Luke Burgis is a veteran entrepreneur who formally studied philosophy and theology, and is currently entrepreneur-in-residence at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He writes a regular Substack newsletter called Anti-Mimetic.

Desire is a social process – it is mimetic

Desire (as opposed to need) is an intellectual appetite for things that you perceive to be good, but that you have no physical, instinctual basis for wanting – and that’s true whether those things are actually good or not.

Why it matters

Mimetic desire is part of the human condition, so it cuts across all domains of life

The five-minute video ‘How to Know What You Really Want’ (2021) for Big Think explains the difference between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ desires and how to tell them apart

Think it through

Identify the people influencing what you want

Key points

Desire is a social process – it’s mimetic

Source

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