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From Fukuyuma; “​Natural human sociability is built around two phenomena: kin selection and reciprocal altruism. The first is a recurring pattern by which sexually reproducing animals behave altruistically toward one another in proportion to the number of genes they share; that is, they practice nepotism and favor genetic relatives.

Reciprocal altruism involves an exchange of favors or resources between unrelated individuals of the same species, or sometimes between members of different species. Both behaviors are not learned but genetically coded and emerge spontaneously as individuals interact. 

Human beings, in other words, are social animals by nature. But their natural sociability takes the specific form of altruism toward family (genetic relatives) and friends (individuals with whom one has exchanged favors). 

This default form of human sociability is universal to all cultures and historical periods. 

Natural sociability can be overridden by the development of new institutions that provide incentives for other types of behavior (for example, favoring a qualified stranger over a genetic relative), but it constitutes a form of social relationship to which humans always revert when such alternative institutions break down. 

Human beings by nature are also norm-creating and norm-following creatures. They create rules for themselves that regulate social interactions and make possible the collective action of groups. 

Although these rules can be rationally designed or negotiated, norm-following behavior is usually grounded not in reason but in emotions like pride, guilt, anger, and shame. 

Norms are often given an intrinsic value and even worshipped, as in the religious laws of many different societies. Since an institution is nothing more than a rule that persists over time, human beings therefore have a natural tendency to institutionalize their behavior.”

On Girard; “We borrow our desires from others. Far from being autonomous, our desire for a certain object is always provoked by the desire of another person — the model — for this same object. This means that the relationship between the subject and the object is not direct: there is always a triangular relationship of subject, model, and object. Through the object, one is drawn to the model, whom Girard calls the mediator: it is in fact the model who is sought. Girard calls desire ‘metaphysical’ in the measure that, as soon as a desire is something more than a simple need or appetite, ‘all desire is a desire to be’, it is an aspiration, the dream of a fullness attributed to the mediator.”

By me; “Modern society depends on natural sociability being overridden by the development of new institutions that provide incentives for specific types of behavior (for example, favoring a qualified stranger over a genetic relative).

Such behaviour itself requires the existence of unquestioned and almost unnoticed Mimetic desire. In effect, the adoption of the desire to be as others are, draws society together into a single institution, overcoming the disabling forces of kin selection and reciprocal altruism.

Following this line of reasoning, individual societies should be trending towards greater coherence as improved technologies allow the Mimetic message to be hammered home.

Driven by consumption, Mimetic desire can never be fully satisfied. There’s always some other improved model that has more. Modern society is effectively driven by a benevolent Ponzi scheme.”