"What Is Happening Today Is Mimetic Rivalry on a Global Scale"

Abstract

H.T.: Can your theory of mimetic rivalry be applied to the present international crisis? Girard: The error is always in reasoning from categories of difference. The root of all conflicts lies rather in competition, in mimetic rivalry between persons, countries, and cultures. Competition is the desire to imitate the other in order to obtain the same thing he or she has, by violence if necessary. Terrorism is undoubtedly connected to a world different than ours. But what gives rise to it is not this difference, which distances it most from us and renders it beyond our comprehension. What gives rise to it, on the contrary, is an exacerbated desire for convergence and resemblance. Human relations are essentially relations of imitation and competition. What is happening today is mimetic rivalry on a global scale. When I read the first documents from Bin Laden, alluding to the American bombing of Japan, I felt from the outset that this went beyond Islam to the scale of the entire planet. In the name of