Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist.
This Street Prophets Coffee Hour is brought to you by Daniel Clement Dennett III. Today’s article, on Memes and Fiction, is part 8 of 15 in a series about figuring out just what is going on in American politics. It will be about how we got to where we are now. And hopefully present a story of where we should be going. Along the way we will take a look at Russia, the U.S. 2016 Presidential election, Memes and Fiction, Network Propaganda, soft warfare, and cyberwarfare.
This is an Open Thread and all topics of conversation are welcome. What is for dinner? How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment.
One of the themes of this series is stories. And stories may be complex such as myths or as simple as a meme. They also may be true of false.
In parts 1 & 2 we learned how Putin adapted a story first developed by Ivan Ilyin to govern the Russian people. This story can be summed up by calling it the “Politics of Eternity.”
Now countries can have multiple stories and one of the West’s most dominant stories is the “Politics of Inevitability” covered in part 3. This was idea that Capitalism, Liberal values, and Democracy would inevitability conquer the world. In part 4 we looked at an alternate Conservative story of our current situation called “Liberal Hegemony.”
Philosopher Daniel Clement Dennett brings key ideas to this series that are needed to better understand just how important stories are to our future. In his book, Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Dennett applies Darwin’s ideas of natural selection to the evolution of culture. The aspect of culture he focuses on is Religion. But his ideas could be applied to any domain of culture such as politics, economics, or fiction. Below is a video about his book.
In the video and his book Dennett explains that Religion can be can be studied scientifically the same way that we study any other natural phenomenon. Using an example from biology he traces the evolution of religion from a “folk” or “wild” idea to a “cultivated” or “managed” idea. The example he gives is the evolution of the wild aurochs into the domestic milk cow. Then he connects this idea of “domestication” with the evolution of religion.
After setting the frame of his analysis he introduces the key to success of his studies. The concept of the meme. A meme is an idea that is passed on to another individual.
Memetics Defined The Oxford English Dictionary defines a meme as “an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially imitation.” In his landmark book, The Selfish Gene, author Richard Dawkins coined the word meme to describe cultural replicators which spread through the social body akin to how genes spread through the biological body. Memes form the invisible but very real DNA of human society. A meme is essentially an idea, but not every idea is a meme. In order for an idea to become a meme it must be passed on—or replicated to another individual. Much like a virus moves from body to body, memes move from mind to mind. Just as genes organize themselves into DNA, cells, and chromosomes, so too do replicating elements of culture organize themselves into memes, and co-adaptive meme complexes or “memeplexes.” The study of these replicating elements of culture is known as memetics.
Sample memes include “Look both ways before you cross the street,” “Just say no,” the first four notes of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, or “If you martyr yourself you will receive 72 virgins in the afterlife.” As illustrated by the last example it is important to note that memes do not necessarily have to be true in order to be successful at replicating themselves. The memes an individual possesses forms the basis of his artifacts and behaviors. Some memes replicate more successfully as a related set, or memeplex, than as individual elements. Sample memeplexes include the scientific method, communism, and radical Islam.
From the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin (MIPB): Memetic Warfare: The Future of War by First Lieutenant Brian J. Hancock. The article starts on page 41 of he bulletin. This is a US Army Document in Public Domain — (PDF)
We are in a age of cultivated religions that have been “intelligent designed” to accomplish far more than their “wild” progenitors. It is only natural for this idea of religious evolution to be extended to weaponizing religion.
In part 5, Putin Mobilizes Religion, we learned just how a religion such as the Russian Orthodox Church can become an weapon of the state. And in part 6 we took a look at a unique vector of distribution of Russian cultivated memes known as the Night Wolves Motorcycle Club. And in part 7 about the Russian Ministry of Education we learned about Russia passing laws and funding to force all Russian children to be exposed to cultivated and weaponized memes originated exclusively by the Russian Orthodox Church.
I deliberately introduced the word vector in the conversation above as this is the technical term used in disease control to talk about delivery methods. In keeping with the spirit of Dennett’s clinical and empirically based appraisal of the stories and memes cultivated by religions I think it best to use non politicized and non pejorative terms to describe our struggle with weaponized religions.
Jump the fold for a glimpse of another powerful vector of control in the Russian catalog of physiological warfare weapons. This is “Accidental Time Travel” Fiction.
For a list of articles in the series with links please jump to the end of this article. The list was getting to long to keep it in introduction. The series is currently planned at 14 parts.
For a list of words and concepts introduced in this series please see: Street Prophets Coffee Hour: Crowdsourcing Words & Concepts For The Resistance. Any Suggestions? I will be updating this list as more new words and concepts are introduced into the conversation.
After the list of articles I’m including a list of documents and references that I’m drawing on for this series. This list will be separated out and published as a stand alone diary as soon as I get time.
This article is continued after the fold. The comments for this article are are after community links and its sub thread.
Please limit community links to one per user because we want to encourage greater diversity of submissions of community links from different users. In the case of a needed fundraiser, either the member in need will write a diary or someone will do it on their behalf. That diary is then linked to in the comments. Please only post community links in community links comment provided.
Russian Accidental Time Travel Fiction
Russian accidental time travel book covers. Russia has defeated NATO
I first learned of this genre of fiction by reading Timothy Snyder’s book The Road to Unfreedom:
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine coincided with a spike in popularity of the literature of the “accidental time traveler,” a Russian genre of science fiction. In these stories, individuals, groups, weapons, and armies loop back and forth through time in order to correct the overall picture. As in the politics of eternity, facts and continuities disappear, replace by jumps from point to point At the crucial junctures, a innocent Russia is always repelling a sinful West. Thus Stalin contacts Putin to help him declare martial law in Russia and war on the United States. Or Russians travel back to 1041 to help the Soviet Union defeat the German invasion.”
Quote From: The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder
If you want to understand the evolution of this genre please see this article published online by Eurozine called Post-Soviet science fiction and the war in Ukraine by Konstantin Skorkin. Below are some selected quotes.
Russian accidental time travel book covers. Red Army traveling back in time to help Confederacy win the Civil War.
“Today's mass-produced Russian science fiction is brimming with motifs of imperial revenge, the "rewriting of history" and a cult of military aggression. Moreover, writes Konstantin Skorkin, the imperial visions of science fiction authors have turned into a guide to action.”
Quote From: Post-Soviet science fiction and the war in Ukraine by Konstantin Skorkin
Think about this form of influence in terms of meme warfare. The key memes being reinforced by this literature are:
- Russia’s Innocence
- Sinful West
- Correct View of History
- Imperial Revenge
- Destroying Enemies of Russia
- Subjugating Neighboring Nations
- Military Aggression
- Russia’s Virginity
Tens of millions of these inexpensive pulp novels in a vast assortment of variations have been available to Russians for over 20 years. The remember the fitness of a meme is determined by the number of times it replicates. And by any measure these books have influenced millions of Russians. Another quote from Skorkin:
Alliance of Russians and Elves advance against the Dark Lord Hitler.
Take, for example, the plethora of books featuring “accidental time travellers”. They are typically based on the following narrative device: a contemporary hero, who has either a science background or is trained in martial arts, or is simply equipped with a “correct understanding of history”, is transported into another era and transplanted into the body of a historical figure. The new arrivals may travel through time individually, in groups or as entire armies. Travel can also happen in the other direction – figures from the past set out to shape the future as they see fit.
Quote From: Post-Soviet science fiction and the war in Ukraine by Konstantin Skorkin
In addition to time travel themed novels there are hundreds of crossover books such as ones based on the Lord of the Rings with Hitler being the Dark Lord. And below we have the militarization of space by Russian cats. Note the gun strapped to the shoulder.
Something for the younger reader who likes cats.
We must not forget that the “accidental time traveller” books are not just stories of time travel; they are also accounts of vertical social mobility and the personal reincarnation of a typical loser as an epic hero. These are stories of people such as Arseny Pavlov, aka “Motorola'” who, after struggling to make ends meet at a car wash near Rostov, was suddenly transformed into a famous field commander, an invincible warrior against Ukrainian fascists; stories in which ex-bricklayer Pavel Dremov turns into a brave and noble Kozak ataman and leader of the self-proclaimed Soviet Socialist Kozak Republic in the city of Stakhanov.
Quote From: Post-Soviet science fiction and the war in Ukraine by Konstantin Skorkin
In closing remember that Putin is using Ivan Ilyin’s view of history and governance. It is a world view that doesn’t distinguish between truth or falsity. When God created the world it ended God’s pure truthful existence. Thus, dividing the world. into two. Gods realm of the single perfect concept that Ilyin calls “categorical” and human life with all its complexities that Ilyin calls “historical.”
In brief, Ilyin’s theoretical works argued that “the world was corrupt; it needed redemption from a nation capable of total politics; that nation was unsoiled Russia.” Ilyin’s, and Putin’s, Russian nationalism has had a paradoxically global appeal among a wide swath of far right political parties and movements across the West, as Snyder writes in his latest book The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. “What these ways of thinking have in common,” write The Economist in their review of Snyder's book, “is a quasi-mystical belief in the destiny of nations and rulers, which sets aside the need to observe laws or procedures, or grapple with physical realities.”
An Introduction to Ivan Ilyin, the Philosopher Behind the Authoritarianism of Putin’s Russia & Western Far Right Movements
This series will return January 21st with part 9 about meaning systems.
List Of References Used In This Series
- ‘Wolves of the Russian Spring’: An Examination of the Night Wolves as a Proxy for the Russian Government (PDF)
- Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption on Social Media During the 2018 US Midterm Elections (PDF Memo) (PDF — Supplement)
- The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency (PDF)
- Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation (PDF)
- The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018 (PDF)
- “Little Green Men”: A Primer On Modern Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013-2014 (PDF)
- PARTISANSHIP, PROPAGANDA, & DISINFORMATION Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election (PDF)
- Network Propaganda Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics (PDF)
- Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization (PDF)
- Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors Alert (TA18-074A) (LINK)
- Soft Warfare Theory (PDF)
- MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: Memetic Warfare: The Future of War (PDF)
- Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution (PDF)
- Street Prophets Coffee Hour: Crowdsourcing Words & Concepts For The Resistance. Any Suggestions?
