Girard identifies how desire operates on multiple levels: the acquisitive (wanting the object), the metaphysical (wanting the being of the model), and the ontological (believing the model possesses a fullness of being we lack). This creates what researchers call a "double bind" - we simultaneously revere and resent our models, wanting both to be them and to destroy them. Reform movements caught in this bind end up imitating the power structures they oppose while believing they're dismantling them.
Academic research confirms this geometric complexity operates preconsciously. We are unable to perceive the influence of our models in supplying us with our [second hand] desires his blindness isn't accidental - it's structurally necessary for the mechanism to function. The moment we recognize our desires as mimetic, they lose their compelling force, creating what Girard calls the "romantic lie" - the universal human delusion that our desires originate autonomously within us.
Reform's mathematical impossibility within existing systems
Catastrophe theory demonstrates that genuine transformation requires crossing critical thresholds where systems undergo sudden, discontinuous change—not gradual modification. Research shows social systems exhibit "nonlinear dynamics and bifurcation theory" where transformation requires catastrophic reorganization at tipping points, not incremental adjustment.
Rosa Luxemburg's foundational analysis proves that reform and revolution pursue different goals entirely: reform seeks "diminution of exploitation" while maintaining capitalism, while revolution seeks capitalism's abolition. Her insight remains mathematically precise—you cannot reform a system whose fundamental structure depends on the very patterns you're trying to change.
Contemporary research identifies systematic co-optation through channeling (redirecting movements toward modest reforms), inclusion (incorporating leaders into existing structures), and salience control (managing which issues receive attention). Examples abound: community mediation movements institutionalized into legal frameworks, environmental movements reduced to corporate greenwashing, civil rights victories achieving legal changes while economic transformation was systematically excluded.
The geometric distinction is crucial: reform attempts movement within existing dimensional constraints while revolution requires perpendicular movement to existing planes—dimensional transcendence rather than positional adjustment. Intrabeing and collective consciousness require recognizing "no independent separate self" and understanding that "everything depends for its existence on everything else"— realizations fundamentally incompatible with systems built on separation and hierarchy.