Our Mimetic nature is simultaneously our biggest strength and biggest weakness. When it goes right, imitation is a shortcut to learning. But when it spirals out of control, Mimetic imitation leads to envy, violence, and bitter, ever-escalating violence.

If someone's primary objective is innovation for the sake of innovation, they usually end up in a mimetic rivalry with everyone in their field to compete primarily on the basis of originality. By devaluing all forms of imitation, they play a game of differentiation to get noticed. Being different for the sake of being different is the ethos behind

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Plato aimed to prevent this disintegration. He wished to raise citizens who would not envy the heroes of story but honor their own measure. He feared that those who fill their imagination with other people’s lives would neglect the shaping of their own. The guardians of his city could not be actors; they had to be themselves—unified, steadfast, and... See more