Internal Mediation

Definition

Internal mediation is the form of mimetic desire in which the model and subject inhabit the same social world. Because they share the same social space and can desire the same objects, they can become rivals. Internal mediation is the more intense and dangerous form of mimetic desire.

Girard distinguished internal from external mediation in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (1961). The distinction is based on the social and psychological distance between subject and model.

The Defining Feature: Rivalry Is Possible

In internal mediation, the model is close enough — socially, psychologically, professionally — that direct competition is possible. This proximity means the model’s desire inflames the subject’s desire (as in external mediation), but now the model also stands as an obstacle.

The result is the double bind: the model says both “desire what I desire” and “do not take what I want.” This double bind is the engine of mimetic rivalry.

Modern Examples

Social media has dramatically expanded internal mediation. Platforms that make visible the desires, achievements, and lifestyles of peers — people in the same social world — generate conditions for intense internal mediation:

• LinkedIn: professional desire is constantly on display among peers
• Instagram: lifestyle desire is visible among near-peers and aspirational figures
• Twitter/X: intellectual and reputational desire among overlapping communities

These platforms have made internal mediation near-universal, exposing millions to constant mimetic rivalry with people they might previously have never encountered.

Contrast with External Mediation

In external mediation, the model is too distant to become a rival. A provincial reader who takes Napoleon as his model is in external mediation: Napoleon cannot compete with him for the same women, jobs, or social positions. The desire is inflamed but not escalated into direct rivalry.

Girard observed that the history of Western culture has involved a progressive contraction of mediation — from external (the heroes and saints of an earlier age) toward internal (the celebrities and peers of modernity). This contraction intensifies rivalry and contributes to what he saw as modernity’s distinctive instability.