Write until you understand it.
Read something. Write an essay about it. A tutor will ask questions in the margin.
We learn what to want by watching someone else want it, and that person becomes our model. The trouble starts when the model is close enough to want the same thing back.
That is why rivalry runs hottest between people who are alike. From the outside it looks like a fight over a job or a prize. But the prize keeps changing and the fight stays the same. They are not fighting over the object so much as over each other. Take the rival away and the wanting often goes with it.
Close in what sense? Would a model you will never meet cause the same trouble?
If the prize keeps changing, what would have to change for the fight to stop?
How it works
Four steps.
Read
Pick a topic. An author, a book, a course. Then go read.
Write
Just start writing.
Get questioned
A tutor in the margin reads what you wrote and asks about it. One question at a time.
Resolve
Answer a question to resolve it. If you can’t, you just found the part you didn’t understand.
The margin
The tutor asks. You answer.
It sits beside your essay and asks about what you wrote. The thinking stays yours.
Then what is the object for?
It asks about your sentences
Each question points at something you actually wrote, often the part worth a second look.
Then what is the object for?
It’s the excuse. Two rivals need something to point at.
You resolve it by answering
Write back in your own words and the question resolves.
What does Girard mean by “mediator”?
The mediator is the person whose desire you copy. Girard also calls this person the model.
Ask it straight when you’re stuck
Stuck on a term or a name? Switch the margin to Lookup and it tells you. Then it asks you to say the answer back in your own words.
In “Rivalry between equals” you wrote “rivalry needs two people who are close.” Does this essay still say so?
It remembers what you wrote before
The tutor can read your earlier essays in the same topic. So it can ask whether you still agree with yourself.
Today
One page for where you left off.
Today lists your topics, with the essays under each one. It also shows what’s due: each essay comes back two days after you start it, and again at a week, so what you learned really sticks.
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Start free. Pay if you outgrow it.
 | Free$0 | Pro$10 a monthor $96 a year. Save 20%. |
|---|---|---|
| Tutor and lookups | 10 questions and 3 lookups a day | Larger tutor budget |
| Topics | Up to 3 | Unlimited |
| Tutor memory | 1 earlier essay per topic | 3 earlier essays per topic |