Imitating The Imitators
Why go to grad school?
A lot of Harvard MBS students would say investment banking. It’s practical and lucrative.
But on a scale of ”doing it for the money” to ”investment banking is my passion,” where do you think most of them land? I can’t be sure, but I’d venture to guess it skews towards the former.
Maybe that sounds pessimistic, but our brains are effectively wired with something called mimetic desire. As René Girard put it, “man is the creature who does not know what to desire,” so we imitate the desires of others and seek to fit in with the group by default. This is where you get fashion trends, market bubbles, and viral videos.
Perhaps the best example of this is kids. Kids always want the toy that the other kid has. They are learning what to value by imitating what other kids value. For the purpose of learning from others, imitation serves us well, but there’s a serious problem with it.
The result of all this imitation is that everyone ends up competing for all the same jobs, mates, real estate, and social status. Life becomes a zero-sum game.
In such situations, we often see the worst of humanity emerge. People inevitably become willing to cut corners in pursuit of the goal in the form of lying, cheating, and stealing. When we’re no longer acting in accordance with our values and morals, things have certainly gotten off track.
David Perell told a story of his friend’s experience in college where students were stealing each other’s unguarded books at the library; not because they didn’t have a book themselves, but because the program was so cutthroat that students were actively sabotaging each other.
This is not a good path.
Letting mimetic desire dictate our career paths isn’t going to make us happy. Just because investment banking, accounting, and law, are lucrative and well-regarded doesn’t mean they’re right for everyone.
Girard said that imitation is inevitable, thus, the real question isn’t what career path to take, but who to imitate.
