy your copy of my desire increasing it in strength and this goes on ad infinitum have you noticed how really tight friend groups have really peculiar and from an outside perspective indecipherable status symbols a particular brand a particular way of speaking a specific store that they go to at a specific time this reciprocal nature of mediation and rivalry is how the status symbols are created if mediation in external mediation is like an injury you know I
• 13:30 - 14:00 push you off the cliff and you break your leg and that's that then mediation in internal mediation in memetic rivalry is like a contagious disease it's kind of like covet I have an original strain of the desire I pass it on to you it develops within you it mutates it increases in strength which is then passed back to me now the second way that memetic rivalry inflames metaphysical desire is that competition leads to winners and losers losing leads to shame and shame creates an even greater distance to this ideal of being
• 14:00 - 14:30 to exist in great measure that we are striving for and therefore we desire to exist in great measure all the more when we are deprived of it that is how metaphysical desire leads to competition leads to losing leads to shame leads to even greater metaphysical desire yeah on this point of losing and shame I always think back to Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech have you ever seen it I haven't so it's ridiculous he gets up there greatest NBA player of all time six NBA championships multiple MVP
• 14:30 - 15:00 awards and even after all that he's accepting this great honor and he talks about how the guy who took his spot right the coveted spot on the varsity basketball team his freshman year how he held that anger that resentment throughout his entire career and I think it speaks to this way that when you lose when you are in a competition you're not getting what you want you get despite this Vengeance that can drive you so much more than reason or logic ever
• 15:00 - 15:30 could that's a great example and I think social humiliation in this case Jordan not making his varsity basketball team is in some way the exact opposite of this fullness and being which we all strive for which is why our desire for it in humiliation is all the stronger in the same way that the Thirsty man desires water much more what Gerard is getting at here is the phenomenon of us Desiring an object even more upon not winning it romantic interest job a gift that I think we can all relate to and
• 15:30 - 16:00 often we're attracted to things more after they reject us as well right yeah I think it was Groucho Marx who said I'd never want to be a member at a club that would have me as a member I think that's another great example and I think Gerard would perhaps explain that phenomenon like this when you get rejected you experience a diminishing of being and the model who wins the object in this case whoever does get to go in the club has a slight elevation in your eyes they get a little surplus of being and therefore you desire the object in guess
• 16:00 - 16:30 this case the club that they have all the more because you both feel more deficient in being and the model also seems a bit more spectacular metaphysical desire then becomes inflamed in rivalry because of this difference between the loser and the Victor but apart from merely exacerbating the problems of metaphysical desire this type of competition introduces a new problematic logic immemetic rivalries think about intense competitions or maybe even feuds
• 16:30 - 17:00 that you've been in you tend to blame your Rivals disproportionately for your problems and often attribute to them a malicious intent that they didn't really have I know what that's like I don't know if you've ever been so mad at somebody maybe you feel like they spited you they betrayed you but what happens is at first it's kind of obvious like you're just angry at them you're pissed off but then something really weird happens where everything in your life that goes wrong you're at the grocery store they're out of your kombucha you
• 17:00 - 17:30 know you go and the you're at the bar with some friends I don't have your favorite beer and now you start blaming it on the friend who you're mad at and your life begins to spiral into this Descent of negativity where you're just blaming everything on that person on that single event and furthermore when you're mad at them you assume a malicious intent in their actions that might not even be there that's precisely right and I think through this undeserved blame and you hit upon two ways it's undeserved right one is that you attribute to them a malicious intent that they might not have and the other
• 17:30 - 18:00 is the scope of the blame you level at them the Rival in memetic rivalries is given a dual character as good because they possess the coveted object and as evil because they're responsible for your shame in competition usually the subject you feels nothing but respect and admiration towards the model but in the case of memetic rivalries the subject believes again often wrongly that the model is actively hurting the subject's being for the sake
• 18:00 - 18:30 of causing pain this is the malicious intent malicious intent and not just undesirable consequence is often what we attribute to our Rivals whether it's true or not this is a new force in gerardian Psychology that is absolutely Central resentment resentment Gerard observes is reserved for those who are both I quote the instigator of desire and the Relentless Guardian forbidding its fulfillment without being an instigator we simply feel annoyance for
• 18:30 - 19:00 people and without being the forbidding guardian we feel respect that's how external mediation works resentful sentiments are ambivalent containing within them a degree of admiration alongside hatred the logic of metaphysical desire changes considerably with the injection of resentment it is no longer about acquiring the object to have the same being as the model but to steal the object from the model robbing him of his
• 19:00 - 19:30 elevated status in retributive Vengeance we don't only want to have ourselves exist in great measure but we also want to diminish the existence of the other and one cannot over emphasize the degree to which this New Logic of resentment transforms relationships of mediation if the examples of external mediation such as fanboying over Michael Jordan's shoes already represents a perverse fascination with the other disguised as a desire for the object then resentment
• 19:30 - 20:00 makes it all the more so in external mediation I'm fascinated I'm fanboying over this one person but at least I do not have it as an end of mine to change his being to sabotage him but in memetic rivalry on top of this perverse Fascination this enthrallment I do have it as a direct end to hurt his being to get even for the malicious intent that I perceive him as having in memetic rivalries not only is one fixated on and enthralled by the being of the model
• 20:00 - 20:30 is when it already is in external mediation but one also wants to change or more accurately sabotage it with resentment then Gerard provides us a psychological motivation to hurt others for the sake of hurting others resentment directs us to cause our Rivals pain for the sake of causing them pain even if it means harming ourselves and we think it Justified because of their malicious intent we treat their
• 20:30 - 21:00 suffering as an end in itself this is the psychological force behind Avengers let me give you a historical example of memetic rivalries that I think encapsulates all of the facets we've talked about so far this example is one provided by the American Anthropologist David Graber and it tells the story of the transition of Greece from a heroic society around let's say a thousand BC the time of Homer to a market Society at the time of Socrates around let's say 500 BC this transition is one where the
• 21:00 - 21:30 rigid differentiated class structure of aristocrats and citizenry become much more muddied as social Mobility is increased and even the average man gained a larger degree of economic power now this Mobility came from really two things first there's a greater inflow of slaves and second of the introduction of coinage in the markets lifted the boats of all so to speak enabling even citizens of quite modest means to take part in the political and cultural life
• 21:30 - 22:00 of the city graber's description of how the aristocrats reacted to the greater share of power that the citizenry now gained I think is emblematic of all the qualities of a medic rivalry that we've just talked about first the aristocrats who used to unidirectionally mediate the citizenry's desires became mediated by the citizenry's desires it was the closing of the social distance due to the increased money of the citizens that turned mediation from
• 22:00 - 22:30 unidirectional to bi-directional specifically the aristocrats began engaging in the lower trades of merchant activity and commerce as was practiced by the lower classes by the citizenry it was out of a secret admiration a desire to have something that the Nouveau Rich had the wealthy citizenry that motivated the aristocrats into Commerce at the same time however the aristocrats were resentful of this Nuvo rich and this resentment resulted in a
• 22:30 - 23:00 revaluation of values this famous Greek obsession with honor didn't stem from the times of Homer but this aristocratic Rebellion against the values of the marketplace or at least so Graber argues that is to say money in the homeric times was the measure of one's greatness but when the Nouveau Rich started gaining more and more money the aristocratic classes started devaluing money out of resentment and jealousy and brought up honor instead as the ideal to
• 23:00 - 23:30 differentiate themselves because wealth no longer could the aristocratic class wanted to be like the Nouveau rich and started engaging much more in Commerce but they also deeply resented them and so made Commerce ignoble this complicated story of admiration combined with resentment is so often the case the the old Elites attitude towards a new Rising class and the last example here is probably Hong Kong that got a lot richer a lot faster and a lot earlier than mainland China and as the mainland
• 23:30 - 24:00 started to catch up in the past three decades let's say I think the people of Hong Kong have an ambivalent attitude towards the mainland not dissimilar from the Greek Aristocrats and their reaction towards the rising citizenry if you are a mandarin speaker from the mainland and you go to Hong Kong I think it's common to experience both a bit of resentment and admiration you get this feeling however subtle that some people don't want you there but almost everyone wants your business this combination of admiration and resentment is what
• 24:00 - 24:30 defines memetic rivalries let's go back to the Greeks we're not done there yet because the aristocrats are only half the Rivalry here is how the Nouveau Rich reacted to their Newfound status I'm going to quote Graber here we see an almost schizophrenic reaction on the part of ordinary citizens themselves who simultaneously try to limit or even ban aspects of aristocratic culture and to imitate aristocratic sensibilities the practice of a grown man having sex
• 24:30 - 25:00 with boys fundamental to aristocratic initiation is an excellent case in point here the Democratic Palace saw it as politically subversive and made sexual relationships between male citizens legal at same time almost everyone began to practice it end quote here we see the exact same logic play out but just on the other side on one hand you have imitation of a practice in this case man boy love peterasty this was an imitation
• 25:00 - 25:30 that previously was not widely practiced because the citizenry felt so distant from the elite that they couldn't possibly deserve what the elite had on the other hand there's a natural resentment from the citizenry for the aristocrats that also didn't exist before for performing these rituals that they themselves want to practice and this resentment manifested explicitly in his desire to sabotage the elite to ban aristocratic practices and privileges all while they themselves secretly yearn
• 25:30 - 26:00 to practice them two rival classes of Socratic grease then are shown to be very very similar in their form as the distance between the two classes decreased they all experienced an admiration and urge to imitate the defining practices of the other Commerce and man boy love respectively sitting extremely uneasily alongside this admiration was also a deeply felt resentment that saw each other trying to sabotage one another devaluing Commerce and banning
• 26:00 - 26:30 aristocratic practices now in the case of competition over money between the Greek social classes I think it's easy to see how fighting over a limited object can inflame metaphysical desires how there can be clear winners or losers however there's a different form of competition that is prima facia not as zero-sum but can just as effectively stir up metaphysical desires I think an example will be helpful to illustrate the wide scope and irrational Natures of
• 26:30 - 27:00 memetic rivalries here I'll consider two friends mediating each other's goals and recreational weight lift David weightlifting if you're unfamiliar is the activity that people do to gain a respectable physique let's imagine two friends mediating each other's goals in recreational weightlifting should one friend reach the goal first the other could feel slight resentment building up as if the successful friend Were Somehow to blame for their own lack of progress now I choose weightlifting precisely
• 27:00 - 27:30 because how innocuous it is and how the goal to lift a certain amount of Weights unlike say you know two classes competing for material resources in the case of the Greeks is not exclusionary but nonetheless can create feelings of a resentment now you might think me Petty for even being able to relate to this example but I can think of many more Arenas that aren't zero-sum or perhaps even positive sum that we feel threatened by the mere presence of someone too similar if you can't relate
• 27:30 - 28:00 to weight lifting perhaps you can to any of these other Arenas investing hearing that a close friend made a killing on a few good trades um academic publishing hearing that a colleague received a certain type of recognition or a company promotion when a co-worker received a job that you didn't want but is very prestigious within the organization I relate to this too with subscriber counts on the internet where I'll be growing audience and my friend will pass me and I'll get upset about that or I'll feel some kind of Envy or jealousy but
• 28:00 - 28:30 it's ridiculous it's my friend and that's exactly the kind of person who I would want to have surpassed me because they can help me I can help them and yet still this memetic Envy takes hold precisely and I think that's a great example uh in addition to the three that I just gave as well because these aren't zero-sum Arenas right to your point that you can help them and that they can help you these are positive sub Arenas my friend who's good at investing can probably give me better stock tips my friend who is now recognizing the academy can probably help me in some way
• 28:30 - 29:00 and my friend who is in a place of higher influence in the company may help me push my own agenda and my friend who has more followers than me in your case can also help me boost my following as well but nonetheless I think it's a human likelihood if not necessity to have our hearts thawed a little bit when we hear the successes of those close to us even if it means we benefit materially what did Aristotle say that we fear our friends will become gods of course there are relationships where we
• 29:00 - 29:30 can genuinely feel happy for the other Gerard's point is that Contra our intuitions the more similar someone is to our self-conception the more threatening they tend to become but why is this I think it's because our ideal of being is inherently exclusionary I've described this desire to be as a desire for social reality for our names to last for us to exert power to exist in great measure so if I'm a philosopher of Gerard what I'm really striving for is
• 29:30 - 30:00 getting the greatest degree of social recognition as a philosopher of Gerard if another Gerard scholar pops out on the scene then the attention I receive quad Gerard scholar diminishes even if through debate both of us gain a greater understanding of Gerard when I'm really after however is threatened because the ideal Gerard thinks we are striving towards is exclusionary the mere existence of someone with a similar self-conception threatens our very being let me frame our insights this way the
• 30:00 - 30:30 world of material of utility of experience and maybe positive some but the world is Spirit of being of self-conception of gaining social recognition and attention isn't if what I most wanted was to make good trades then I should be delighted that my friend made a great deal of money right but if what I most wanted was to be an investor to maintain a certain self-conception then I should feel threatened by such a friend in like manner if what I most wanted was to
• 30:30 - 31:00 access truth then I should be delighted of my colleagues academic achievements but if what I most wanted was to be a philosopher then I should feel threatened and I think the fact that we are more often threatened rather than delighted by the advance of those most similar to us even when it means we benefit materially tells us about the true nature of our desires and our priorities this fact that those with similar self-conceptions to us are a natural threat explain why
• 31:00 - 31:30 conflicts between those who inhabit a close relationship who have or had shared feelings of admiration are so common and often brutal master and Apprentice a Jackson Odysseus orestes and cladimestra Romulus and Remus indeed this motif of the warring twin pulses through Gerard's work similarity proximity Is what causes conflict and let me leave you with one last example I have a friend who took a class with a scholar of Roman literature and this scholar was extremely nice and caring as
• 31:30 - 32:00 many professors are and Not only was he nice and caring to his students but he was extremely tolerant of things very distant other cultures other ideologies other races other gender orientations and my friend enjoyed this course on Roman literature so much that he watched videos from another scholar of Roman literature and very excited he brought this other scholar up to his Professor during class and it was as if thunder clouds descended upon a sunny day the
• 32:00 - 32:30 professor's brows started frowning and he was visibly upset and spoke in harsh and dismissive phrases the loving caring and tolerant scholar was really nowhere to be seen and he just completely let it rip on his colleague tenfold the anger and frustration when he was discussing even the most cruel aspects of distant cultures perhaps many in Academia can relate to this phenomena of bitter Petty rivalries between extremely similar people and I think this extends well beyond the
• 32:30 - 33:00 academy ask someone who they have the biggest problem with and it's often people very similar to them who want the same things who have the same self-conception Gerard's point is that even when there is no real competition as in the case of the Greeks memetic rivalries inflame our desires and pit us against each other because of social competition it is easy to love someone distant and much harder to Love Thy Neighbor to summarize then the medic rivalries inflame metaphysical desire making us
• 33:00 - 33:30 lose sight of the object and become enthralled with the model in three ways first when two people are so intimately involved as they are in memetic rivalry each mediates and strengthens the other's desires for the object second real competition introduces shame in the loser which makes them desire being even more third even when there is no real competition there still exists a social competition where we feel threatened by
• 33:30 - 34:00 those two similar to us this inflammation of metaphysical desire then leads to the creation of doubles or warring twins this is what Gerard has to say all the relationships are symmetrical the two partners believe themselves separated by a bottomless Abyss but there's nothing we can say of one which is not equally true of the other there is a sterile opposition of contraries which becomes more and more atrocious and empty as the two subjects approach
• 34:00 - 34:30 each other and as their desire intensifies it makes me think of the idea that you should choose your enemies wisely for you'll become just like that right that's exactly right and I have just the example prepared here I think about the Meiji restoration of Japan in the 19th century after being humiliated by the West Japan wanted to stand up to the west and be able to fight against it to be its own Nation but the way it did so was by imitating to a degree the West it
• 34:30 - 35:00 had to adopt a more flexible social structure it had to adopt a more a constitutional political structure it had to gain an orientation towards science and technology and obviously it eventually developed a taste for colonization as well so even as Japan explicitly rejected the West Meiji Japan also had to imitate it even as it sought to distance itself from the West it had to become more
• 35:00 - 35:30 similar and of course we all know how this increased proximity ended it ended in World War II everything that we talked about so far is how proximity causes fighting but as the Japanese case shows the converse is also true fighting creates more proximity because Rivals often have to resort to similar tactics be careful of who your enemies are because you'll be forced to be like them and what makes this doubleness this likeness between Rivals all the more perverse is that
• 35:30 - 36:00 Rivals themselves do not perceive it as such they perceive themselves to be the most radically different even though from an outsider's perspective the rivals cannot be differentiated Rivals focus on what Gerard calls false differences these are tiny inconsequential distinctions that they base their entire identity around in order to justify their hatred of the Rival were you to expose the similarity between the mests and major Japan to a Japanese at the time I imagine they
• 36:00 - 36:30 would say something like oh no but what makes us different is that we served an enlightened Emperor whereas the West is ruled by virtualist charlatans or something like that and I think if you were to grill my friend's Roman literature scholar about why the other colleague was so despicable I imagine he would bring up what must seem from the outside trivial answers a form of argumentation not being up to rigor a petty departmental politics we need these differences to justify our resentment after all I can't resent
• 36:30 - 37:00 someone for qualities that I too have if I'm an industrialist superpower critiquing another industrialist superpower I can't critique their worldliness or material orientation for then I would be critiquing myself I have to say something about their political structure or their religious intolerance and if I'm a Roman literature scholar I can't admit that I dislike the other scholar out of petty jealousy or Envy I have to find some objective reasons however trivial to ground my dislike so Gerard reasons we create and cling on
• 37:00 - 37:30 to these trivial false differences and take them to be the core of our identity Gerard's point is that in rivalry we systematically repress how we and our enemies are alike sometimes even identical in what we want what we believe in who we think we are to justify our resentment yeah you see this with a major television networks if you walk into a gym and you see Fox News and CNN MSNBC and you're somebody who's in
• 37:30 - 38:00 the media world you see them as totally different different sides of political Spectrum representing different views totally different but then if you just don't watch the news and you see the three of them on TV they look exactly the same they have the same bold headlines the same shouts on television the same super dramatic clips that they cut to and it's these small differences that are exaggerated for the people in the industry and from their perspectives they must exaggerate these small
• 38:00 - 38:30 differences in order to justify their hatred of people who are as you mentioned objectively quite similar to them and I think one albeit extreme example also related to Corporate America perfectly encapsulates all of these qualities of memetic rivalry that we have just talked about so far and that is the boardroom scene in the movie American Site American Psycho is about the story of a yuppie New York Banker Bateman old money ivy league who is a closeted serial killer and he kills not
• 38:30 - 39:00 from some vigilante agenda or some noble cause but because there's a deep spiritual boredom in his life and the core aim of the movie is to show the derivative trivial and unsatisfying nature of the life of rivalry and Prestige and I think the boardroom scene is particularly brilliant in highlighting this The Scene goes something like this Bateman a young and successful Banker sits down in A very upscale Manhattan boardroom surrounded by Bankers who look and behave indistinguishly from him to the point
• 39:00 - 39:30 where they actually mistake each other frequently and as the meeting ends Bateman presents his newly printed luxury business cards with Glee and he says I think it's that's bone and the lettering is something called Cillian rail and he says that with this very smuck grin in an act of one upmanship another Banker presents his card and he says eggshell with romelian type and as the camera Zooms in the cards are just as indistinguishable as their owners they're all bland white rectangles with
• 39:30 - 40:00 blue fonts all with the same company and all the same title of vice president but Bateman clenches his fist in passive anger as the group seems to slightly slightly favor the newcomers card another Banker then also joins the mix he says something like a raised lettering pale Nimbus White Bateman is now visibly infuriated and he demands to see the card of his rival Paul Allen he picks up Paul's equally derivative card he swallows and he becomes speechless the whole sound in
• 40:00 - 40:30 the room dies down in the scene as the audience is treated to Bateman's faint heartbeat and internal dialogue and he says something like look at that subtle off-white coloring the tasteful thickness of it oh my God it even has a watermark and he lets the card fall as he is unable to tame his own anger the same anger which would escalate in the movie and leads to Bateman to eventually kill Paul as one of the many victims in
• 40:30 - 41:00 his murdering sprees now this is not to say that every memetic rivalry ends in a murdering spree the movie is rightfully titled psycho for a clear reason here but I think albeit in exaggerated form this scene highlights all the key points of memetic rivalries that we've just discussed first they enter into rivalry because everyone in the boardroom is so damn similar and second their similarity enters them into real competition because they're competing over a similar
• 41:00 - 41:30 book of clients and things like that third even when they aren't competing over similar clients there's a social competition over the status markers the non-exclusive non-zero-sum status markers of the banker whether it's reservations or romantic conquests or business cards and fourth the way in which they try to differentiate themselves only makes them more similar a slightly better haircut at the same Barber a slightly better reservation at the same restaurant and of course the damn business cards the white rectangles
• 41:30 - 42:00 the blue fonts the vice president they are completely indistinguishable however fifth as Gerard articulates they themselves perceive radical difference from each other a bone with cilian rail eggshell with romalian type raised lettering pale Nimbus white markers that are completely indistinguishable to us are seen as the greatest gaps of taste and character it is this radical illusionary distance between Bateman and the rest that legitimizes his killing
• 42:00 - 42:30 sprees similarity leads to real and social competition competition produces more similarity all of this is obstructed by false differences which justify violence this is both the story of American Psycho and the form of memetic rivalry at Large let's move on to our second topic of discussion everything we've discussed so far has dealt with a positive species of mimesis where model and subject converge where Rivals become more like each other
• 42:30 - 43:00 however there's a whole other species of mimesis that pushes us away from others this is the negative phase of mimesis the logic of metaphysical desire is to pursue objects associated with those who have a fullness in being a natural continuation of this logic then is to avoid or distance oneself from objects associated with those we conceive as having a deficiency in being we both want to be like the cool kids but also
• 43:00 - 43:30 be different as far as possible from the social outcasts the people who we think are unacceptable you know you see this in our version to certain Aesthetics from the 20th century and I think back to the Italian futurists they had this beautiful art and architecture their architecture is Grand and Majestic it represented power and then their art was very optimistic these blues and reds that represented this technological optimism and it was wondrous and inspiring but what happened
• 43:30 - 44:00 was after World War II with the Nazis we rejected anything that looked like fascism looked like a government that was just too strong too authoritarian and so what happened is no matter how beautiful a certain aesthetic is if it smells like Nazism if it smells like fascism we reject it outright so what you're saying here is futurism is not rejected on its own grounds because it was ugly or because it carried the wrong
• 44:00 - 44:30 connotations of technological progress but it was rejected on the grounds of who it was associated with the association is to keep point there exactly and I think that would be the gerardian interpretation as well that this negative drive to distance ourselves away from those we think are lesser or in this case evil is just as powerful and prevalent as the positive drive to be more like those we think greater than us or fundamentally good and the personal example I can give here is of a college acquaintance who was an
• 44:30 - 45:00 economic Progressive uh when he was a freshman and we just met he was extremely passionate about a distributive justice and every time I would meet him he would go on and on and on about the mistreatment of the poor and what we could do better however as I got to know him a bit better he confessed to me that what was motivating his progressivism wasn't a universal benevolence a concern for the poor but a localized resentment a hatred of the rich
• 45:00 - 45:30 see this acquaintance came from a middle-class family but grew up with upper middle class peers and was always made to feel poor his orientation of values against wealth was not for its own sake not any more than an orientation away from futurism was for its own sake but to get back at his wealthier peers by painting money making as a moral he found himself on the moral High Ground the funny story is he's now in a career as an investment banker
• 45:30 - 46:00 because he never really had a problem with money at all in fact the only reason he renounced wealth so heavily and so fervently was because he wanted it so much and was deeply resentful that he couldn't get it this is the psychology of the negative phase of memetic rivalries and it's the exact inverse of the positive one it's to at the surface reject the values of the Rival but in secret strongly desire them in American Psycho Bateman affirms the values of his other Bankers resenting
• 46:00 - 46:30 them secretly whereas my friend rejects the values of his peers but admires them secretly this is a fine thin and often traversed line indeed the closest of Partners often become the worst of enemies the perversion of the positive phase of memetic rivalry and here think to Bateman and American Psycho is pettiness and triviality right Bitcoin about the fonts of your business cards then the perversion of the negative phase is hypocrisy rejecting money while you
• 46:30 - 47:00 secretly desire wealth this negative species of mimesis adds a completely new dimension of what it means to say that man is a social creature even when we break away from a group that itself can be a deeply socially determined action and with this intuition Gerard wants to tear down what he conceives of as the Romantic lie the LIE goes something like this at the bottom we are all individuals whatever that means with a
• 47:00 - 47:30 core of what we can call the authentic self and then layered on top of this true individual are layers and layers of social constraints with its Origins external the way to access authenticity under this model is by following one's heart with a radical Breaking Free from the group Gerard says not so fast this Breaking Free from the group can be just as socially determined as rigid adherence you're confusing difference for autonomy distance for Independence and
• 47:30 - 48:00 originality for freedom when I ask my college acquaintance after he confessed to me that his progressivism stemmed not from a belief of the ideas themselves but largely due to a social resentment of his peers I asked well isn't that a huge problem that you didn't form this opinion independently but to my surprise my acquaintance answered and in stark contrast to what he had just told me he responded why I did form this opinion on progressivism independently after all
• 48:00 - 48:30 all of my peer group are economic conservatives I am the only Progressive I am different from them how could I have been determined by their opinions this year then is the LIE of Romanticism that difference means authenticity that all we have to do is to peel away the effects of the group and we will find our authentic cores the reality however is we can just as easily be socially determined by rejecting a group as we can by
• 48:30 - 49:00 conforming to the group The mises operates positively and negatively becoming a progressive because you were resentful of the conservatives is no less socially determined than becoming a progressive out of peer pressure from progressives I think my acquaintance could only have thought otherwise because we fetishized difference in our culture our models in modernity are all of radical breaking aways from the group right the underdog going against the Big Brother The Rebel fighting outside the
• 49:00 - 49:30 system of the daring entrepreneur disrupting an old industry a starving artist creating something radically new too often however I feel like we are conforming to contrarianism that we're seeking difference for differences sake just as how a confusion in Chinese Antiquity might have doggedly adhere to tradition just for the sake of tradition we I think with no less rigidity try to Rebel from tradition for no other reason than Rebellion I think Marlon Brando's character who he
• 49:30 - 50:00 plays a motorcycle gang leader in the wild one a movie in the 50s captures this perverse sentiment well there's a scene in that movie when Brando's characters asked what are you rebelling against he's at this bar he's this really cool rebellious leather biker jacket and he just lets out a weary saw and responds what do you got he doesn't stand for anything his values are not held for their own sake any more so than the
• 50:00 - 50:30 conformists are he simply wants to be different from whatever you present to him whatever you give him he's going to rebel against it that is the perverse sentiment within modernity man is then shown to be a social creature through and through if you take one thing from Gerard's psychology it is this the most powerful and explanatory element within the human psyche is our sociality our values our political orientations aesthetic tastes and even philosophical positions are inevitably dependent on and heavily
• 50:30 - 51:00 influenced by others in deep and often very unconscious ways this influence is so pervasive that not only can our movements towards a group be socially determined but so can our movements away from the group I think we can understand Gerard's psychology as elevating this social part of ourselves what I've been calling Spirit over reason spirit is stronger it's more persistent and more important to us reason often
• 51:00 - 51:30 pretends to be its Steward but in reality is its lawyer and spokesperson engage more often than not in simple post-hoc rationalization in this view we are not rational truth-seeking creatures but animals who willingly believe in lies insofar as others around us do as well after all other animals engage in truth seeking all the time echolocation tapping into the magnetic fields night vision but we
• 51:30 - 52:00 are the only ones who create Gods who tell stories who spin up fictions who convince each other of Lies we are not individuals but a collection of co-vibrating violin strings our behaviors always have direct consequences for others framed in this way then Gerard's psychology mounts a formidable challenge to the very ground of modern social theory what does it mean to protect individual Freedom if we like co-vibrating violin
• 52:00 - 52:30 strings are never truly even free to begin with are what we consider personal decisions aesthetic preference sexual orientation gender identities familial roles music tastes are these really a question of self-expression or should we examine them primarily due to their memetic effects on society how do we legitimize Democratic political consensus when people don't seem to vote for the common good they don't even seem to vote for their rational own self-interest but pick
• 52:30 - 53:00 allegiances based off of Spirited tribalistic social forces this is the Pandora's box of questions that Gerard psychology opens up Unfortunately they will have to remain questions for now but this much I can reassure you the social world we are about to step into over the next four lectures is one completely alien to our intuitions it is a world where groups can only be reconciled through violence where the foundation of a worldly peace
• 53:00 - 53:30 is always lies where truth brings War not peace and where the historical expansion of Justice equality and freedom begets apocalypse when you will inevitably be shocked by Gerard's social conclusions more often than not it is due to a difference in psychological assumptions the key in understanding Gerard's social theory is to interpret it as built upon a psychology that elevates Spirit over reason
• 53:30 - 54:00 but before we enter into Gerard's social theory there's one last topic I wish to discuss today let's take a look back at the terrain that we've already traversed in these two lectures on psychology in the last lecture we focused on metaphysical desire the desire to be to exist in great measure it is our original sin our prideful yearning it is compulsive it's ungovernable it's deceitful and aimed at such a heightened deal that we could never obtain it dooming us on one wild goose hunt after
• 54:00 - 54:30 the other in the beginning of this lecture the problem is worsened with the introduction of memetic rivalry not only does this inflame metaphysical desire but also introduces a new logic of resentment which leads to violence what envelops us all the deeper into this memetic Quagmire then is the second topic of today's lecture this negative phase of Nemesis which shows just how thoroughly we are social creatures even Breaking Free from a group can be a
• 54:30 - 55:00 symptom of radical dependence to say that this is a pessimistic view on human nature would be a gross understatement and it's about to get a lot more pessimistic Gerard treats what we commonly think of as abnormalities within human psychology and society as necessary occurrences fetishization bipolarity alienation masochism pathologies that we think only the few unfortunate Among Us experience
• 55:00 - 55:30 Gerard believes is the common predicament these psychological pathologies are not a radical break but on a Continuum for Gerard with irregular psychology put provocatively we are all to some degree masochistic bipolar fetishizing and alienated in like manner social pathologies oppression and inequity which we only think plague the most unjust of societies will receive the same treatment all of human society are oppressive and inequitable the only
• 55:30 - 56:00 difference being of kind and degree this then is our next and last conversation of this lecture to understand the necessary evils that draws psychology injects into individual life as well as Society to understand the social and psychological pathologies of man let's begin with the psychological pathologies and most of these will be old news the first pathology is fetishization and I would describe
• 56:00 - 56:30 fetishization as gaining a morbid attraction to an object disproportionate to the intrinsic value of that object I think that's quite a standard understanding of fetishization right and once we frame it in this light we can see that it is none other than metaphysical desire as the example you gave last lecture of Kanye's hundred dollar white T-shirt goes to show through metaphysical desire we give objects an undeserved Surplus value because of certain models who mediate our desires insofar as we experience metaphysical
• 56:30 - 57:00 desire and Gerard believes that almost all of us do we are fetishizing creatures the second psychological pathology of alienation directly flows from this point one popular understanding of alienation championed by thinkers like foyerbach and of course the later Marx is to describe it as the experience of externalizing and being alienated from the best or the most important qualities of ourselves we project what is most
• 57:00 - 57:30 important to us on an external object and thereby become alienated from these qualities furbox famous example is the Christian God he berates Christianity because it makes us project the best qualities of man innocence love truth unto a distant God and thereby robbing ourselves of those self-conceptions here metaphysical desire is the channel and culprit of alienation as well we take the key ideals that we are striving
• 57:30 - 58:00 for reality persistence and self-sufficiency and project and externalize them onto objects that we Chase the very Act of Desiring for Gerard is in and of itself the very Act of externalizing our most prized and desired qualities onto an external object you know that makes me think of a line from Naval ravacon and I think he says desire is a contract that you make with
• 58:00 - 58:30 yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want and this happens with clothing all the time or often we'll set our eyes on something and we'll want it so badly that we just won't even feel happy until we have that thing and we think that once we get that thing we'll feel happy or worthy or successful as if it's the Salvation that we've been waiting for looking for all along and then until you get it you're an incomplete person that's precisely right and Gerard's point is that the very thought that only when I get that object
• 58:30 - 59:00 will I feel whole is the cause of you not feeling whole in this very moment the very Act of metaphysical desire causes a deep lack we say in the example you've provided only if I obtain this amazing object can I and will I experience this fullness in being of course that's also saying that the fullness of being does not reside within me now it resides externally on that object over there because we all experience metaphysical
• 59:00 - 59:30 desire we all Gerard believes are constantly alienated in this way and because what is most precious to us is alienated away residing in an external object we also necessarily experience the next psychological pathology bipolarity bipolarity is a pathology characterized by oscillating Manic and depressive phases in the manic phase we feel a surplus of Pride like we are on the top
• 59:30 - 60:00 of the world and in the depressive phase we feel utter and complete despair memetic Theory also offers a reasonable explanation for this because the external object holds so much weight you experience Mania when you are close to it and you experience despair when you are far from it this oscillation between pride and shame between Mania and despair is in fact for Gerard what defines metaphysical desire you know this might be a ridiculous example but it kind of
• 60:00 - 60:30 reminds me of the early days of romance right uh sometimes you'll be you'll be texting somebody who you're into and you're starting off and things are going well you're so excited and and you're enthusiastic and you're skipping around and then you'll send a text and she won't respond and you're freaking out what did I say did I put the Emoji in the wrong place why'd I use a period And I should have edited a sentence without it and you get so mad at yourself you can't sleep at night
• 60:30 - 61:00 then you wake up in the morning you look at your phone and you get out of bed like a double shot of espresso because this person has now texted you back and it's those waves of emotion that I think you're speaking to here no I don't think that's a ridiculous example at all if anything I think it's a great everyday example to show how we're all at least on the same Spectrum as the clinically bipolar if not the same intensity due to metaphysical desire due to the fact that we've projected this fullness of being onto this one precious external object in this case a romantic partner now the
• 61:00 - 61:30 last psychological pathology that we are always doomed with if ever so subtly is masochism masochism is commonly understood is associated with gaining sexual excitement for pain but I think that there's a larger form of masochism as well that actually extends much broader and that is to confuse the difficult with the good and I think our memetic Tendencies brings this confusion about in two ways first think about back
• 61:30 - 62:00 to the deceitful quality of metaphysical desire we described last lecture how the object can never satisfy us because it's not an object that we seek but the being of the model a natural consequence of this fact then is that whatever objects we obtain we are going to be dissatisfied and reason that all objects like this aren't suitable objects for metaphysical desire as a result the only objects that maintain their Allure that we can still believe have the power to confer this fullness in being are necessarily the
• 62:00 - 62:30 ones that we haven't yet obtained because of their difficulty for example it is easy for most people to reject the simple idea and silly idea that say buying candy bars is the key to our ultimate satisfaction why well because candy bars are very accessible anyone who believes so can simply buy a pair of candy bars and correct their belief through experience the belief however that a million dollars is the key to our ultimate satisfaction is much more widely held
• 62:30 - 63:00 because the object is much more difficult to obtain and thus harder to invalidate and I do think this is quite explanatory of how Prestige Works in society that there is an intimate connection between Prestige and difficulty now certainly not all difficult to obtain objects are prestigious but almost all prestigious objects are difficult to obtain why because the illusion of prestige can only be maintained if most people don't have experience of the object directly
• 63:00 - 63:30 which would make them recognize the object's deficiencies this makes us start forming a however unconscious connection between the difficult and the good because everything easy to obtain shows itself to be deficient this connection between the difficult and the good is further bolstered second by the very form of memetic rivalry we've discussed extensively today how the form of rivalry increases the desire for the object
• 63:30 - 64:00 now if throughout my entire life the value of the object is always correlated with the intensity and amount of competition surrounding it then I could gain an association between the trials and tribulations associated with competition and the value of the object itself and thereby confusing the difficult and the good the idea may be something like this if a person develops a strong romantic relationship to potential Partners every time there is significant competition then perhaps he will start forming a
• 64:00 - 64:30 strong association with the value of a partner and how difficult they are to court such a person if pushed to the extreme May exclusively desire Partners who aren't just competed after but unavailable altogether these people do exist and the scary thought is that Gerard thinks we are not drastically different from them but on a Continuum with them the necessary pathologies that stem from Gerard psychology are not just limited
• 64:30 - 65:00 to individuals but are also social one such social pathology is oppression and the best way to make sense of it is to understand Gerard's commentary on eating disorders let me quote Gerard the people with eating disorders are not the people with a religious hang up the traditionalists and the fundamentalists but the most quote unquote liberated I remember one of the Seinfeld shows on NBC that brilliantly captured the
• 65:00 - 65:30 normality of bulimia nervosa eating and then throwing up afterwards in our world at the end of a meal in a New York restaurant a young woman goes to the bathroom to vomit the large plate of spaghetti she has just finished eating she announces this to her companion another woman in the same tranquil and matter-of-fact tone as in bygone days she might have said I'll put on some lipstick compared to the young woman on NBC the decadent Romans who are also bulimics were innocent sensualists
• 65:30 - 66:00 they too were eating and vomiting in turn but for themselves only and not for anybody else they were really looking out for number one our modern bulimic is eating for herself to be sure but she is vomiting for others for all these women who are watching each other's waistlines her radical freedom is synonymous with her enslavement to the opinions of others end quote Gerard's Point here is not gendered I think it applies to male bodybuilders
• 66:00 - 66:30 who compulsively inject harmful steroids as it does this example of bulimics and it is this oppressive prohibitions such as coverings for one's body or preventing certain types of people from doing certain activities can serve a legitimate albeit paternalistic end to limit certain objects from inciting competition to take them out of the memetic game entirely once we liberate people from these oppressive prohibitions as this example
• 66:30 - 67:00 shows a deeper and more subtle form of Oppression can take place we can be just as compelled to do activities against our own interests but seemingly out of our own volition due to memetic rivalries this idea may be distasteful to Modern intuitions but let me provide an example I think we can all relate to why do certain parents prohibit their children's social media usage maybe especially teenagers because from one perspective this is a very oppressive
• 67:00 - 67:30 act to limit a species of freedom but I think and I think many of us will agree that it is oppression to prevent a greater form of Oppression the memetic frenzy that teenagers often get caught up in which can even more take away their agency modern man then for Gerard fully liberated is subject to oppression precisely where he thinks he has Liberty through mimesis the liberating can quickly degenerates into an impressive
• 67:30 - 68:00 ought whatever objects were given Liberty to pursue can become an object of mimetic rivalry coercing us through a radically different Channel and so Gerard believes oppression will always play Society it either exists explicitly in different forms of prohibition like gender roles and castisms or it exists more subtly through memetic competition coercion disguised as Liberty if the threat to our treasured ideal of Freedom was not enough so too will
• 68:00 - 68:30 equality be threatened in equity much like oppression will be a social pathology that we can't escape from and the reason is quite simple insofar as we remove the real forms of inequality a caste system's gender Norms where we consider groups of people as being essentially different we go from external mediation internal mediation by bring people closer but as I've argued extensively in this lecture proximity is the precondition
• 68:30 - 69:00 for comparison for jealousy for memetic rivalries and so as the real distance between people shrink people feel more prone to compare and as a result the subjective experience of inequity balloons this of course is none other than the famous tocqueville principle that Alexa satokville observed after coming to America I quote tocqueville here when inequality is the general law of
• 69:00 - 69:30 society the most blatant inequalities Escape notice when everything is virtually on a level the slightest variations cause distress that is why the desire for equality becomes more insatiable as equality extends to all end quote and I think we are living in just such a moment now at a time when the inequalities between agenders and races have never been so small in American history and continue to decrease the
• 69:30 - 70:00 cries of Injustice and the painful experience of inequity seems to only increase and so not unlike oppression we are forced to choose between real and psychological manifestations of inequity either we have real inequality differences in essence or we continue to close down the differences among peoples only to inflame our comparative and competitive drives and therefore making the subjective experience of inequity
• 70:00 - 70:30 much more suffocating with these necessary pathologies of man and Society in view I wish to argue that Gerard's psychology is not just true Arts psychology he's doing something much more specific much grander more ambitious and ultimately impactful Gerard is giving us a theodicy a theodicy I would posit has four key movements or components first and most primarily a theodicy's aim is to explain the origin of all evil
• 70:30 - 71:00 whereas its source how does it manifest what are the possibilities of Escape by doing so second theodosis also tell us something about the shape of the good what can be achieved and expected from this world and as a result theodosi's third reconcile us with the world if not all theodices can fully legitimize evil to justify the ways of God to man so to speak at the very least they can reconcile us in a limited Way by explaining their origin
• 71:00 - 71:30 but beyond mere reconciliation theodices last and most importantly tells us how to feel and what to do about evil and Injustice in the world same normative interpretation of phenomena experienced in the light of different theodices creates very different reactions let me explain why theodices are so important with two examples first let's look at hegel's theodicy hegel's theodicy looks something like this to the primary question on the nature of
• 71:30 - 72:00 evil Hegel would say that in modernity all human evil Injustice and equality crime are never a result of systematic perversions of our institutions but deviations from those institutions if too many people say are uh being born out of wedlock and have deficient childhoods as a result it's not because there's anything wrong with a two-parent nuclear family but because we aren't adhering to the values and structure of such a family enough this understanding
• 72:00 - 72:30 of evil naturally tells us the shape of the good it is encapsulated in his famous double sentence the actual is rational and the rational is actual what Hegel means here is that the actual values we already hold most notably freedom and the actual institutions we already have the nuclear family civil society and the nation-state are fully rational they're fully good in some sense even if it may not seem so to us
• 72:30 - 73:00 our world is already fully hospitable to Humanity's most important ends according to Hegel then we are at an end of History where we have already achieved the full good whatever evils that exist are mere deviations it's not hard to see how this reconciles us with the world it does so by enabling us to affirm the world in its Essence that the modern world in its Core Design is good
• 73:00 - 73:30 and last but not least this reconciliation is why the classical Hegel is often thought of as a conservative there's no need for any normative or institutional revolutions all that we need to do is institutional reform to redesign and rejuvenate our institutions with the values and structures they already have now let me give you a different Taste of theodicy and for that let's look to Rousseau's fiatocy there is a terrific book bearing
• 73:30 - 74:00 that exact same name Rousseau's theodicy written by a philosopher that had the great pleasure of studying with Fred newhauser Professor Neuhauser illuminated the overlooked significance and relevance of theodical thinking for me and so you must read that book I will but attempt a very clumsy summary here to the primary question on the origins of evil Rousseau will not unlike Gerard try to explain a whole Kaleidoscope of human evil on a singular intersubjective psychological Drive within human nature
• 74:00 - 74:30 that is inflamed and improperly directed by Society unlike Gerard Rousseau does not see human nature itself as necessarily fallen and corrupt even if it is prone to corruption the problem for Rousseau is not human nature in itself but how this Human Nature has been channeled by society that means that even if a contra Hegel the good for Rousseau is not fully actualized today it does not preclude the possibility of
• 74:30 - 75:00 a social organization that does fully actualize the good and meet all of Humanity's ends and thus Rousseau reconciles us in a way much more limited than hengel he gives us simply the reason to Hope even if we cannot affirm the world as it exists today because it channels human nature in all these perverse ways and poorly designed institutions misguide to Human Nature we can affirm the world because there's nothing about human nature itself that
• 75:00 - 75:30 precludes a fully good and hospitable World from existing however unlikely and so we are instilled with hope we are given a reason to pursue change to the same question of too many babies being born out of wedlock Rousseau might say something like you're wrong Hegel that the nuclear family isn't the right structure but there is some right structure or at least there can be some right structure out there we need to start experimenting with different forms of familial organization maybe like
• 75:30 - 76:00 polyamory and open marriages to make social progress there's Little Wonder then that with this type of theodicy Rousseau is the father of progressivism let us proceed then to Gerard's own theodicy to the primary question on the origins of human evil Gerard of course attributes it to metaphysical desire our prideful yearning for being all the pathologies that I've just described and many perversions which I haven't find their root in metaphysical
• 76:00 - 76:30 desire unlike Russo however these perversions are not accidental due to some poorly organized social Arrangements but a Central to Human Nature the shape of the good then for Gerard also becomes clearer you can try all you want you can try to redesign our society as much as you please but you should not entertain the delusion and it is a delusion that we will ever be rid of these pathologies there's a natural limit to how good our world can be and
• 76:30 - 77:00 so to continue our example to the question of babies born out of a wedlock someone with Gerard's theodicy might say something like you know Hegel you're wrong in thinking that the nuclear family is the perfect structure but Rousseau you are also wrong in your optimism in thinking that there can be a perfect structure a right structure whatever familial design we try we will always have these pathologies plaguing us but why is this the form of reconciliation yeah that's a great question
• 77:00 - 77:30 um indeed the type of reconciliation I have in mind for Gerard is not hegelian to show that the world in its Essence is already hospitable which engenders affirmation Gerard's reconciliation is also not russoian to show that even if our world is not a hospitable one now there's nothing in the essence of human nature that precludes such a world from existing which engenders hope and an impetus for action Gerard you are exactly right shows that evil is an unavoidable condition of
• 77:30 - 78:00 human organization and will only be more powerful as history progresses there's very little that we can do however to answer your question directly it is a form of a however limited reconciliation because if seeing the world as fundamentally good Hegel engenders affirmation and viewing the world as potentially good Rousseau engenders hope then depicting the world as irrevocably evil drawer engenders tranquility
• 78:00 - 78:30 we can look at the world and think this is just the way the world is and may even be able to help us appreciate the pathologies we aren't as burdened with let me frame this positively such a view that Gerard gives us frees us from the taxing obligation to always be looking at ways to better the world this limited sense of Freedom legitimizes a tranquil retreat at tending to one's own garden which Gerard will turn to as the last
• 78:30 - 79:00 only possible solution to the apocalyptic moment we are in today this is perhaps and I'm speculating here why people who've met Gerard described him as peaceful as tranquil as contented and even saintly let me read you a quote from Gerard people think I'm some kind of wild monster because I don't have any rousseauist Illusions about the natural goodness of man but nothing teaches moderation like the theory of original
• 79:00 - 79:30 sin which is always the opposite of what its critics say it is because it always meets Rousseau's ideas with disappointment in reality the belief in man's natural goodness always leads to the hunt for scapegoats indeed on this point the story of Rousseau himself and his descent into paranoia are quite exemplary end quote Gerard's point is that Rousseau is so pessimistic in actuality because he is too optimistic in possibility Gerard is
• 79:30 - 80:00 then the exact inverse here he's so optimistic or at the very least contented in actuality because he is extremely pessimistic in possibility because Gerard believes in unshakable evil original sin he isn't as surprised or angered or bothered by the actual evils of the world Gerard isn't paranoid looking for culprits everywhere because he understands evil as not coming from a few guilty individuals but from the very core of human nature
• 80:00 - 80:30 so this reconciliation however limited is nothing to scoff at because without it we tend to become overly anxious upset and angry Gerard rescues us from Rousseau's descent into paranoia I hope you're starting to see the important practical consequences now of theodices even if people have the same normative interpretation of phenomenon the example we've been using so far is that babies born out of wedlock are bad theodoses greatly change how we relate
• 80:30 - 81:00 and react to such phenomena to put it very simply theodices are about our expectations of the world of course we're going to react differently to the same normative phenomenon if our expectations of the world and its goodness are different and I would wager that in modernity most of our disagreements on the political Spectrum aren't on the normative interpretation you know whether wedlock is good or bad a phenomena but on what we can expect from society we don't disagree on reality as much as
• 81:00 - 81:30 possibility these days I think Gerard's theodicy tampers the expectations of all forms of russoian progressivisms and specific Ally inoculates us against a whole host of what we can call critical theories now for the purposes of this discussion by by critical I'm referring to theories with two conjoined movements first the theory aims to describe an injustice or pathology within society and second
• 81:30 - 82:00 hoping that nothing other than that description engenders action and emancipation it aims these critical theories that we're trying to discuss here to go from critique directly to inspire change Gerard's theodicy defends these types of naive critical theories not by arguing against them disagreeing whether something is pathological or not it takes the bite out of critical theories by unchaining these two movements the
• 82:00 - 82:30 mere description of a pathology is no longer enough to engender change because pathologies are shown by Gerard to be inevitable Marxism here I think is one such critical theory because Marx himself described that he was not interested in making recipes for the cookshops of the future for giving these positive visions of what a communist Utopia should look like Marx was content with mostly dedicating his work to a critique of capitalism to show how capitalism generated numerous
• 82:30 - 83:00 psychological and social pathologies and hoped and believed that that critique in itself should have the normative Force to engender proletariat Revolution the most impactful I think of Mark's critiques centered around the psychological pathologies that capitalism generates a fetishization of objects of production an alienation from the process of production as well as the social pathologies created by what he called capitalistic exploitation right
• 83:00 - 83:30 oppression and inequity of course by now you should already be able to anticipate Gerard's answer here a fetishization attributing surplus value onto objects is part of our psychological Constitution then Marx while warranted in identifying production relations as that which channels fetishization was incorrect In concluding that they were also its Chief calves the Jordanian says something like show me a society where people do not unduly
• 83:30 - 84:00 fetishize a set of objects be it capitalistic religious political or cultural show me a society where there isn't some form of oppressive coercion show me a society where inequity real or psychological has been eradicated the reason you can't is because these pathologies are made necessary by our human nature and not by capitalism Gerard would say Marx even if you are right about the pathologies within capitalism you are mistaking the channel of these
• 84:00 - 84:30 pathologies for their root causes and therefore you shouldn't expect these pathologies just to go away insofar as you change the economic structure and I think unfortunately this was the story of Communism in the Soviet Union where it first took root fetishization was simply redirected from objects of production to charismatic Russian leaders alienation well that was alive and well perhaps even worse in the cold Soviet state apparatus oppression indeed no longer came from
• 84:30 - 85:00 the demands of a factory owner and now came from the often more unreasonable demands of a central planning committee inequity was no longer bolstered by the Surplus value capitalists took from their workers but it re-emerged as a form of hoarding by Soviet party members of course Marxism isn't the only thing but just a good example that I brought up in the crosshairs of Gerard's theodicy you think private property and political Liberties is going to help it might
• 85:00 - 85:30 emancipate you from the feudal Lord but they themselves will be your new ball and chain you think patriarchy and religious traditionalism has kept you oppressed well just look at the horrors committed in the free love hippie communes of the 60s and 70s you think the internet will bring about a free connected and truthful World we'll look at how it's being used for surveillance Division and the spreading of lies and you think cryptocurrencies by the nature of them being decentralized will grant access for all and finally give us an equitable
• 85:30 - 86:00 Financial Market we'll go look at that Genie coefficient of Bitcoin any form of critical utopianism is doomed to fail because human nature and not any form of political social cultural organization is the real root of evil for Gerard you are only rubbing ointment on the skin given enough time the perversions of human nature will infiltrate and corrupt any such structure of course of course Gerard's theodicy
• 86:00 - 86:30 does not preclude any form of progress or change whatsoever there are different intensities of these pathologies right it would be ridiculous to say of slavery well there's oppression everywhere we'll just have to live with that one the very pathologies that Gerard brings up can act as a productive basis for constructive conversations how are they being channeled today who is being harmed how do we limit their inflammations what limitations and side effects are we going to run into if we push too hard for change these conversations however will look
• 86:30 - 87:00 very different from the critical projects today that seem content in pointing out all the pathologies of society against the backdrop of Gerard's theodicy these projects carry very little Force you've simply shown me that what is necessary does indeed occur you've shown me that one plus three equals three plus one you've shown me that that Bachelor over there is indeed unmarried and that the triangle over there does indeed have three sides Gerard's theodicy then is an inoculation
• 87:00 - 87:30 against critical sentiments all too common in our society today to throw out the baby as soon as the bath water gets a little bit lukewarm that wants a revolution at the first glimpse of discomfort and wants to change everything at the first slight what Gerard provides Us in his theodicy is a powerful critique of critique that is to say putting a limit on the forcefulness of critical projects for if we are astute interpreters of the world
• 87:30 - 88:00 and human nature we will see that pathologies will always be with us no matter what we do in many ways then Gerard is a Converse Marx philosophers tried too hard to change the world the point is to interpret [Music]
• 88:00 - 88:30 thank you