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Interlude LXXX: Imitation | How Borrowed Desire, Mimetic Theory, and Story Shape Identity
Why do human beings imitate one another, and how much of what we call identity was first borrowed from someone else?
In Interlude LXXX of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey examines imitation as one of the earliest foundations of identity, social learning, desire, belonging, rivalry, and narrative. From the copied expressions of infancy to the ambitions, emotional habits, and definitions of success adopted in adulthood, imitation helps construct the person we eventually experience as ourselves.
Drawing upon developmental psychologist Andrew Meltzoff’s research on infant imitation and…
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