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Part I
Introduction
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1 The imitative, contagious, and suggestible roots of modern society
Toward a mimetic foundation of social theory
Christian Borch
The early twenty-first century has been characterized by a tragic surge in terrorist events. Examples include cars or trucks plunging into random groups of pedestrians, as well as fatal attacks targeting members of the Jewish community or people whom the perpetrators believe are blasphemers who besmirch the name of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the truly disturbing facets of such attacks is that, rather than being isolated cases, they often mimic previous ones, which makes it difficult not to notice the connections between them. The imitation of one terrorist attack by others is far from new. Examples of contagious terrorism, in which one type of assault provides a template to be copied subsequently, are legion in modern political history (e.g. Barrows, 1981: 40â1).
This imitative aspect is something that terror attacks share with criminal activity more broadly. This applies in particular to a type of crime that has attracted a lot of media attention in the US and elsewhere in the past decades â namely, mass shootings. These often take place at schools, but with the June 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, they began to occur in otherwise festive contexts, too. âAs mass shootings have become ever more familiar,â a 2015 International New York Times cover article stated, âexperts have come to understand them less as isolated expressions of rage and more as acts that build on the blueprints of previous rampagesâ (2015). In fact, the imitative character of terrorist and criminal activity was already clear to observers in the late nineteenth century. Most notably, throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the French criminologist and sociologist Gabriel Tarde argued that it is common for criminal activity to be imitative. In his 1890 book Penal Philosophy, Tarde criticized the then-widely sanctioned scholarly view that crime is intimately tied to particular types of criminal individuals, that is, persons allegedly biologically predisposed to criminal activity. Tarde challenged that view by demonstrating that crime is better explained by recourse to how one criminal act may inspire subsequent ones (e.g. Tarde, 1968: 322). Further, against the backdrop of his criminological reflections, he went on to develop an entire sociology based on the idea that social life is inherently imitative. By imitating others, we establish a social bond of recognition and respect, Tarde (1962) argued, and society is nothing but such imitative bonds writ large.
Tardeâs claims are interesting for two reasons. First, they approach crime as something deeply social, a sociality that shows in its mimetic nature. Recognizing this social dimension of crime does not amount to endorsing criminal activity. Indeed, there is no positive valorization underpinning Tardeâs social conception of crime. In his dramatic phrasing, âCrime is a social phenomenon like any other, but a phenomenon which is at the same time anti-social, just as a cancer participates in the life of an organism, but working to bring about its deathâ (1968: 418). Second, and of key historical importance, Tardeâs social and criminological thought was not free-floating, but itself embedded in broader theoretical currents. This showed internally in how his conceptual apparatus tied the notion of imitation to concepts such as hypnotic suggestion, somnambulism, and contagion, all of which were to a great extent adopted from contemporaneous advances, particularly within psychology and psychotherapy. This conceptual inspiration itself testified to a broader intellectual tide at the end of the nineteenth century, in which serious attempts were made to theorize notions of imitation, contagion, and suggestion (ICS). Indeed, this vocabulary and the theoretical horizons it opened up had tremendous momentum that transcended psychology, sociology, philosophy, criminology, medicine, etc. â disciplines that were more intertwined and less differentiated from one another than they are today (Blackman, 2012).
Why was this so? How can it be that notions of ICS gained such traction at the end of the nineteenth century, that is, in the formative years of the social sciences? One answer is that this vocabulary captured a widespread modern experience â namely, that in the modern, industrialized, urbanized society, seemingly relentlessly on the verge of political revolution, and with constant challenges to the boundaries of class and individuality, the nature of sociality seemed highly malleable. For example, in the modern city, the individual was bombarded by sensory impressions in ways that could produce a loss of self that could lead to individuals being easily carried away in collective frenzy (Borch, 2019). Many scholars found the vocabulary of ICS fitting when accounting for such experiences. This is not to suggest that the scholars who deployed this vocabulary necessarily endorsed it normatively. As Nidesh Lawtoo has convincingly demonstrated in his examination of a series of modernist writers (Nietzsche, Conrad, Lawrence, and Bataille) who employed a broad mimetic register, these writers were often ambivalent toward it. While they attributed great diagnostic powers to ICS concepts, which were seen as valuable means with which to describe affective dimensions of modern society, the phenomenon they essentially diagnosed â namely, the loss of self and the experience of being carried away â was something these writers tried, personally, to avoid (Lawtoo, 2013; see also 2016). In other words, diagnosing society in terms of ICS was one thing. To be personally carried away by such forces was, for many scholars, a completely different matter â and something to be shunned, if at all possible. This is one of several tensions that characterizes this conceptual horizon and a tension that follows from the fact that it is deemed better to be in control of oneself than to be pulled into a contagious, suggestive whirlpool.
The heyday of ICS thinking was no doubt the late nineteenth century, when it spread from France to Germany, America, and elsewhere. Increasingly, however, ICS ideas were subjected to critiques that eventually pushed this framework toward the margins of âproperâ thought. One of the most prominent attacks was articulated by Sigmund Freud, whose psychoanalytical project was founded as an alternative to notions of suggestion and hypnosis within psychology and psychotherapy (Borch-Jacobsen, 1988). Parallel criticisms emerged from sociological quarters. Most notably, sociologists such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber defined the discipline of sociology in ways in which imitative, contagious, and suggestible phenomena were dismissed as effectively sociologically irrelevant (more on this later). This is not to suggest that the imagery of ICS entirely disappeared in the twentieth century. Clear traces, both implicit or explicit, can be identified in works as different as Richard Dawkinsâ meme theory, RenĂ© Girardâs theorization on violence and its relation to mimetic desires that turn contagious, as well as in debates about the communication of rumor or swarms, to name but a few instantiations (Dawkins, 1976; Girard, 1977; Vehlken, 2013; Weingart, 2008; see also Brighi and Cerella, 2016).
Interestingly, however, the discursive repertoire of ICS has gained renewed traction since the 1990s and early 2000s. The scholarly manifestations of this are visible in numerous ways, but what many of them have in common is that they display âclear echoesâ of the late nineteenth-century discourse, as Peta Mitchell has rightly observed (Mitchell, 2012: 60). One prominent example is the work conducted in social and cultural theory under the heading of a âturn to affectâ, which stresses the plasticity of selves through an emphasis on affective contagion. For example, in her book The Transmission of Affect (2004), the late Teresa Brennan argues against a conception of self-contained bodies, that is, the idea that human bodies are separated by their skin and that this enclosure provides the backdrop against which people interact. Contra that notion, Brennan mobilizes research into entrainment and pheromones, and presents a theory of bodies entangled by shared affects. The central claim is that affective contagion takes place especially via âolfactory and auditory entrainmentâ (2004: 68). In other words, when people are physically co-present, one person may assume the affective state of another person by smelling the pheromones secreted by that personâs body. As indicated, one of the central corollaries of this theoretical framework is that even something as apparently personal as oneâs affective state is in fact socially induced and shared, meaning that bodies and affect should be seen as social rather than individual (or private). In making this argument, Brennan not only cites work on entrainment, but also situates her argument explicitly in the late nineteenth-century tradition of ICS theory, referencing several scholars associated with that strand of research, including Tarde, Gustave Le Bon, and Hippolyte Bernheim. Other contemporary scholars, such as Nigel Thrift (2008a, 2008b), similarly argue for theorizing affect by linking it to notions of ICS. For example, in his analysis of affective contagion, Thrift likens affect to âa series of highways of imitation-suggestionâ and describes society in affective-somnambulistic terms as âen-tranced, as only half-awakeâ (2008a: 240, original emphasis; see also Sampson, 2012, 2017). Moreover, he substantiates his emphasis on the links between affect and ICS through references to recent work on âmirror neuronsâ, which, according to some advocates, provides a neuroscientific understanding of humansâ apparently inbuilt propensity to imitate (see also Lawtooâs and Blackmanâs contributions to this volume).1
The aims of this volume
In this brief circular account, from the present to the late nineteenth century and back again, I have tried to describe how ideas about ICS, which once occupied a central status in conceptions of modern sociality, appear to be gaining a renewed foothold in the present. However, this is not to suggest a direct re-emergence of this conceptual horizon. Today, it is often aligned with theoretical building blocks that were not part of its late nineteenth-century framework â as is visible, for example, in the ways in which theories associated with the affective turn combine the language of ICS with insights into entrainment, pheromones, or mirror neurons. Still, the resurgence of this conceptual register begs several questions. For example, what makes this conceptual register so attractive today? How can it be that notions of ICS have gained such traction in the academic and wider public and media discourse, after having been kept relatively silent for so long? The answer to such questions is likely to depend on the particular context and domain under study. However, it does not seem an exaggeration to claim that, in general terms, this framework presents itself as an adequate means with which to diagnose the present, in a manner not dissimilar to how it served a crucial diagnostic purpose in the late nineteenth century. Nor does it seem far-fetched to speculate that part of the reason for this may lie in changing social conditions, for example, in particular the globalized, hyper-mediated reality of the present, which seems to propel novel forms of affective ICS. More specifically, what this (counter-individualist) framework seems to offer is a way of understanding how, in spite of apparently increasingly widespread individualism, people are behaving more and more alike â and that a range of technologies and social developments seem to further induce such mimesis.
While the present volume is committed to exploring how notions of ICS might inform present-day social theory, it is based on the conviction that such exploration requires that attention is paid to a range of historical aspects regarding the rise and aims, but also critiques, of this tradition at the end of the nineteenth century. In other words, the volume is driven by the belief that notions of ICS do indeed have something to offer to contemporary social theory, not least with respect to rethinking sociality and individuality, but also that before this potential can be fully realized, greater historical care must be taken with the origins of this theoretical horizon. Against this backdrop, the aims of this volume are: first, to provide a sense of the historical settings in which the vocabulary of ICS gained prominence, with a particular focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; second, to offer some understanding of the uptake of this vocabulary of mimesis in various disciplines and fields, from the late nineteenth century to the present; and third, to discuss how this conceptual horizon is being, and could be, revived in a present-day theoretical and analytical context, and what the implications of this might be. In other words, what is the analytical purchase â and what are the challenge(s) â of resuscitating this particular tradition?2 In line with these three aims, the volume deploys a cross-disciplinary approach, encompassing fields such as financial economics, sociology, epidemiology, psychology, computer science, and social media studies.
The volume revolves around the particular late nineteenth-century debates on ICS as conducted through key players such as Bernheim and Tarde. These debates were especially intense in France, but by no means limited to French circles. The volumeâs starting point in the late nineteenth-century French orbit does not imply that these debates were entirely new or original. Discussions about mimesis and contagion have much longer histories that to some extent inform the kinds of debates that proliferated at the turn of the nineteenth century. For example, historical studies have demonstrated how contagion thinking dates back to Ancient Greek reflections on miasma, and how it later informed late nineteenth-century crowd theory, urban theory, and social theory, as well as twentieth-century meme and network theory, among many other things (Mitchell, 2012; Wald, 2008). Similarly, genealogies of mimesis begin with Ancient Greece and end at the present. However, whereas contagion theory is often located at the intersection of epidemiology and the social, discussions of mimesis often pivot around aesthetics and literary criticism (e.g. Auerbach, 2003; Gebrauer and Wulf, 1995; Halliwell, 2002; Melberg, 1995), although there is also a substantial body of literature examining the broader cultural role and manifestations of mimesis (e.g. Fuchs, 2001; Girard, 1977; Lacoue-Labarthe, 1998; Potolsky, 2006; Taussig, 1993). It is beyond the scope of this volume to systematically examine connections between wider (existing) discussions of mimesis, on the one hand, and late nineteenth-century debates on ICS on the other. Nevertheless, it will offer some analysis of how, for example, the ICS framework was prefigured by particular renaissance ideas (see David Toewsâ chapter).
Following on from this, a central argument of this volume is that, while the late nineteenth-century ICS framework did not arise out of thin air, but was influenced by previous strands of thinking, this framework was nevertheless significant in its own right. This is partly because the specific configuration of ICS theory was in fact unique, and partly because one of the central achievements of this framework was how it evolved into a set of sociological ideas that, as mentioned earlier, seemed apt at accounting for particular modern experiences. In other words, the ICS framework was not merely a new instantiation of age-old reflections on mimesis; rather, it addressed the apparently intimate connection between mimesis and modern society. It is this connection between mimesis and contemporary society that seems to have gained new appreciation in the present post- or late-modern era, especially in social and cultural theory discussions of affect.
Furthermore, it should be noted that there is a rich existing literature tracing the genealogies of psychology, and which has attended carefully to the ICS problematiques that were so central to late nineteenth-century French thought. The seminal studies in this tradition include Mikkel Borch-Jacobsenâs (1988) penetrating work on Sigmund Freud and how, as mentioned earlier, the Freudian psychoanalytical project was founded on a critique of late nineteenth-century notions of hypnotic suggestion â a point that also reverberates in LeĂłn Chertok and Isabelle Stengersâ historical examination of hypnosis as a scientific problem (Chertok and Stengers, 1992). Similarly, scholars such as Ian Hacking and Ruth Leys have demonstrated the ways in which present-day discussions of,...
