As part of my research for Wanting, I compiled a list of anything Peter Thiel, Girard’s most famous student, had said publicly about his Stanford professor’s ideas. Now I’m sharing a partial list with you.
The list is not exhaustive. Thiels’ book, Zero to One, is shot through with mimetic theory from start to finish. This list also doesn’t include the many things (like Thiel’s The Straussian Moment speech and resulting essay) for which public, copyright-free links do not exist.
The worst monopolies are monopolies on ideas. No one thinker should have a monopoly on the interpretation of Girard. In my view, it’s problematic that the weighted value that many ascribe to Thiel’s opinions is greater than the value ascribed to the thousands of scholars and thoughtful people around the world (who are assimilating mimetic theory into their lives) combined—if people are even aware of them.
This is a consequence of something I refer to in Wanting as the “Cult of Experts.” A billionaire is able to a…