Did you read the article? It sounds like you’re in agreement with the author.
> Below are some of the ways that we might cultivate some ‘anti-mimetic’ habits so that we’re not constantly struggling to keep up in the hamster wheel of desire that most of the people around us are running on—and reinforcing the wheel for one another. I hope some of these tactics will help you step off and chart your own course a bit more easily.
> As nice as it is to ‘fit in’, there are other times when it’s necessary to exercise self-possession, freedom, and intentionality to choose a course of action that isn’t quite so mimetic — that is not primarily the product of social imitation but the product of our innermost sanctum: our conscience, our understanding of our vocation, our deliberate and fully ‘owned’ choice of what we believe to be true, good, and beautiful. It is through these kind of intentional acts that we become who we are.
> Being “anti-mimetic” does not mean being a ‘contrarian’ or refusing to imitate one’s peers. That’s what every hipster thinks he’s doing, too. “Everyone leaves the beaten path only to fall into the same ditch,” wrote the social theorist René Girard, the father of mimetic theory. This kind of naive rejection of the culture is not what we’re talking about here.
> Being anti-mimetic means have the personal freedom to counteract negative forms of mimetic desire — like the kind that leads to polarized politics, unhealthy obsessions, envy, hustle-porn, and never-satisfied striving for things that won’t ultimately matter to impress people who don’t love us.
I do in some ways! And yet... the overall tone of anti-this, anti-that, only dead fish go with the flow... it looks like somebody pulling furiously at the Chinese finger trap. You need to relax, you need quiet and calm to hear the voice inside that will tell you the way beyond whatever ugly game you're stuck in today.
Maybe it's for different ears than mine. I think the message there is basically good. My take is a little different - people should go beyond fighting the flow and just let the flow be irrelevant to them. Let it pass around and through you and feel nothing. Find something different in that quiet.
Maybe putting words in the author's keyboard, but the fish in a current metaphor -- to me -- highlighted the same sentiment you seem to be promoting: don't be anti* all the time. Fish don't always swim up stream; they rarely do. The point is that a live fish has the ability to swim up stream when it needs or wants to.
> Below are some of the ways that we might cultivate some ‘anti-mimetic’ habits so that we’re not constantly struggling to keep up in the hamster wheel of desire that most of the people around us are running on—and reinforcing the wheel for one another. I hope some of these tactics will help you step off and chart your own course a bit more easily.
> As nice as it is to ‘fit in’, there are other times when it’s necessary to exercise self-possession, freedom, and intentionality to choose a course of action that isn’t quite so mimetic — that is not primarily the product of social imitation but the product of our innermost sanctum: our conscience, our understanding of our vocation, our deliberate and fully ‘owned’ choice of what we believe to be true, good, and beautiful. It is through these kind of intentional acts that we become who we are.
> Being “anti-mimetic” does not mean being a ‘contrarian’ or refusing to imitate one’s peers. That’s what every hipster thinks he’s doing, too. “Everyone leaves the beaten path only to fall into the same ditch,” wrote the social theorist René Girard, the father of mimetic theory. This kind of naive rejection of the culture is not what we’re talking about here.
> Being anti-mimetic means have the personal freedom to counteract negative forms of mimetic desire — like the kind that leads to polarized politics, unhealthy obsessions, envy, hustle-porn, and never-satisfied striving for things that won’t ultimately matter to impress people who don’t love us.