Editing 1: Peter Thiel (section)

=== Girard’s Mimetic Theories ===

'''Eric Weinstein:''' So let me return back to the line of inquiry. I mean, sorry, just enjoying so much hearing what you have to say. Some of it's new to me. The theories that might be portals into a different way of looking at the world.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' One of them that you brought into my, I've never heard of before was Girard's various theories. And I wonder if you might say, you've often credited success in business to how you understood and you applied Girard. I mean obviously he didn't have this kind of level of business success. So can you talk a little bit about your personal relationship to Rene Girard's theories as a portal into a different way of seeing the world?

'''Peter Thiel:''' Well let's say a little bit about the theory. So it's, it was sort of this theory of human psychology as deeply mimetic where you sort of, you copy other people.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' So, so just for the folks at home mimetic as in mime rather than memetic is in meme.

'''Peter Thiel:''' Yes. Well they're probably closely related. But you imitate people but that's how you learn to speak as a child. You copy your parents language, that's how, but then you also imitate desire and then there are sort of all sorts of aspects of mimesis that can lead to sort of mass violence mass insanity. So it has, it's both what enables human culture to function, but it also is quite, quite dangerous.

'''Peter Thiel:''' And you know, when I came across this sort of constellation of ideas as an undergraduate at Stanford, you know, my biases were sort of libertarian, classic liberal, only individuals exist. Individuals are radically autonomous, can think for themselves. And so this was, it was sort of a powerful corrective to that intellectually. But then it also worked on an existential level where you sort of realize, wow, there are all these ways that I've been hyper mimetic, I've been hyper tracked, why am I at Stanford, why does this matter so much? Why, you know, why am I doing all the things I'm doing?

'''Peter Thiel:''' And that's, it's a prism through which one when looks at a lot of things that I found to be quite helpful over recent decades. I think the preference falsification you can think of in mimetic terms where, you know, everybody goes along with what everybody else thinks, and then you can get these sort of chaotic points where all of a sudden things can shift much faster than you would think possible because there are all these dynamics that are not, you know, not simply rational. It's not quite correct to model people as these sort of classical Adams or something like that, it's much more entangled.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' What would be a good way for a people listening at home to start to get into Girard's philosophy if they were interested?

'''Peter Thiel:''' Well there are, you know, it's, there's sort of a number of different books that Girard wrote. I think the magisterial one is probably Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. So it's this truth of mimesis and violence and the ways. So it's sort of part psychology, part anthropology, part history.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' All portal, I should point out because they're all hidden.

'''Peter Thiel:''' It's, you know, it's a portal onto the past, and to human origins. It's our history, it's a portal onto the present, onto, you know, the interpersonal dynamics of psychology. It's a portal onto the future in terms of, you know, are we going to let these mimetic desires run amok and head towards apocalyptic violence where, you know, even the entire planet can no longer absorb the violence that we can unleash or are we going to learn from this and transcend this, in a way where we get to some very different place.

'''Peter Thiel:''' And so it has a sense that, you know, of both danger and hope for the future as well. So it's, it is sort of this, you know, panoramic theory on a lot of ways. Super powerful and just extraordinarily different from what one would normally hear. You know, there's sort of like almost a cult like element where you had these people who are followers of Girard. And was sort of a sense that, you know, we had figured out the truth about the world in a way that nobody else did and that was generative and very powerful.

'''Peter Thiel:''' So, you know, it's always, there are parts of it that are unhealthy, but it was, you know, it has sort of an incredible dynamism. And then it just, you are aware that, you know, maybe things are so different from how they appear to be that, you know ... there may be a portal out there, there may be, you know,

'''Eric Weinstein:''' What was shocking to me. I mean, the first time I heard about it, you invited me to a conference that you were keeping quiet and I was in the news and there was quite a lot of anger and furor that I had done something wrong. And you waited a few days to give a talk and you talked about scapegoating and the mechanism by which violence that might be visited upon the many is visited upon the one. And then you also started talking about the King as if he is sort of scapegoat in waiting, so that the King is not necessarily something that one would want to be.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' And I found it absolutely fascinating because it turned so many ideas on their heads that I got angry at you. Why hadn't you told me this earlier when I'd been through three sleepless nights before I'd heard the theory. So I found it instantly applicable, particularly if you're the sort of person who's likely to get scapegoated by not taking refuge in the herd. Do you think it has more relevance to people who are struggling to break out as individuals because of the possibility of being picked off?

'''Peter Thiel:''' Well, I think it has universal ... I think it is broadly true, and so it has some sort of universal relevance. I think the problems of violence and scapegoating are universal problems. It's probably the case that there are certain types of people who are more likely to become scapegoats, but it's not an absolute thing. So there's always, you could say there's an arbitrariness about scapegoating because the scapegoat is supposed to represent, to stand in for everybody. So the scapegoat has to be perceived as someone who's radically other, but then also has to somehow emerge from within the group. There are times when the scapegoat is the sort of outlier, extreme insider, extreme outsider, king/criminal or whatever personality.

'''Peter Thiel:''' That's probably a dangerous sort of thing. It's like Abraham Lincoln, the incredible orator who also grows up in a log cabin, these extreme contrasts are often people who are at risk of this maybe more than others. And then at the same time, because these are mob-like dynamics, there is sort of a way in which it's not like anyone's really safe from the violence ever. No one's completely safe.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' I think that's quite true.

'''Peter Thiel:''' But yes. There is a thought that one of the history ideas that Girard had that is that there's a dynamic to this process where scapegoating, it only works when people don't understand it. As you understand it better, it works less well or it has to get displaced into other dimensions. If you have a witch hunt, say, we need to find a witch to bring back peace to the community, that's a psychosocial understanding of what you're doing is actually counterproductive of the witch hunt itself. The witch hunt is supposed to be a theological epiphany that God's telling you who the witch is. If you think of it as some sort of psychosocial control mechanism, then it won't work any more.

'''Peter Thiel:''' A metaphor that Girard uses is that the sacred is like phlogiston and violence is like oxygen, but it only works in a world where it's misunderstood. So if you understand scapegoating, you end up in a world where it works less and less well, and the kind of political and cultural institutions that are linked to it will tend to unravel. I think one of the ways in which this has happened a great deal in modernity is that we scapegoat the scapegoaters, go up one level of abstraction.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' That's interesting.

'''Peter Thiel:''' That always, it makes it a little bit more complicated. If we go after the people who were the historical oppressors, the historical victimizers, that's often a super powerful way, and it's slightly too complicated. There was a Bill Clinton formulation of this, "we must unite against those who seek to divide us", which is on some level itself contradictory, but then it's a little bit too hard for people to fully disentangle.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' That's very funny.

'''Peter Thiel:''' That's one way that I think it still works even though it's, again, when everyone sees these moves, when everyone understands them, it just doesn't work that well any more.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' So it's like saying, "Would you like me to prescribe you a placebo?".

'''Peter Thiel:''' Yeah. That probably does not work very well.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' But then the other part of it that I find terrifying which is, but also interesting, is that implicit in this framework is that there is a minimal level of violence needed to accomplish an end, and that the scapegoating mechanism while entirely unjust has the virtue of being minimal in this, that horror is visited upon the individual.

'''Peter Thiel:''' Yes, yes. Or the theological terminology Girard would use would be that scapegoating is satanic and that archaic cultures were a little bit satanic but not very. They were sort of satanic in an innocent way because the violence was actually a way to limit violence, that violence is both the disease and a cure for the disease. We need violence to drive out violence. This is how our societies work. And then it's not quite clear how things will continue to work. You could always say that there is a sense in which - and this is super broad brush stroke-type argument - there's a way in which you can say that the Left is more focused on the unjustified nature of violence, and the Right is more focused on how a certain amount of violence is needed for society. There are ways in which they're both right, and then there are ways in which they're both deconstructing each other.

'''Peter Thiel:''' You could say a nation state contains violence in both senses of the word contain.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' Oh that's good.

'''Peter Thiel:''' Because it contains it as it limits it, it channels it in certain ways, but then it's also part of its very being. You get into all these questions. When it's appropriate, when it's not. That's why I don't like violence. I think it's a very serious problem, but-

'''Eric Weinstein:''' You also recognize its instrumental nature.

'''Peter Thiel:''' If you said, "We're going to get rid of all violence tomorrow. It's going to stop-"

'''Eric Weinstein:''' You'd be talking about nothing.

'''Peter Thiel:''' Or I think-

'''Eric Weinstein:''' There's no way in which that can-

'''Peter Thiel:''' Well, that might require a tremendous amount of violence to enact or if we're going to have no more violence at all, maybe you'll have just total chaos and a lot of violence in that form. It's an interesting problem to... all these interesting descriptors, but then how to practically translate into action, very, very tricky.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' Yeah. I think that one of the things on the Left that people don't get right, and I don't know whether you'll agree with me or not, is that I think we on the Left are somewhat divided between two camps. One camp is quite open about wanting to end oppression and the other camp is cryptic about wanting to reverse it. In other words, you've oppressed for long enough. It is your turn to be oppressed by us and we are actually envious of oppression. There is something of a civil war. I mean I would say this is the way in which the IDW's left wing or left flank is misunderstood, which is that almost none of the left wing members of the IDW are interested in oppressing anybody. So there's going to be no payback period that sounds like fun to us.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' One of the things I hadn't understood until it was said to me quite starkly, progress is messy and you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. There is this just tolerance bordering on excitement about the opportunity to stick it to those who have stuck it to you, from your perspective, that this is an aspect of justice. Whereas the cessation of oppression is interesting to another part of that group.

'''Peter Thiel:''' The disturbing thing is that it's, of course, much less exciting and much less energizing.