1. People are driven to imitate others, but hate to admit it
2. Imitation is the basis of most businesses, but it's always disguised because customers are ashamed of their mimetic desires.
3. We need to expose these disguises, because the drive to imitate leads to rivalry and conflict.
4. Mimetic rivalries are the source of blood feuds and reciprocal violence —which are traditionally resolved by the sacrifice of a scapegoat.
5. The scapegoat combines opposites— and is often both victim & hero, sacred & profane, guilty & innocent.
6. The persecution of scapegoats is a uniting force behind many institutions and practices, but participants cannot admit this because it delegitimizes their efforts.
7. Humans fail to perceive their own scapegoats-so persecution continues while everybody absolves themselves of individual guilt.
8. Our most violent impulses are stirred up by similarity, not difference.
9. Enemies resemble each other, because of mimetic rivalry, but this is another secret that cannot be mentioned. Our enemy is always portrayed as our opposite.
10. Artistic idioms often originate in imitation and ritualized sacrifice.
11. We want to protect victims, and are right to do so; but we need to avoid super-victimology, in which this only leads to targeting and punishing new scapegoats.
12. We can only escape the endless cycles of reciprocal violence by rising above our desire for vengeance and working instead to delegitimize the urge to punish and scapegoat.