20 insights into mimetic desire, some of which might save your life:

The fox in Aesop's fable of the sour grapes in a Romantic Liar. The only reason he was able to convince himself that the grapes were sour is that he was alone. Had there been a rival fox who wanted them, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away.

The domestication of dogs probably happened because humans used them for ritual sacrifice.

Mimetic desire leads to entropy unless directed to something transcendent. The scapegoat mechanism brings order, but it is short-lived. The only way to break the cycle is some form of renunciation—in biblical terms, death to self—the false self. 📚Thomas Merton.

The worship of cats is related to the human perception that cats don’t want the way that we do—they seem unaffected by mimetic desire. In Western philosophy, the only creature who is free, who doesn’t want for anything, is God. You see the connection.