The Genesis of Desire

Ch. 1: Psychological Movement

C H A P T E R 1 Psychological Movement 1. MIMETIC DESIRE Men think themselves free simply because they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. —Spinoza To be able to reflect on desire, I propose to give it a definition that seems to me both appropriate and sufficiently broad to allow investigators from a variety of fields to think about it together: desire is psychological movement. In psychology, there is no movement that is not desire, and there is no desire that is not movement. Every movement requires an energy, a “driving force.” It also supposes a finality, that is, a goal toward which its trajectory can be oriented—some object, an idea or an ideal that can order it, attract it, give it definiteness. The great psychological theories (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive psychology) have taken positions regarding that energy and that finality and have attributed to them various origins and explanations. For my part I became convinced early on of the tremendous power of the theory of mimetic desire. This theory takes its departure from a very simple anthropological hypothesis: that a person’s desire is always copied from the desire of somebody else. To put this another way, this means that our desires 17 18 Chapter One do not belong to us, that they are not determined by some special property of our own but are suggested to us by another person whom we rush to imitate. When I fall in love, it is only myself believing that my desire has spontaneously surged toward this woman who suddenly seems to me unique among all others. I believe that I alone perceive those hidden treasures in her that escape all others. In reality, however, if I recognize this woman as special, separating her out from all those around her—who may, after all, be no less desirable—it is not because I divine in her secret qualities or ideal virtues that my perspicacity alone has made known to me. Nor is it that she alone is capable of striking a resonant chord in my being, but rather that she corresponds to a whole series of cultural “models” that have been presented to me over the years and have tutored me regarding “whom to desire.” Usually this mediation is even more direct: it passes by way of the desire of somebody close to me who has pointed her out without even realizing it. Some friend has called my attention to her beauty or has commented on her charm, her obvious attractiveness, her intelligence. And whatever I may think about that person, whether I simply feel some esteem for him, or whether he may even be my best friend, his revealing that he feels attraction to her awakens my curiosity, arouses a similar interest and soon elicits a similar sense of attraction in me, an attraction that I believe is spontaneous, despite the role of the other’s mediation in giving birth to it. That is why it is possible to fall in love with a person one may not yet even have met—by hearing others talk about her, praising her qualities in terms that sound charged with desire and that by that very fact evoke desire. When I do meet her, then, I will already, without realizing it, be predisposed to fall in love with her. Or I might also fall in love out of rivalry. Whether intentionally or not, my beloved may forbid me to love her while at the same time encouraging me to do so by her own behavior. In the midst of passionate kissing, she may say, “You mustn’t love me. I am already engaged—alas—to someone else. He loves me and wants to marry me. I didn’t yet know you when I promised myself to him. I can’t destroy him by abandoning him, still (accompanied by another passionate embrace), alas, it’s you that I love. But our love is impossible.” This sort of situation is not uncommon, and one who takes part in such a conversation can feel his (or her) desire surge like a lightning bolt due to the action of two mechanisms that we will encounter again and again in the course of our study: (1) the interdiction: our love is impossible; (2) the presence of a rival. Psychological Movement 19 As Corneille might say, “pierced to the heart by a blow as unexpected...