Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - BONUS： Why Do We Want What We Want？｜ Guest： Luke Burgis

00:00:00.000 Where do our desires come from? Do we genuinely organically want the things that we want or do

00:00:06.920 we just want them because other people want them? I've been asking this question a lot over the past

00:00:12.260 few months since I heard about the book that we are going to talk about today and it's called

00:00:17.640 Wanting the Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgess. I found him on Twitter

00:00:24.240 and I found the things that he was talking about, the questions that he was answering,

00:00:28.080 so interesting and it's really made me think about why I want the things that I do and really

00:00:35.080 analyze my desires through the prism of my values and that is what we are going to discuss with this

00:00:42.320 author. I know that you are going to find this conversation fascinating and hopefully get a lot

00:00:47.580 out of it. We're also doing a giveaway with his books which we will talk about at the end of this

00:00:51.960 conversation but no more introduction. I want you to hear this. This episode is brought to you by

00:00:57.460 our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie.

00:01:02.920 All right, now without further ado, here's our new friend Luke Burgess.

00:01:15.820 Luke, thanks so much for joining us. Can you first tell everyone who may not know who you are and what

00:01:20.660 you do? Hey Allie, good to be with you. Sure. I'm entrepreneur in residence at the Catholic

00:01:25.060 University of America in Washington, D.C. and I spent my 20s in sort of in Silicon Valley. I was

00:01:30.620 never actually in the valley. I was in Southern California founding companies and it was kind of

00:01:35.300 the trendy narcissism of my day to be an entrepreneur and to look for quick exits to make as much money as

00:01:43.080 possible rather than being an Instagram influencer or a TikTok influencer. That was it for me.

00:01:47.280 Yeah. And I did that throughout my 20s. I had some successes and some failures but I got to the end

00:01:52.840 where I had a blown up business deal and I realized that I was really craving something that I wasn't

00:01:59.160 able to find in that culture, right? There weren't any people around me that had sort of any kind of

00:02:06.920 spiritual desires and those things were bubbling up in me. I was really dissatisfied and I was looking

00:02:11.320 for more and I ended up stepping away from everything that I was doing for a while just to take some time

00:02:17.100 to reflect on what it is that I really was looking for, what I was searching for, why it never sort

00:02:23.200 of seemed to be enough. And that led me down a path for pretty much the next decade of my life

00:02:29.420 where I explored the question of human desire, why I want the things that I want, what are the

00:02:35.800 motivations behind those things. And eventually this led me to really coming back to the faith of my

00:02:42.940 childhood and thinking of entrepreneurship, thinking of myself in a very different way.

00:02:47.520 And that is really kind of the basis or one of the basis of your book, which we will talk about

00:02:53.960 a little bit later in this interview, why we want the things that we want. And I found that really

00:03:00.020 interesting. But to kind of jump off what you said about your faith, I want to talk about a recent

00:03:08.480 article that you just wrote called The Three-City Problem of Modern Life in Wired. And actually,

00:03:15.740 before I get into that, you said a phrase that immediately got my attention when you were talking.

00:03:20.000 You said trendy narcissism, which is funny that you said that because I write about that concept and

00:03:26.260 use that exact phrase in my book that I wrote a few years ago, this idea of trendy narcissism,

00:03:32.420 which is kind of what has become the popular, I don't know, in the self-love, self-help world,

00:03:45.860 the world in which women are kind of like manifesting their inner goddesses. They kind of 0.99

00:03:51.760 say that it's all about self-care and self-improvement and self-empowerment, but really it is just a form

00:03:58.740 of trendy narcissism. So you and I are on the same wavelength there. I just wanted to point that

00:04:04.240 out. But to talk about your article in Wired, The Three-City Problem of Modern Life, you talk about

00:04:11.280 the three cities, Athens, Jerusalem, Silicon Valley. Most people are familiar with the quote that you

00:04:18.300 included. What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Of course, what does Jerusalem have to do with

00:04:25.020 Athens? That's kind of how people have said it over the years. And so you're talking about that it's not

00:04:30.420 just these two cities now that are either in competition or correlated. It is also Silicon Valley. So this

00:04:38.540 is the problem of our modern era. Tell us what you mean by that. Yeah, Athens stands for reason.

00:04:44.800 Rationality in Jerusalem is the world of faith, religion. So the question, what does Jerusalem have to do

00:04:51.180 with Athens or Athens have to do with Jerusalem was posed by Tertullian in the third century?

00:04:56.240 And in Tertullian's world, he didn't have to contend with the force that we know as Silicon Valley,

00:05:02.840 which represents the human urge to create, right? Which is a beautiful thing. It's a good thing. We

00:05:10.280 participate in the creation of God. And Silicon Valley, though, is we've never sort of seen

00:05:16.740 anything like the amount of capital, the amount of pure ambition, and searching for technological

00:05:26.460 process divorced from the world of faith, divorced from Jerusalem, in other words. And it can even be 0.76

00:05:33.760 divorced from Athens. It can even be divorced for rationality, because the driving force in Silicon Valley

00:05:39.960 is creating value, creating utility, which is part of value, things that are useful, without

00:05:45.840 necessarily accounting for what they do to the soul, or even whether or not they're reasonable,

00:05:51.840 quite frankly. So I'm trying to make the case that Silicon Valley has sort of changed our relationship

00:05:57.980 to reason and to faith. So a couple of examples of how I think that's happening. So think about

00:06:05.120 how Twitter is changing our relationship with rationality, right? 280-character Twitter debates.

00:06:12.680 It is warping. It's very hard to have a rational argument on Twitter. And then with religion

00:06:18.700 itself, right? Silicon Valley, during the pandemic, many people went to online church services. You had

00:06:24.540 apps that give people ways to pray that were raising tens of millions of dollars and blowing up. Some

00:06:30.120 people are still on them and not going back to regular church services. So Silicon Valley is

00:06:36.160 dramatically affecting reason, Athens, and faith, Jerusalem. And my point is, we have to come to

00:06:44.340 grips with how these three forces are interacting with each other and affecting the others.

00:06:52.000 All right, quick pause to tell you about my first sponsor for the day, and that is My Patriot Supply.

00:06:56.400 I know that you, like me, have been hearing about possible food shortages, and maybe you're trying

00:07:03.060 to become a prepper or at least learn how to can and put things in jars. But in addition to that,

00:07:12.480 you should just make sure that you've got an emergency food supply for you and your family.

00:07:17.240 That's why you need to order My Patriot Supply. They've got a three-month emergency food supply kit

00:07:21.920 for you, and you buy one for every member of your family. It gets you 2,000 calories a day,

00:07:27.220 lots of snacks, drinks, literally everything that you need. It's just better to be safe than sorry.

00:07:32.800 It lasts for 30 years. Put it in your pantry, in your laundry room, wherever you put and store

00:07:39.480 things away. Just go ahead and get it. Get one for every member of your family. Go to My Patriot,

00:07:44.980 or preparewithally.com, rather, preparewithally.com, and you'll get 20% off, 20%

00:07:51.740 off your order at preparewithally.com. Preparewithally.com.

00:07:58.240 One thing that you talk about is how different religions have tried to deal with maybe what

00:08:06.540 is considered the problem of Athens, the secular philosophers trying to, in some theologians'

00:08:13.360 mind, kind of replace Christian thinking with secular thinking, with philosophical thinking.

00:08:18.960 And that, in some ways, is truly opposed to Christian theology. And one thing that you talk

00:08:23.980 about, you talk about Catholics trying to kind of use both, use the rationality, the reasonableness,

00:08:33.020 the philosophy that comes out of Athens and kind of wet it with or pair it with Christian theology.

00:08:41.520 And then you say others are more skeptical. One of Martin Luther's fundamental tenets was sola fides

00:08:48.540 or faith alone. Now, I'm guessing, and I know this is not the point of your piece, but I think it's

00:08:55.000 interesting because I'm a Reformed Protestant. You're a Catholic. And I would argue that, of course,

00:09:02.120 that is not what sola fide means. That's not what Martin Luther means when he says by faith alone.

00:09:07.520 He does not mean to the exclusion of intellect or to the exclusion of reason or to the exclusion

00:09:13.160 of Athens. He is talking about salvation. That is also the difference between Catholics and Protestants 1.00

00:09:20.160 is faith alone when it comes to salvation. Martin Luther said in his famous speech in front of the

00:09:26.460 Deet of Worms is that unless I'm convicted by Scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the

00:09:32.820 authority of popes and councils. And so he actually depended on reason in his resistance to the

00:09:39.860 Catholic Church. So when I was reading this, even though I think it's so fascinating and there's more

00:09:43.080 that I want to talk about, that is one issue that I had, that sola fide is not an example of Protestants

00:09:48.620 abandoning, you know, good and sound philosophy and critical thinking in favor of Jerusalem.

00:09:56.640 No, you're absolutely right. So throughout history, though, both Catholics and Protestants,

00:10:00.720 there's a spectrum, right? And sometimes we've swung too far in one direction. And that's actually

00:10:05.700 the point of my piece is that you have some, and by the way, I think Athens, Jerusalem and Silicon

00:10:11.740 Valley cut across political divides. I think there are people on both the right and the left that live

00:10:15.520 in one of these three cities. And my point is that any, and we're sort of clustering sometimes in one

00:10:20.800 of the three cities. And, you know, you have like the scientism, I think of COVID was an example of

00:10:27.480 sort of Athens and Jerusalem clashing, right? People that sort of spent more time in one city

00:10:32.820 didn't really understand where people in the other city were coming from, right? Like, what do you

00:10:36.660 mean? I can't see my loved one in the hospital and visit them. There's different hierarchies of

00:10:41.740 values in the different cities. And I think the problem is like not having the integration between

00:10:47.400 the three. So I sometimes get the impression that each city wants its own ruler. So those that are in

00:10:52.920 Athens, right, the strict pure rationalist would love to just, you know, elect a scientist as president

00:10:59.580 of the universe. Those that are sort of in Jerusalem, maybe it would be a pastor. And those that are in

00:11:06.240 Silicon Valley might as well want Elon Musk to be, you know, the governor of everything, using the sort

00:11:12.560 of guiding force of that city, right? Reason, faith, or utility, or the creation of value. So my point is

00:11:20.740 that we're integrated people. We're religious beings, we're rational beings, and we're beings

00:11:26.000 that do get joy in creating value. And by creating value, I don't just mean businesses and companies,

00:11:30.780 I mean, creating families, self-expression, all of those things. And that the healthiest way to think

00:11:35.740 about this is we need to reintegrate ourselves as human beings. Because if one city is dominating

00:11:41.820 the discussion, we end up warped without the ability to even speak to people that are spending most

00:11:48.860 of their time in other cities, and we can't become isolationists.

00:11:52.060 Yeah. So how I kind of see it, and I'm interested to know, like, what exactly you think integration

00:11:58.640 looks like. So as a Christian, I have a Christian worldview. Everyone has a worldview. And so everything

00:12:04.720 that someone thinks is colored by their worldview. And so how I see it is that rationality is going to

00:12:14.680 be upstream from productivity, Silicon Valley. But upstream of both of those things is going to

00:12:20.660 be religion, theology, what people think about God, or don't think about God. Both of those things,

00:12:26.700 I think, have to be influenced by what we think about who is in charge, why we're here, what human

00:12:33.840 beings are, what right and wrong is. That cannot really be reasoned through rationally. And that

00:12:40.580 certainly is not going to, there's no conclusion that technology can come to when it comes to

00:12:46.700 morality and why we're here. Technology only asks can, not should. And so when I think about like

00:12:53.580 integrating these things, I think, okay, well, we have to get the top city right first. Like,

00:12:58.000 we have to get the religion, the theology right first, and then everything else is downstream from

00:13:03.620 that. Obviously, though, we all really disagree. A lot of us really disagree on that theological piece

00:13:09.620 on what Jerusalem is. So what does it look like to then integrate these things in a healthy way among

00:13:15.500 people in a pluralistic society, people who really disagree on the thing that I think is upstream

00:13:20.720 from rationality and technology? I mean, I think we have to be able to have discussions about basic

00:13:28.900 fundamental anthropology. What does it mean to be human? It seems to me like we're creating things

00:13:34.120 without asking those fundamental questions about what it means to be a human person. And you're

00:13:39.040 absolutely right. We start with different presuppositions. And I do think that the big

00:13:43.540 questions, right, the question of God is the fundamental question. But it seems like we've

00:13:48.460 abandoned even asking the question, right? You've just got people that consider themselves secular,

00:13:53.780 that don't even want to have the conversation. And my point in that piece is that if we're not

00:13:59.200 talking about like a teleology, the end of all of this, what is life about? What is this all for at

00:14:06.100 the end of the day, we're going to be creating things for what I call in the piece an unknowable

00:14:10.400 X, right? Like, humans are just this unknowable X. We're just, you know, a bundle of atoms and cells.

00:14:16.660 And we're creating things that are essentially doing violence to what it means to be human.

00:14:20.720 So the thing that I've noticed, even with with my book, talking about desire, I've done so many

00:14:26.920 podcasts, and many of them are with people that are secular. And they're like, well, where does desire

00:14:30.720 come from? And they want the self-help answer, I think. And my answer is, well, desire comes from

00:14:38.280 God, right? Like we were created by the desire of God and sort of an exitus retitus. And I've

00:14:44.780 realized over the last 18 months, really, how hard it is to have discussions about something as

00:14:50.140 fundamental as why we want what we want, if you don't agree on the question of where it comes from

00:14:56.120 in the first place. Yeah, it really all does go back to that. And I think that I've realized that

00:15:00.420 more than ever over the past few years, is that especially when we're asking such fundamental

00:15:07.280 questions that really, we haven't asked before, like, what is a man? What is a woman? What is a

00:15:12.940 human being? Like, why do human beings matter? Why aren't we just clumps of cells? Like, what is beauty?

00:15:18.560 Of course, people have been asking these questions for a long time. But some of these things we've

00:15:23.400 considered settled, and now we're re-asking them, re-exploring them, redefining them. Well, at the

00:15:29.100 end of the day, it all goes back to who you think created us, and how you think we got here, and who

00:15:35.420 is in charge, and what are we? I find it really hard, honestly, to talk about anything cultural or

00:15:43.820 political, social, without going back to Genesis 1. So I'm curious, does that count as me kind of like

00:15:51.200 clustering as kind of what you're talking about in this piece? Or is that just, you know, the way

00:15:58.460 that a believer has to think about things? I honestly feel like it's inescapable for someone

00:16:04.020 who does believe that we come from God. I mean, I don't think that's clustering at all. That's just,

00:16:09.580 you know, I think you're a rational person, and we're having this conversation, you know,

00:16:13.400 through using technology and, you know, very much with things that Silicon Valley created. So

00:16:18.100 we're very much living in all three at the intersection. And that conversation, I think

00:16:23.620 that Jerusalem is extremely underrepresented in national discourse and in dialogue. I don't know

00:16:28.580 if I said that explicitly in the Wired article, but it certainly is. I mean, I've lived in all three

00:16:34.420 places, you know, my days as starting technology companies. It's pretty much non-existent. It's

00:16:41.480 extremely difficult to find people that are willing to have those kinds of conversations.

00:16:44.600 And I think if you have no transcendent purpose, something that goes beyond this world,

00:16:51.880 then what are we doing here, right? What's the purpose? I think this is why people are

00:16:58.280 rudderless and purposeless. And I've just, when I asked the question, right, like what are we

00:17:04.380 building here and why are we building it? Is it just to extend our lives as long as we can? Like

00:17:09.360 what's the, most people don't have any kind of teleology, right? Some kind of end game. What is

00:17:14.880 this for? And what my book is all about is really summed up by, you know, Augustine, our hearts are

00:17:19.860 restless until they rest in you. I could not find out why it was so restless. And it's because I did

00:17:25.100 not have a desire that transcended this world, right? This world will never be able to satisfy all

00:17:30.060 our desires. My wife can't satisfy all my desires. And when we begin to think that this world can,

00:17:34.740 it makes us absolutely miserable. Next sponsor for the day, great sponsors, Annie's Kit Clubs.

00:17:42.660 If your kids are into crafting, or maybe you want them to be into crafting, or maybe you just want

00:17:47.320 them to be able to spend their downtime in a way that is constructive and good for their brain,

00:17:51.700 rather than just, you know, sitting in front of a screen and atrophying their mind,

00:17:56.100 you should look into Annie's Kit Clubs. It is a craft subscription service. And so every month,

00:18:01.900 your kids get a new craft with all the supplies and the instructions that they need. And the craft

00:18:06.640 changes every month. It could be a woodworking kid. It could be jewelry making for your daughters.

00:18:11.280 It could be a STEM project, all kinds of stuff. And everything that you need comes in the box that

00:18:16.160 shows up at your front door. Perfect for kids ages about seven to 12. Check it out. You can cancel

00:18:22.560 anytime. If you figure out it's not for you, there are no long-term contracts. Plus,

00:18:26.280 with my link, Annie's Kit Clubs dot com, you can get 75% off your first month. That's

00:18:32.980 Annie's Kit Clubs dot com slash Allie for that discount. Annie's Kit Clubs dot com slash Allie.

00:18:39.920 On that note, speaking about desire and the things that fulfill our desire and why we have the desires

00:18:46.280 that we do. You said ultimately they come, our desire comes from God. We come from the desire of God.

00:18:52.360 That makes sense to me. But I am curious more about the subject of your book, the mimetic desire

00:19:01.080 in everyday life. And in reading it, I mean, it seemed like a concept that I understand that

00:19:06.660 everyone kind of understands. You see something on Instagram that someone else wants. You don't

00:19:10.560 even really think that you need it. But because other people want it and because their scarcity,

00:19:16.140 you get it. I have a perfect example of this before we even get into your book,

00:19:19.160 just to kind of set it up in a way that people understand when you're talking about

00:19:24.480 mimetic desire. So there is this company called Stanley. I actually have like a mini one right

00:19:30.740 there for anyone who is watching. And they sell these huge like 40 ounce mugs, jugs, kind of like

00:19:40.260 a Yeti. I'm sure they would hate for me to compare it to another company. But it's got a straw. It's got a

00:19:45.560 handle. I had never heard of this. I mean, this company has been around for 100 years. They've

00:19:49.660 made this product for a really long time. But I started seeing it on Instagram. And then when you

00:19:54.500 go to their website, you see that it's constantly sold out. I mean, you have to be on some kind of

00:19:59.500 waiting list. You have to follow really closely these bloggers all of a sudden. And so I'm just

00:20:04.920 admitting like I am. I am definitely part of this culture and like have these kinds of desires.

00:20:10.740 I want one. I didn't want one before. I was fine with my, you know, knockoff. I was fine with my

00:20:15.980 Yeti. But if everyone has one and if it's so scarce and it's hard to get, well, then maybe I

00:20:21.240 want one. And I will just say I ordered one finally this morning after my friend texted me and was

00:20:25.860 like, hey, this person has a code. You can get it and have it. So when I was reading your book, that's

00:20:30.400 what I was thinking of, that we really do kind of want things because other people want them. And so

00:20:36.440 is that kind of what set you up in writing this book? Yeah, it was the realization. I had this

00:20:41.700 romantic idea that my desires are just a product of my autonomous self, that I'm the manufacturer

00:20:48.880 and generator of all of my own desires. And the thinker that heavily influenced me, who I discovered

00:20:54.220 in my late 20s, who really changed the course of my life, was a Christian named Rene Girard. And his

00:21:00.060 insight was that we have this idea that our desires are just entirely our own. He said,

00:21:06.720 that's absolutely wrong. We're human beings are social creatures, right? We rely on mediators of

00:21:13.560 desire. We're not the generators of our own desire, right? It doesn't come ex nihilo out of nothing.

00:21:19.060 Our desires are shaped and informed by other people. So the very idea, for instance, of self-love is

00:21:26.220 wrong. It doesn't exist, right? The idea that love is just generated completely by the self

00:21:31.940 is just fundamentally false, right? We're relational. Desire is relational. Love is something that happens

00:21:38.400 in the context of a relationship. So a person that grows up who doesn't perceive that they're loved is

00:21:44.720 going to find it pretty much impossible to love themselves, barring grace from God or a relationship

00:21:50.600 with Christ. But our desire is a product of relationships, worldly relationships, and of

00:21:58.580 course, relationship with God, which is very, very important. And when I look at my life in my 20s,

00:22:03.520 I was surrounded by people that cared about very worldly things. So big surprise, so did I. I didn't

00:22:09.820 want anything outside of the very narrowly defined accolades that many startup entrepreneurs want.

00:22:16.380 So it was this realization that, wow, I am heavily affected by other people. My desire is very social.

00:22:23.800 I went into college and right away I was affected by what everybody else was majoring in, where they

00:22:29.360 wanted to work, and I just followed them. I was all the while convincing myself that my desires were

00:22:35.720 entirely my own. I had no way out. And that's why this idea of mimetic desire, which means imitative

00:22:42.580 desire. Mimetic is a word that comes from the Greek word for imitation. Mimetic desire means

00:22:47.820 that we imitate the desires of others. And that's not a bad thing. We talk about the imitation of

00:22:53.720 Christ, but we have to be very careful and understand what we're imitating. Because we might

00:23:00.380 be imitating, I mean, this is the definition of sort of Satan, right? It's like, Satan sets himself up

00:23:06.700 as a rival with God and asks us to imitate him, right? So knowing who we're imitating, right,

00:23:12.500 is critical on a divine level and even on a worldly level.

00:23:16.940 Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about when mimetic desire gets to be a problem, like mimetic

00:23:23.040 conflict. As you said, sometimes it can be good. You're following other people who have good desires.

00:23:28.620 Sometimes it can be bad. What are some examples of that today, how that manifests itself negatively?

00:23:32.760 I think one of the best examples is when we're in a mimetic relationship, we are looking into the

00:23:40.140 other person to consistently model desires back to us, right? And we become a reflection of them,

00:23:49.160 even people that we consider our enemies. So, I mean, this happens in politics all the time,

00:23:54.940 right? Like people become a reflection of the very thing or people that they hate because we imitate

00:24:00.540 rhetoric, we imitate aggression, we imitate violence in this kind of never-ending game when

00:24:05.940 there's no model outside of that sort of one-to-one relationship, right? It could be between two

00:24:11.940 people or between two groups. And escaping that sort of rivalrous mimesis is really important. And if we 0.99

00:24:21.240 have no transcendent perspective, it's very difficult to do that because we become completely fixated on

00:24:28.220 other people around enemies. And, you know, we, we end up becoming like them. We become like that,

00:24:33.620 which we imitate. We become like that, which we pay the most attention to. So, you know, this happens

00:24:39.100 with, it happens in, with, in school, with, in high school. I, I think of all the people that I've

00:24:45.900 talked about this idea with, it's high school students who it resonates with the most because

00:24:49.160 they realize how easy it is for them to be looking to their right and their left and become obsessed

00:24:54.100 with what their classmates want, with what they wear, with where they want to go to school,

00:24:58.000 with what their goals are. To the, to the point where they, they forget who they are. And, you know,

00:25:04.980 we live in a culture that makes it, it's, it's, it can take you down a path very quickly where you

00:25:10.760 don't want to go. And if you don't think seriously about your own desires, other people are going to

00:25:15.300 give them to you or tell you what they are. And before you know it, it's 10 years later, and you've

00:25:19.460 never seriously thought about how people are affecting what it is that you want.

00:25:25.780 Is this what a world ruled by Silicon Valley looks like? A world that just says, well,

00:25:33.300 what's most efficient? What's most fun? What feels the best? What can we do? But never asks,

00:25:40.500 hey, what are my values? Where does this desire come from? What direction should we be heading?

00:25:47.320 Do you think that those two things are linked to the technology that has been created by Silicon

00:25:53.940 Valley and this kind of memetic crisis, if you will? I mean, absolutely. I think consumerism is

00:26:02.480 fueled by people building things or telling us that the most important thing in life is satisfying our

00:26:08.640 every desire. And if we buy into that, it's never enough, right? It's absolutely never enough.

00:26:17.940 And the Christianity's idea, right? This idea is like, you know what, if we live in a world where 0.92

00:26:22.760 we all narcissistically pursue our own desires, those desires will inevitably clash. We will inevitably

00:26:29.580 just exacerbate more and more rivalry and competition for things that ultimately don't

00:26:35.440 matter, to impress people that don't even love us in status games. The idea is actually like

00:26:43.380 self-sacrifice. Maybe my desires are not the most important thing in the world, right? Maybe there

00:26:49.020 are other people that need me, need my help. And my desires, I mean, it's such a selfish thing. It's

00:26:55.320 what this whole self-help industry is built around, is that satisfying my desires are the most important

00:27:00.200 thing. They're simply not. They're not the most important thing. And there's this fundamental

00:27:04.660 Christian paradox that when I stop thinking so much about myself and my desires, and I serve other

00:27:10.760 people, it's tremendously fulfilling and satisfying. It's like the whole idea of, you know, you have to

00:27:15.420 die to yourself or lose yourself in order to find yourself. So the whole climax of the book and

00:27:21.900 everything that I've sort of been my work for the last 10 years has been getting out of ourselves and

00:27:29.100 serving other people, willing the good of another person, rather than willing what I think I want.

00:27:36.300 And in most cases, I don't even know what I want. And Italian, where I lived for several years when I

00:27:40.360 was in seminary, has a beautiful phrase, ti voglio bene, which is the way that they say I love you.

00:27:45.920 But it literally means, I want your good. I want what's good for you. And that's very different than me

00:27:53.180 just constantly being obsessed with what I want and my goals. And when you make that flip,

00:27:59.240 the paradox is you end up learning that what you really want is to be in loving relationships.

00:28:07.140 Okay, let me tell you about CrowdHealth. If you are looking for an alternative, an affordable

00:28:12.380 alternative to health insurance, then you need to try out CrowdHealth. Unlike other health share

00:28:20.880 companies, there's no maximum per incident, you can see any doctor that you want. And here's how it

00:28:26.980 works. All you have to do is pay the first 500 of any health care event with CrowdHealth. And then

00:28:32.540 the CrowdHealth community takes care of the rest. There's no exclusive doctor networks, no huge premiums

00:28:38.140 or high deductibles, no surprises. We know the insurance model is broken. And CrowdHealth is a better

00:28:44.980 way to fund your health care costs. All you have to do is pay $99 a month for the first six months

00:28:52.840 when you use my code anyway. So that's a low fee per month. And then when those health incidents come

00:29:00.380 up, you just pay that first $500 for most events. And then CrowdHealth takes care of the rest. And so

00:29:06.100 you don't have to worry about all of the different burdens that come with health insurance. You can make

00:29:10.380 sure that you're taken care of and that you are also taking care of people in the CrowdHealth

00:29:14.500 community. So take charge of your health care today with CrowdHealth. Open enrollment is the

00:29:19.100 only time you can hit eject on the broken system without penalty. So don't wait. And for a limited

00:29:24.320 time, join for just $99 a month for your first six months when you use promo code Allie at join

00:29:29.980 crowdhealth.com. That's join crowdhealth.com promo code Allie. CrowdHealth is not health insurance.

00:29:37.940 It's a totally different way of paying for health care. Term and conditions may apply.

00:29:44.500 It's also very different than the world's definition of love today, which is unconditional

00:29:50.440 affirmation of someone's choices. How you just defined love, which is exactly how I define

00:29:56.060 it, is wanting what is best for the other person. And of course, as Christians, as God defines

00:30:02.100 best. That's why we don't celebrate sin. That's why we don't celebrate destructive behaviors.

00:30:07.380 Because love that means unconditional affirmation of someone's choices, even if they're wrong,

00:30:13.720 even if they're lies, even if they're unhealthy and hurtful to those around them is not what's

00:30:19.520 wanting and what is it's not what is in their best interest. And so it actually is ultimately

00:30:25.440 selfish because really what you're doing is you're making it easy on yourself. The hard thing to do is

00:30:31.860 to actually love someone and to tell them the truth. I mean, that puts you in an awkward position,

00:30:36.880 not puts you in a self-denying position because it's uncomfortable. It's inconvenient.

00:30:41.420 And so I think part of this memetic crisis that you're talking about is very flimsy definitions

00:30:50.400 of what love looks like because it is ultimately selfish and ultimately just about what feels good

00:30:57.920 to you. If you love somebody, you need to be willing to tell them the truth. And if you truly care about

00:31:04.440 what's good for them and what's best for them. And I think we live in a world where our desires are far

00:31:10.040 too small, right? As C.S. Lewis said, right? The problem is not that our desires are too great.

00:31:14.420 It's that our desires are too small. And we satisfy ourselves with these petty little things,

00:31:19.680 right? We satisfy cravings by going on a new diet or buying some new thing. There's things to make

00:31:25.360 yourself feel better. Love is not a feeling. It's not a feeling, right? Love happens in the context of

00:31:31.260 loving acts in relationships. One of my favorite parts or scenes in all of literature is in the

00:31:37.660 Brothers Dostoevsky, where this old widow comes to this old monk priest and says, I've lost my faith, 0.59

00:31:43.720 right? I'm depressed. I don't know. God has abandoned me. And he says, practice active love,

00:31:49.000 practice loving people in an active way, not loving dreams, not loving your imagination,

00:31:54.260 but active love, attending to the needs of the people around you. And you will regain your faith.

00:32:01.060 You will then understand, right? So in a sense, it was her telling her to get out of herself,

00:32:06.960 right? It's the opposite of what most people are counseled to do today, right? Acts of love.

00:32:13.420 Yeah. We're constantly told, even by professing Christian teachers, that you can't love other

00:32:18.100 people until you love yourself, which is a very privileged and sad way to think that you can't

00:32:25.540 go out and meet the needs of other people until what? You've accepted the cellulite on your thighs,

00:32:30.740 until you like the reflection in the mirror. I mean, that is a fundamentally wrong understanding

00:32:36.760 of not just love, but also what compels us to love, which is Christians. We believe that the love of

00:32:42.300 Christ compels us to love. And if we have that in abundance and unconditionally, then no matter how

00:32:48.280 we feel about ourselves in any given moment, we are empowered to love other people. And that is why

00:32:53.840 like constantly in this conversation, I'm thinking, wow, Christianity really is like the only rational 0.92

00:32:58.440 answer to so many of the problems that we have today. Can you talk a little bit about disruptive

00:33:06.980 empathy? What do you mean by that?

00:33:11.300 Disruptive empathy is a word or a phrase that I heard from my friend, Gil Bailey,

00:33:16.740 who used it. And it basically it's the mimetic thing to do is when somebody hates us or when

00:33:23.700 somebody is aggressive or passive aggressive to us, it is to imitate them. It's almost instinctual,

00:33:29.480 right? To do that. That is extremely mimetic behavior. Antimimimetic behavior is something we

00:33:36.620 have the ability to do as humans, which is to rise above the instinctual response and to love

00:33:43.580 somebody, even if they don't love us. And empathy is one way of doing that, right? It's refusing to

00:33:49.760 play the mimetic game of sort of tit for tat and to respond to people with the love of Christ, even

00:33:57.000 if they've never experienced it before, and even if they're hostile towards us. And I tell a story in

00:34:02.380 the book of where I sort of learned this lesson in a very scary way. When I had a guy who was essentially

00:34:08.680 a hitman show up at my door in Las Vegas to collect some money. And he and I engaged in roughly a week

00:34:18.680 long standoff with this. And one day, he found out that I was having a company party at my house in

00:34:25.880 Henderson. And he invited himself over to the party. And he showed up. And by the end of the night,

00:34:32.420 he decided that he just wanted to have like a human conversation with me. He ended up sort of

00:34:38.480 crying in my arms, I essentially practically cried in his arms. And he disrupted the sort of cycle of

00:34:45.500 animosity that the two of us had between us. And we realized that there was there was a misunderstanding.

00:34:52.160 Like within one second, the entire relationship was changed because he stepped out of the mimetic 0.96

00:34:57.700 sort of role that that he was playing. And that sort of, you know, is something that I've realized

00:35:03.440 that I have the power to do in any relationship in my life. I'm not a slave to the behaviors that

00:35:10.400 other people are displaying to me, I can choose to respond, right? I'm free to respond in it, not in

00:35:17.140 kind, but when the situation calls for it, it always calls for it in a loving way, right? I don't need to

00:35:23.040 just enter into the logic of, of the, of the, of the form or the way that other people love me. But it's,

00:35:28.800 it's tempting to do that. It's almost instinctual to treat other people the way that they treat us.

00:35:33.480 Yeah, that's interesting. And there is, I mean, there are toxic forms of fake empathy. It almost seems

00:35:41.160 like the idea of empathy is weaponized today, that if you don't agree with me on this political issue, then that

00:35:47.180 means that you are unempathetic. Again, kind of going back to what I think is the wrong definition of love,

00:35:52.800 that if you're not unconditionally affirming someone's choices or identity or whatever,

00:35:57.080 that means you are being unempathetic. Empathy is sometimes used, or at least the word empathy is

00:36:02.360 sometimes used is like a way to just like bludgeon and manipulate and extort your political enemies

00:36:10.500 into believing what you believe. But what you're talking about is a true loving other people as

00:36:18.200 Christ loved us, forgiving other people when it's hard to forgive them, loving other people when they

00:36:23.300 are unlovable, stepping out of your own selfish desires in order to be compassionate towards

00:36:30.700 someone else. It reminds me of your conversation or your interaction with the hitman, which by the way,

00:36:35.320 I feel like there's a lot more to that story. Crazy story.

00:36:37.620 There is. Proverbs 15.1, a soft answer turns away wrath. And that is kind of the Christian life is

00:36:47.160 responding to hostility and vitriol and anger with kindness and love.

00:36:54.440 Yeah. I mean, we need to be able to enter into another person's experience

00:37:00.460 and understand it without necessarily having to say that we agree with all of it. And it seems like,

00:37:11.320 you know, we're really confused, right? I think that sympathy literally means to see with the eyes

00:37:16.080 of another, to see things the same way. Empathy is a bit different, right? It means that I can enter

00:37:21.660 into the experience of another without losing my own self-possession, like losing my self-possession.

00:37:28.520 You know, I live in Washington, DC for most of the year. And in my younger days, especially when

00:37:35.400 somebody would sort of, you know, approach me on the street, right? Like pitching some hardcore

00:37:39.920 thing at me or asking me to sign something. I remember a couple of times I was sort of like

00:37:45.180 feigning agreement with them. And then I would get five minutes down the block and I'd be like,

00:37:49.120 wait a second. And I was like, it's so easy to lose our self-possession, right? We're scared to

00:37:56.580 speak the truth. We're scared to enter into those conversations, but real empathy, not the fake kind

00:38:01.320 of empathy where you just have to agree with everything that another person says or thinks

00:38:05.360 is being able to enter into the experience and say, you know what? I do understand what it's like

00:38:11.520 to be confused about who I am, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with the way that you're

00:38:17.400 going about this, this search or here. Like I want your good, right? So without, without abandoning

00:38:24.380 myself, my beliefs, my, my values without speaking the truth, that would not be loving another person.

00:38:32.480 Okay. Last sponsor for the day. And that is of course, Good Ranchers. Good Ranchers has an awesome

00:38:37.820 deal on their meat right now. When you use my link, goodranchers.com slash Allie to get your box of

00:38:43.740 all American better than organic chicken and craft beef and even awesome seafood. You also get four

00:38:52.560 free pounds of meat, two pounds of Wagyu ground beef, which is what we use the most in our house

00:38:57.340 and two pounds of our better than organic chicken breasts. I just love Good Ranchers. It makes my life

00:39:02.340 so much easier. I use it every night almost. It just, I just don't have to think about that. All I have

00:39:08.120 to think about is sides, but I know that I've got my meat taken care of. I make everything

00:39:13.540 that I possibly can with Good Ranchers meat. It's just so good. And like I said, it's all American

00:39:18.640 meat. Plus the people who own Good Ranchers, they're really great salt of the earth people.

00:39:22.460 You can feel good about supporting. So go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. You'll get your

00:39:26.620 four free pounds of high quality beef and chicken. When you do make sure you subscribe, that saves you

00:39:32.320 a lot of money per box. You can cancel at any time, but it shows up right to your front door on dry ice.

00:39:37.560 Really awesome deal. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie.

00:39:44.140 Tell me about the mimetic future, what we will want tomorrow.

00:39:51.200 Well, so this is where the three city problem really, I think, comes back into play,

00:39:54.780 where we have Silicon Valley, which again, stands in for a desire to innovate and create,

00:40:03.740 which is a good thing, right? As humans, we all have this desire to be co-creators,

00:40:09.620 co-creators with God. But when it becomes detached from teleology, when it becomes detached from

00:40:17.140 fundamental questions about who we are as humans and what we truly desire, then we risk building

00:40:25.400 things and creating a world in which we sort of just eliminate human desire altogether, right?

00:40:32.680 There are certain sort of like communist governments, right? Like desire is something

00:40:36.660 that they would prefer that people all desire the same thing or don't have any desires at all,

00:40:41.940 right? There's like an active effort. Desires are dangerous, right? So we can try to control other

00:40:47.580 people's desires and engineer other people's desires, build things that engineered and manipulate

00:40:54.340 desires, or we can do the hard work of transforming desires as a culture. So one is like sort of a

00:41:02.560 top-down approach, right? And then the other one is a bottom-up approach that depends on human

00:41:08.320 relationships and starts with those fundamental questions of if we as a culture completely reject

00:41:15.200 God, then our desires are going to be very, our desires can go no further than the things that

00:41:22.360 Silicon Valley creates, right? And we're always going to be, we'll be never satisfied, constantly

00:41:28.240 consuming, because that's, that's as big as our world, our universe of desire is. So again, it goes

00:41:33.740 back to that idea of, you know, C.S. Lewis, right? Like we, we don't desire enough. And I just wonder

00:41:38.920 what, what would happen in the world if we, if we thought of ourselves as, and the things that we're

00:41:44.440 building as affecting our desires. I don't think that almost anybody who's building things thinks

00:41:50.340 about the way that it's affecting human desires. Is this helping people want more? Is it helping them

00:41:54.980 want less? Is their desire moving horizontally? Or is it moving vertically? You know, we're not

00:42:01.440 building cathedrals anymore. We're not making beautiful art. And it seems to me like we're

00:42:05.700 sort of moving sideways. And I think the future of desire is going to depend on how we think about

00:42:10.260 that question. Yes. I want to just give kind of the practical advice that you tell people in your

00:42:17.480 book, just a few of them. There's really kind of 15 things that you tell people to do, but some of

00:42:22.600 that stuck out to me was find sources of wisdom that withstand mimesis, create boundaries with 0.87

00:42:29.780 unhealthy models. So that means distancing yourselves from the people who function as unhealthy models of

00:42:36.420 desire, establishing, communicate a clear hierarchy of values, which of course is important for anyone,

00:42:42.380 but particularly Christians, map out the systems of desire in your world, put those desires to the

00:42:48.780 tasks. Just to kind of close this out, like, what does some of those things look like? What does

00:42:52.680 putting your desires to the tasks look like? And then living, as you say in your book, as if you have

00:42:57.160 a responsibility also for what other people want, not just what you want? Well, putting my desires to

00:43:03.680 the test or putting your desires to the test means not taking them, not taking them for granted and not

00:43:08.820 assuming that what you think you want is the most important thing in the world, right? Think reflecting on

00:43:14.520 where it's coming from. Is this a desire that's been generated by a social media app that I've been

00:43:19.900 scrolling, which I call a thin desire in the book? And a thin desire is the kind of desire that's kind

00:43:25.580 of here today, gone tomorrow. It's not grounded in anything real. It's just been, it just evaporates

00:43:32.220 like a pile of leaves that blows away as soon as there's a gust of wind, right? And we've all been

00:43:36.840 like that. We've all really wanted something and then we get it and we don't care about it and we throw it

00:43:42.380 away the very next day. That's a good indication that that desire is thin. Of course, thick desires,

00:43:47.960 right? These desires that are grounded in real things, in the love of God, right? And the desires

00:43:55.420 that ultimately, I would say, are the desires that are pointing us towards eternity, that are pointing

00:44:00.500 us beyond this world. Those are the desires that nobody can take away from us and that will never

00:44:04.300 disappoint us. And it's really important to test our desires up front, right? There are certain ways,

00:44:11.440 like, what does this do? Is this fruits of the spirit, right? I mean, the scripture tells us how

00:44:16.760 we can begin to test our desires, to understand if they're bringing us sort of the, you know, the

00:44:22.100 peace of God, if we're becoming more loving, if we're growing in faith, hope, and love, great

00:44:26.860 indication that that might be a non-memetic sort of a thick desire that's grounded in something beyond

00:44:32.920 the memetic moment, right? The current thing. So, testing desires is something that we can all learn

00:44:37.940 to do. It's a skill that we need to develop. It's a skill that school doesn't really teach us.

00:44:43.060 You know, school education really doesn't teach discernment. If you don't learn how to discern

00:44:48.360 in the family, they do the opposite, right? You're not going to learn it. So, you need to

00:44:53.100 realize that that skill of discerning your desires and where they come from and where they're going

00:44:57.600 is the most important skill that you can learn.

00:45:00.860 Awesome. Well, I really encourage people to get your book. You are sending us five books

00:45:06.260 for a giveaway, which I'm super excited about. We decided, okay, so the first five people

00:45:11.720 who haven't already subscribed to my YouTube channel, who do subscribe to my YouTube channel,

00:45:18.280 and then comment that you want the giveaway, we will send them a book and my team will reach out

00:45:24.880 to them and send them and get their information and all of that. Wanting the power of memetic desire

00:45:30.440 in everyday life. You can pick it up, I'm guessing, wherever books are sold online, probably, you know,

00:45:37.860 your brick and mortar bookstore as well. So, this was super interesting. I just recently started

00:45:42.960 following you on Twitter and I was like, I need to talk to this person. I've never really heard anyone

00:45:48.000 talk about it the way that you have. So, I just appreciate your thoughtfulness so much and the work

00:45:52.820 that you're doing in this arena. Where can people follow you? How can they support you?

00:45:58.100 Thanks so much, Allie. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm at LukeBurchase.com and I write

00:46:02.860 a weekly substack called Antimimetic, which is really all about trying to behave in

00:46:08.340 antimimetic ways, right? Just rejecting the negative forms of mimesis out there, right? Like all of these 1.00

00:46:15.420 illusions that are ultimately going to disappoint us. Yeah. Wow. So interesting. Thank you so much. I

00:46:20.160 really appreciate your time. Thanks so much, Allie.

00:46:22.820 Thank you.

00:46:23.820 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 14, 2022

BONUS： Why Do We Want What We Want？｜ Guest： Luke Burgis

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 14, 2022

BONUS： Why Do We Want What We Want？ ｜ Guest： Luke Burgis

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

BONUS： Why Do We Want What We Want？｜ Guest： Luke Burgis