The key ideas

Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life

Luke Burgis, 2021

After nearly selling his company to a legendary entrepreneur, the author felt relief rather than grief when the deal collapsed. This began his search for where desires come from. The book brings René Girard’s theory of imitation into everyday life, from social media and envy of colleagues to scapegoats and discovering what you yourself want.

Who it is for

For anyone who suspects they are pursuing someone else’s goals, and anyone influencing others’ desires: parents, managers, authors.

People fight not because they want different things, but because mimetic desire makes them want the same thing.

What the book is about

Luke Burgis nearly sold his company. The prospective buyer was Zappos head Tony Hsieh. Burgis adapted to Zappos culture as best he could: joining gatherings every evening and even changing his jeans to match Hsieh’s. At the last moment, the deal collapsed, leaving his company on the brink of bankruptcy.

Then he noticed something strange: relief instead of despair. He asked the question that began this book: had he wanted any of it himself?

He found an answer in French thinker René Girard. Its status first: Girard’s theory is a philosophical model of human beings rather than an experimentally proven law. Burgis attempts to bring it into everyday life, arguing mainly through stories.

Idea 1. We learn what to want from others

Girard says we do not invent most desires ourselves. We learn to want by seeing what others want, just as we learn language. He called this mimetic desire, from the Greek word for imitation. The illusion that desire arose independently he called the romantic lie.

The idea’s best-known follower is Peter Thiel. He attended Girard’s classes at Stanford and became Facebook’s first outside investor in 2004, investing half a million dollars. Burgis interprets the bet this way: in his account, Thiel saw social media as a machine showing people what others want.

This is the author’s interpretation. A successful investment does not itself prove the theory.

You never think about running a marathon until three acquaintances do it in succession. Suddenly, it seems like your lifelong dream.

A desire feeling entirely your own does not mean it arose without a cue. Ask yourself at least once where you first encountered it.

Read in Livria

About the author

Luke Burgis is an American entrepreneur and teacher working at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America. He has founded and developed several companies. Wanting is his first book.

All books by this author: Luke Burgis

Terms from the book

  • Mimetic desire: René Girard’s concept of desire adopted from others through imitation. Part of a philosophical theory rather than an experimentally measured effect.
  • Model of desire: In Girard’s theory, a person or group from whom we adopt a desire. Models may be distant or close, visible or hidden.
  • Scapegoat mechanism: Girard’s hypothesis that a group can release collective tension by directing it toward an individual or minority. A controversial anthropological model.
  • Thin desires: Burgis’s term for desires easily passed between people and quickly changing. An image from the book rather than a scientific category.
  • Thick desires: Burgis’s term for deep, enduring desires growing over years. The original English is thick desires; the Russian wording is Livria’s rendering.
  • Stories of fulfillment: The author’s technique: accounts of occasions when someone personally did something well and gained lasting satisfaction. A self-observation tool rather than a test.

All terms

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