His ideas do not magically make us stop being mimetic. The mimetic theory gives us a framework to avoid situations that inspire debilitating desires; what type of person to avoid and who to keep close

In primitive societies, such crises were resolved by the "scapegoating mechanism," in which the community, en masse, turned on an unpremeditated victim. The repression of this collective murder and its repetition in ritual sacrifice then formed the foundations of both religion and the restored social order.