Reading the Jensen Huang firestorm through René Girard's scapegoat theory
itsOmSarraf_ · x · 2026-11-14
A widely shared essay applies René Girard's mimetic theory to the week's events around Jensen Huang: the AI trade is the most mimetic market ever — hyperscalers buy GPUs because rivals do, funds hold AI stocks because peers do — and two years of bubble anxiety built a Girardian crisis needing a scapegoat. Girard noted scapegoats come from the edges: the outsider or the king. Huang is both — center-stage "king" and an Asian American who could be painted as having an affair with a Chinese spy, matching Girard's "stereotypes of persecution" (sexual transgression plus foreign contamination). The board, press, market and Twitter converged, with reactions wildly out of proportion. The author predicts sacralization next: like Jobs pushed out in 1985, Huang's story becomes myth either way — Thiel, who studied under Girard, argued founders are modern sacred kings, worshipped then sacrificed.
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