Louis XIV would envy your life

Some things in life acquire an outsize popularity which defies all common sense. The outlandish appeal of such things cannot be explained except by reference to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire – the idea that there are many things we value not for their intrinsic utility and enjoyment but because we see that other people want them. Examples of such positive feedback loops in excess fashionability would include sourdough bread, Miss Taylor Swift and houses in Clapham or Fulham.

Property is simply a stupid, rivalrous, uninnovative, rent-seeking repository for people’s money

Fulham, for instance, is so far west it should have its own time zone. If you work in the City, you would have a shorter commute if you spent the money on a Georgian manor house outside Ashford – with a ha-ha and peacocks, and the facility to park your car less than 500 yards from your front door. And yet, through some form of emergent collective insanity, people conceived the idea that Fulham is a fashionable place to live – and so, per the late Professor Girard, it is a fashionable place to live, and consequently fiendishly expensive. Clapham residents desperately point to the proximity of the Common as justification for their residency, despite the fact that it’s obviously rubbish. (Where I grew up, Clapham Common would be in contention for a ‘Nastiest Field in Monmouthshire’ award, even without the heightened risk of physical assault.)

One way to escape the follies of mimetic desire is to imagine yourself in the mindset of a different person from a different milieu or time period. I often use Louis XIV, though I occasionally substitute Snoop Dog, Bess of Hardwick or Cyrus the Great for purposes of diversity and inclusion.