Infinite loss: jealousy and love in mimetic theory

The article proposes consideration of the situation of infinite loss within the framework of René Girard’s triangle of mimetic mechanism that includes a loving subject, the object of his love and a model that acts as an obstacle to the desire of the subject. In the described configuration, jealousy is constitutive for the subject: without continuous looking back at the model or, in other words, at the ideal Other, love is impossible. The one to whom the subject loses his own love game becomes the one in relation to whom he ascribes to himself a radical insufficiency. The desire of the subject here becomes the obsession with the ideal Other or the mediator of desire — the one who prevents the subject from reaching the object of his love and the one who provides jealousy with his appearance.

In addition to the Girard’s philosophy and its interpretation by Jean-Pierre Dupuis, the author of the article bases his concept of endless loss on the works of Merab Mamardashvili, Paul Preciado, Alenka Zupančič, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Otto Rank, Michel Leiris, Alain Badiou, Franz Kafka. As the main illustrative material, the article considers the Black Swan movie by Darren Aronofsky, which describes the situation of endless loss in the mimetic theory. The mediator of desire here simultaneously becomes the mirror double of the subject, thereby radicalizing the intuition of imitation within the framework of the mimetic triangle. Desire appears as impossible and unattainable, since the elimination of duality turns out to be a suicidal act, and the appearance of winning invariably turns into a loss. The possibility of getting out of the described triangle of imitation and loss is problematized on the material of Marcel Proust’s The End of Jealousy and is associated by the author with the theme of death.