The loss of mimetic desire

René Girard, the French historian and philosopher, described mimetic desire in 1961* as the human impulse to imitate another, "the model", through focussing on acquiring an object that connects us with the status of the model. Girard says that there is always a triangular relationship of subject, model, and object. Through the object, one is drawn to the model, whom Girard calls the mediator. The mediator may be the hero in a novel or film. Maybe a celebrity or someone who is viewed as belonging to a higher social status. Mimetic desire is more commonly noticed in material acquisition summed up in the words of J. K. Galbraith as: “One man’s consumption becomes his neighbour’s wish. The more wants are satisfied, the more wants are born.”** But the idea of mimetic desire is psychologically searching of the human condition in highlighting an inner self-discontent from which the ego seeks to escape through acquiring objects that symbolise a more idealised state of the ego that is distinct from the true persona. Whilst mimetic desire can be construed positively, for example in seeking to emulate the character qualities of another and not the persona of another, mimetic desire is more usually associated with less admirable mimetic desires that perpetuate a cycle of discontent and a gnawing undermining of self-worth.

In China, the new affluent classes are buying luxury brands faster than anywhere else in the world (indeed luxury brands sales are in steep decline in Europe). Chinese market traders are strong on luxury brands but their "branded" products are in themselves likely to be expressions of mimetic desire for the true model rather than the real thing. Mimetic desire is at work when the purchase of a luxury brand is made not because of the possible functional benefits (eg of quality, style and longevity), but because the brand becomes the object through which I touch the status of a model even if the model is not precisely defined. Do I buy a Louis Vuitton bag because of its functional utility or because I want a badge to identify with a group of elites to whom I don't really belong conveyed by the imagery of Sir Sean Connery basking in the Bahamas slouching with his Louis Vuitton holdall?

According to the IPSOS Trends Observer 2009: "There is a re-evaluation of the style of consumption...individuals are changing how they relate to material goods." The survey says that "glitter and flash have moved out of the luxury market. What was chic yesterday seems to be in poor taste today with discretion and sobriety the new catchwords." Maybe we're beginning to see the signs of Enoughism defined by John Naish in his Enough: Breaking free from the world of more (2008) as "the realisation that one has more stuff than they could ever possibly need or use." Perhaps we are seeing the mimetic desire shifting in Western markets towards a desire less located on material acquisition and maybe towards aspirations of another order.

* René Girard, 1961, Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque, Paris, Grasset.
** J. K. Galbraith, 1958, The Affluent Society p.129