Luke Burgis, author of Wanting, discusses René Girard's theory of mimetic desire with host Shane Parrish and explains how to filter life decisions.
0:00 / 0:27exact quote · 27.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“There are some things that I usually call thick desires in opposition to thin desires, which are the more sort of mimetic ones that can change on a dime. And I think cultivating those is important and finding out what those enduring Thicker desires are begins to act as a bit of a hermeneutic for what to say yes to what to say no to”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Luke Burgess
Insight
Luke Burgis: Desires are driven by third-party models, not objects themselves
“Mimetic desire means that a person's choice of an object is not determined by the object itself, But is fundamentally, or at least mostly determined by a third person or a third party, which is a mediator or model of desire. So there's always sort of a hidden …”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 39:59Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Insight
Burgis: Luxury brands must maintain distance between models and consumers
“It has to do with the space between us and the model. And that's why a luxury brand has to work really hard at always maintaining a bit of other worldliness from the readers.”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 54:01Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Insight
Burgis: Curating your close circle is the most powerful way to shape desires
“I absolutely think that choosing in an intentional way the people that we're closest to is the most important thing that we can do to affect what we want.”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 1:17:01Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Insight
Burgis: Positive role modeling beats top-down reorgs for fixing misaligned behavior
“The most important thing I think we can do is rather than try to solve the problem through some kind of a top-down system or reorg or something like that, or, you know, implementing new rules and policies. Is simply finding a model and putting a positive model…”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 1:49:29Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Insight
Burgis: Mimetic desire inevitably transforms role models into rivals
“Because the models that we choose, de facto, they just naturally lead us into some form of rivalry, if you think about it. You know, if I take another person as a model and begin to want what he wants I'm looking to him constantly as my model of desire to kind…”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 1:55:31Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Opinion
Burgis: Leaving investment banking early permanently closes doors in corporate finance
“If you leave this soon, you know, I, it'd been less than a year. You'll never work in investment banking again. You know, you won't work in corporate finance because nobody will really trust you anymore. Right. Like once you've sort of got that bug, I think he…”
Luke BurgessMay 31, 2022▶ 9:18Luke Burgis: The Power of Mimetic Desire
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.