Girard: Desire, Doubles and Violence
Mimetic rivalry replaces acquisitive desire for coveted things when the rivals become aware at an unconscious level that they “lack” part of what it is to be a complete human being. The rivals’ experience of their own lack therefore entails a “misrecognition” of the other as whole and complete. The other is seen as the representative of “genuine” personhood: s/he is the “model” that embodies the desires and possessions that constitute “authentic” human being. At bottom, rivals covet not a common object but each other’s “wholeness.”