link: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0102/mimesis.htm
Mimesis
Imitation leaves its ontology unthematized; it knows only that since you are like me, I can do as you do. Mimesis thematizes its ontology. This great misunderstood concept of the metaphysical tradition was confined by Aristotle's Poetics to the esthetic domain for over two millennia until Girard gave it its due by revealing that human desire, and the human as such, obey the paradoxical structure of mimesis.
Imitation of behavior among similar creatures is generally unproblematic. More precisely, I can imitate your actions unproblematically so long as they do not involve the appropriation of a scarce object that we both desire to possess. But the search for such objects is precisely the kind of behavior that makes imitation advantageous. The evolution of higher animals has been driven by the difficulty of obtaining appetitive satisfaction, particularly food. If I serve as your model in the hunt, all will go well until your imitation reaches the point of reproducing my appropriative gesture toward the same object. At this point imitation provokes rivalry; the mimetic model becomes an obstacle.
The becoming-obstacle of the model is not in itself uniquely human. At the most elementary level of imitation, when a swarm of animals gather around a source of nourishment, each one becomes sooner or later an obstacle for the others. But the energy and attention of members of the group are directed to the prey, not to one another. If they do enter into conflict, or even begin to devour each other, this remains incidental to the appropriative operation that ultimately benefits the swarm and the species to which it belongs. The mimetic obstacle is there, but it remains epiphenomenal with respect to the benefit conferred by imitation.
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