How have René Girard’s ideas been influential?

René Girard’s theories of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism have found wide interest in diverse academic fields, including anthropology, theology, and philosophy, as well as political science and economics. They have also found their way into the cinematic arts and literature, such as in the work of Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. Girard’s idea of mimetic desire is regarded as particularly poignant for the study of social media. In fact, the significance of mimetic desire for social media compelled his student and later entrepreneur Peter Thiel to become an early investor in Facebook. Through Thiel, Girard’s ideas have been adopted by other political figures on the far-right such as blogger Curtis Yarvin and U.S. Vice Pres. J.D. Vance.