September 21, 2004
The First Meme War?
One of the scariest things about terrorism is that it appears to be senseless and irrational. Why would anyone deliberately kill himself by flying into a building? Who could conceivably benefit from killing innocent schoolchildren? Why on earth would Iraqi insurgents deliberately target aid workers that are trying to rebuild their country? Irrational actions are always scary, since they’re impossible to predict it and hence prevent.
I think that the 9/11 terrorist acts, and many subsequent ones, are not irrational, when put in the proper context. I think the “war on terror” can be understood as a conflict between memes.
For those that haven't heard the term, "memes" are contagious ideas that, like viruses, replicate by passing from mind to mind. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins. Memes can be harmless (like a catchy tune), valuable (like a new scientific technique) or harmful (like the "smoking is cool" meme, which often kills off its host). One key to understanding memes is to view them as independent entities, not just as "ideas". Like viruses, memes can mutate, and like viruses, the memes that spread rapidly and persistently survive the best.
I believe that we are now fighting an extremely wily, dangerous and harmful meme: wily, because it has subverted the minds of its hosts so fully that it has some degree of intelligence; dangerous, because it is fighting for its life; and harmful, both to its hosts and to others. I'll call it RI, for radical Islam, but don't be confused into thinking that I'm talking about a set of countries, or individual people, or even a community of people. I'm talking about a different of creature: a more-or-less living entity that is encoded as set of ideas that propagates like a virus, and that subverts the minds and bodies of its hosts in order to spread and survive.
Let me flesh this idea out more. The first point is that memes compete---particularly memes associated with non-syncretistic religions, like Islam. This means that often memes can have a high level of penetration within a cohesive community, but a much lower level of penetration in the population at large, where they have to compete. (For example, for every guy from Malibu that joins up with the Taliban, there's also a Buddhist, a firewalker, a Wiccan, a Kabalist, an neo-animist, an atheist lawyer, and a physicist working on GUTs.) As societies open---due to economic globalization, cheaper communication and travel, etc---this threatens those memes that require an intellectually isolated community to survive. I believe that RI is such a meme---which is why it is fighting for its life. Western democracy is not (or at least, pre-9/11, was not) actively trying to stamp out RI---but the very existence of a set of strong competing religious memes constitutes a threat.
The second point is that a military confrontation is an extremely effective way to isolate two communities from each other's memes. The heroes of the enemy---military or intellectual---become your enemies, and ideas of the enemy become treason. I believe that purpose of 9/11---from the point of view of the RI-meme---was to provoke the west into a military war against the Islamic world, thereby isolating itself from western memes.
Notice that from the point of view of the people in that world, this war might be economically disastrous, and from any military point of view, the war might be unwinnable. But to the RI-meme, the war is helpful, because it insulates it from competition.
So what are the implications of this?
One is that a lot of the current "war on terror" is misdirected. Better security at airports, screening containers shipped into the US, tracking black-market radioactive materials, even cleaning up and policing "failed states"---all of these make some sense as defensive measures. But offensive measures that take the fight to the enemy are not, ultimately, military measures. They need to be attacks on the RI meme, not merely on the society in which its human carriers live.
In fact, as the whole Iraq campaign has shown, conventional military attacks might actually strengthen the RI-meme. The usual military strategy is to attack the enemy's weapons and delivery vehicles, and then his economic infrastructure, making it impossible for him to rebuild. But for the RI-meme, there are no weapons, and the only "infrastructure" it needs is a population filled with hatred and despair. In fact, economic and social chaos in may actually strengthen the RI-meme, just as weakening your body leaves it vulnerable to infectious disease.
The second implication is that we need to worry about a lot more than simply catching up with terrorists---even if we were 100% successful that would only eliminate part of the infection. We also need to think about prevention---about how to inoculate a population against the RI-meme. I'm not sure how to do this most effectively---for starters, I'd need to understand it a lot better. I'd guess the first thing to do is strengthen the memes most likely to displace it, which are probably more moderate versions of Islam.
Finally, if the RI-meme's purpose is to isolate itself from the west, we need to do what we can to defeat that purpose. We need to do whatever we can to cut through the membrane between "us" and "them" that started forming on 9/11. And we need to do it safely---without subjecting ourselves to additional danger from terrorist attacks, and without inviting PR fiascos that lead to more hatred against the west, and without unnecessary conflicts that lead to further isolation.
Posted by William Cohen at September 21, 2004 05:04 PMWilliam,
I agree with your Radical Islam as infectious meme wholeheartedly. In fact you may have articulated some of what I have been trying to say better than I.
But this meme is founded and based in a region and hiding as a variant of another meme, Islam. So in that sense there is a connection. RI is seeking to supplant all other Islam variants.
I’m not sure we agree on what to do about it though. Specifically that any military action strengthens it. Actions have reactions. We attack they counter attack as long as they have operational freedom. You cannot have victory without fighting and punishing the enemy until their will to fight is gone or we force the meme to change in response to our counterattack. The proper response to being attacked is to attack back and win. While at the same time promoting the conditions in the middle east that will starve and contain such memes, ie. democracy and inconnectedness with the rest of the world.
The invasion of Iraq was like a shot of antibiotics and the surgical removal of a tumor.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at September 21, 2004 06:19 PMEric,
Actually, if we were looking to use some antibiotics and surgically remove RI, Iraq was the wrong choice. Iraq has never been known for RI. In fact, among middle eastern nations it has been historically opposed to groups like al-qaeda; Saddam never was fond of muslim extremists. Only recently—after we invaded—has RI come to some prominance. This is clearly a result of us being there. Instead of removing a tumor, we weakened the immune system of Iraq, paving the way for infection.
If you want to talk tumors, lets talk Iran. That is most certainly a hotbed of RI.
Posted by: Dan at September 21, 2004 09:19 PMI think Eric’s tumor methaphore is good. Your meme analogy, however, is a virus. I agree with all your points, but draw a different conclusion. How do you combat a virus? By wiping it out where you find it, not by trying only to protect the parts of the body not yet affected. Successful virus fighting is agressive and offensive.
You can’t defend a society against terrorism, at least unless we want to give up our freedom and tolerance of others. We have to seek out and wipe out RI virus where we find it and perhaps isolate the carriers until we can cure them. The agressive U.S. response to 9/11 certainly stopped planned terror attacks against the U.S. by killing and capturing bad guys and disrupting their command and control. Iraq can be a base to taking the fight to the enemy. As for creating more terrorists, they don’t need us to attack. There were plenty of terror schools before we got involved in Iraq or Afghanistan. Our previous policy got us attacks against U.S. Embassies, U.S. ships, U.S. buildings and the big 9/11. Each time the attacks were getting bigger. Defense alone doesn’t work. The Arab street respects the successful use of power. Our mistakes in Iraq might be that we are not employing enough power to people like Al Sadr, but I defer to the judgement of the Iraqi authorities on this. And if we must fight, better in Baghdad than Boston, najaf not New York.
Posted by: jack at September 21, 2004 09:20 PMSure Jack, offense is good.
But better Tehran than Baghdad.
Posted by: Dan at September 21, 2004 09:27 PMActually Jack, some viruses like tuberculosis are treated by isolating the virus within the body.
Most dangerous meme: Bush is a strong, straight shooting, leader.
Posted by: Al Maline at September 21, 2004 10:38 PMGo to this
link
and see what Iya Allawi says about the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq before and after the start of the war.
It is an interview between Brit Hume and Allawi.
Posted by: Dawn at September 21, 2004 10:40 PMEric, I’m very sorry to inform you of this, but your tumor is terminal. Im afraid you allowed it to grow far too long, and now by shooting it with ineffective antibiotics,you only irritated it, when all along they couldn’t cure it anyway, you let it metastasize through your misguided focus and now it’s consumed a much wider area.
My suggestion is you cut off that limb immediately, and toss it into the bushes.
Posted by: Dr. Greg at September 22, 2004 12:28 AMIt is an interview between Brit Hume and Allawi.
Dawn, how would Allawi know? He was living in London since 1979.
Interesting article, William. But why “radical” Islam? Why not “fundamentalist” Islam?
I kinda like the term fundamentalist Islam myself, since it puts those guys in the same catagory as the wacko fundamentalist Christians who bomb clinics and assassinate doctors for God.
AP,
I said to read the interview. I did not say ‘Go read this because Allawi speaks the gospel truth.’
You ask me how he would know. He’s probably lying through his teeth because Bush told him to.
How would I know? -I’ve been living in the U.S. since 1964.
Just wait. Some journalist will get an interview with Zarqhawi and ask him.
I’m not sure we agree on what to do about it though. Specifically that any military action strengthens it. Actions have reactions. We attack they counter attack as long as they have operational freedom. You cannot have victory without fighting and punishing the enemy until their will to fight is gone or we force the meme to change in response to our counterattack.
Actually my post said: “conventional military acts might strengthen…” I don’t oppose military acts in general, but they should be directed at the meme. Places like Afghanistan & Somalia are tumors, and it’s naive to think that they can be treated just by dropping leaflets and sending foreign aid.
As Dan points out, Iraq has not been historically a hotbed of RI. It was a mostly-secular military dictatorship, not a theocracy. But since the invasion, the borders with Iran have been mostly open, and Iran *is* a hotbed.
Gulf II/Iraq perhaps might have worked out, if it had blossomed into a democracy, but as turned out, it is clearly a fiasco - the meme is much stronger in Iraq than before, and our military is bogged down and unable to respond elsewhere, where miltary action would be actually useful. Those that consider Iraq a success are confusing action with progress.
Posted by: William Cohen at September 22, 2004 09:09 AMThis is an interesting piece William, and I agree with most of your thoughts on the war on terror. That said, convincing as Dawkins can be, I am not sold on his meme theory.
I think the theory of memes is a product of linguistic games. A meme is, in my opinion, only an idea, and I am not sure what the point of renaming the word idea is (though I concede I may be missing the point).
An idea/meme (the words appear completely interchangeable) is imbued only with the intelligence imparted to it by it’s creator, and has none of it’s own. An idea can evolve and change over time, can be good, bad or indifferent, but an idea it remains, and it can only be changed by human minds. All ideas are to some lesser or greater extent contagious so this cannot be said to be property unique to memes.
Perhaps by viewing certain ideas as memes will lend us some insight into the world that I am ignorant of, but apart from that, they seem superfluous to me (apart from helping to make Dawkins rich). And as for the war on terror, I am not sure if refracting it through the lens of memetics highlight anything we didn’t already know.
A.P.
I agree there are “wacko fundamentalist Christians” out there—those who bomb or kill the innocent in the name of God actually subvert the word of God.
Just as it is wrong to conclude that all Islamics, or even all fundamentalist Islamics, are terrorists, it is also wrong to conclude that all fundamental Christians are wacko bombers.
There are fringe elements in every society and every religion. It is the fringe extremists who deserve the discredit, not the religion or society as a whole.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at September 22, 2004 04:57 PMAn idea/meme (the words appear completely interchangeable) is imbued only with the intelligence imparted to it by it’s creator, and has none of it’s own. […]Perhaps by viewing certain ideas as memes will lend us some insight into the world that I am ignorant of, but apart from that, they seem superfluous to me (apart from helping to make Dawkins rich). And as for the war on terror, I am not sure if refracting it through the lens of memetics highlight anything we didn’t already know.
For the latter, I think it’s often a helpful analogy. It highlights the questions of how ideas are adopted and adapted, which is important in some cases - certainly this one.
For the former - sure, that’s a fair cop. I’m certainly anthropomorphizing here. But there is intelligence involved, namely the intelligence of the meme-carriers that want to see the meme persist.
The principle point I’m trying to make is that in a battle of ideas, “taking the battle to the enemy” is not just a question of looking for military targets and taking them down.
There are fringe elements in every society and every religion. It is the fringe extremists who deserve the discredit, not the religion or society as a whole.
Dang, look at that! Something joe and I agree on. See, America’s not as divided as the cynics think it is. :)
Now if we could just skip the partisan BS and spin, and sit down and find some common ground on other stuff, America’s back in business!
William,
You did say, ‘might’.
I think we need to take a look at how entrenched this meme might actually be in the middle east.
Posted by: eric simonson at September 23, 2004 05:33 PM
