God may have created man in his own image, but given how profoundly varied we are<\/strong>, the claim about divine and human likeness deserves as much reflection as the fact of the infinite universe. We should not count on settling the matter. Not unless we want to acquire a serious neurosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might say that we have to take examples from somewhere in order to grow and avoid falling into anarchy. Parents raise children to become good citizens, so they can manage in life. Schools educate people in specific directions, and society demands adaptation from us. All of this depends on resemblance to other people and to a system that must feed us and secure our survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n History shows, however, that it is easy to go too far in imitating patterns and behaviors<\/strong>. Only one step separates proper adaptation from blindly following the crowd, which is the worst risk of mimetism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is worth adding that, in the natural world, blending perfectly into the background can lead to two dangerous effects. The first<\/strong> is trouble with reproduction, because an individual hidden from predators also becomes invisible to potential partners of its own species. The second<\/strong> is that excessive stillness and camouflage can make it harder to actively find food. And it is easy to get eaten. There is nothing in being a life-chameleon that holds any real power to transform our life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The philosopher Ren\u00e9 Girard<\/strong> described human mimetism brilliantly in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World<\/em>. When a person gives up his own needs, he adopts other people\u2019s goals and lifestyles, Girard argues. Wherever we look, we see the effects of this phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are all the diet trends that promise to make us slim in two weeks, often ending in serious damage to health. Enlarged lips, breasts, and buttocks, along with a blinding, halogen-white smile, are beauty standards borrowed from celebrities. They make women resemble one another, stripping them of subjectivity, natural sensuality, and warmth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women who cannot afford surgical interventions<\/a> sometimes take on years of debt to fulfill the dream of an imposed beauty ideal. And if they have no chance at all to invest in expensive procedures<\/strong>, they often fall into depressive states, destroying the very life from which they can no longer draw any joy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For many people today, a sense of meaning and fulfillment increasingly means adopting viral standards of wealth and appearance as their own. Otherwise they feel excluded not only from a social group, but from life itself. And since the average person finds it increasingly difficult to access resources accumulated in the hands of a few percent of the richest people in the world, the feeling of alienation grows more painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deep down, almost everyone dreams of becoming as rich as Elon Musk<\/strong>, though not everyone has the courage to admit it. The problem appears when we ask what they would do with such wealth. The answers tend to be: travel, clothes, good food, and luxury cars that would let them move from place to place faster and more comfortably. And then what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do we take care of the emptiness once we have spent our golden ducats and satisfied our need for safety, once fat transfers regularly arrive in our bank account? It turns out that few people would know how they actually want to live<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What added value could they bring to their own lives and to the lives of others? What would they do not professionally, not under compulsion, not because they have to earn money for a mortgage or new teeth, but from the joy of creating, from a work ethic? It is quite possible that someone to imitate would have to appear again, so they would no longer have to carry the burden of unbearable emptiness. That is why people with imagination are so valuable in this world: they will always find imitators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Girard, we desire what others have, and this in turn breeds envy, competition for the same resources, and escalating violence within the group. Our tendency toward mimetism<\/strong>, toward empty imitation, can lead to the disappearance of critical thinking and to submission before the manipulation of the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same thing happens in social groups, political parties, sports clubs, and among \u201cbelievers\u201d in various conspiracy theories. Two hostile groups always come to resemble each other, which means they stop at nothing in order to destroy one another. Only awareness that this is happening can pull us out of it. Of course, that does not mean we will stop destructive behavior entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, if we can still take even a little joy in small personal successes<\/strong>, we will begin to notice when we act in accordance with ourselves and when we are becoming like others, while believing that this is how we are creating our own identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can therefore test quite easily whether we truly want to lead a life full of splendor and fame, or whether we actually want an interesting life for which, in truth, we still have no idea. And instead of looking for that idea in what interests and excites us, we have chosen to ape others. How does that end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you remember the extraordinary successes of the Russian tennis players Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova<\/strong>? Delighted Russians, in small villages across the length and breadth of the country, began building tennis courts. Poor Russian parents clung to the dream that their little daughter might become a champion<\/a>, a tennis star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many sacrificed enormous amounts of time and money, even selling everything they owned, to support their child\u2019s intensive training. And yet the chances that anyone will become a tennis star are minimal, no matter how much they train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The marketing of sport and entertainment constantly plants in fans the belief that everyone should try to become a star and overcome their own social limitations. It may be hard for us to admit that what we call an individual choice actually depends on the perception and influence of others. We want to believe that we have full control over our lives and that we are completely autonomous. And yet we are troubled by the sense that we do not know enough, or that we lack something essential for our choice to be conscious. When we hear the voice of authority, we call its value into question,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n writes Renata Salecl, the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher, in The Tyranny of Choice<\/em>.*<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd the surgeon is pleased<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other people\u2019s dreams are easy to mistake for our own<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Imitating others can rob us of our own direction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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