What of home-grown hate?

I like this formulation. Indeed, there are many Islamists who aren't interested in jihad against the far enemy. Our mission ought to be, among other things, to keep them ther are gradually marginalize their influence on society.

Alan, the scope won't be limited by boundaries, geographic or otherwise. However, I'll confess that the kinds of hatred that I outlined in my preface are the ones which command the bulk of my interest right now. That's not to say other instances aren't noteworthy - comment or email if you feel I'm missing something essential.

Thanks for putting in the time to do this, and I particularly like the tone you establish. Coming from a large, extended family with both Subud (a sort of Indonesian Muslim Sufi Unitarian sort of thing) and Jewish members, I appreciate people who know the difference between Islamofascism and Islam in all it's wildly varied manifestations.

People need to know what extremists - even (or perhaps particularly) extremists writing for governments we aid, disseminate. I was amazed when I first read some MEMRI translations of anti-American/anti-Jewish rants coming out of Egyptian newspapers (my understanding is that they don't have freedom of press, so these screeds are state sanctioned). It's like peering into some dark, bilious alternative reality, a reality that we aid to the tune of several billion dollars a year?

You may be shouted down by people who disagree with the very existence of the hatred you reveal, as it may threaten their various (and usually simplistic partisan) illusions, tarred as a racist for linking to dreadful racism, or have your craziest commenter's quotes taken as representative of your work. Best of luck with it. It's still very much worth doing.

Gene, (and asdf), thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

Does this mean drug war coverage? The drug war in its inception was designed as covert racism and continues to serve that purpose today.

lewy14:

It sounds like we have a valuable contribution in the making here. I hope that we can maintain the atmosphere of comity that Joe has managed to keep so far.

With any luck we can also attract more commenters like Gene Thug who can give us a window into areas some of us aren't able to look into quite so easily.

You might want to look at this, cover story in the current East Bay Express, a progressive weekly, "The Bitter Education of Micki Weinberg." It's long, so I won't paste the story, but the url is worth checking. The Express didn't think it was a pretty story.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/current/feature.html

This what you had in mind for this thread, Joe K. and Lewy14?

Do you mean leftist or Communist anti-American rhetoric?

Read it and figure it out. It seems they don't like anti-Semitism when it pops up in their home town.

Bob Harmon, thanks for the link. Yes, bingo. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

A Steve: labels confuse. Is Chomsky a leftist? Is Barak? Was Rabin? What about Michael Moore? See what I mean?

I'd like to re-iterate and clarify a point here - I'm interested in the expressions of hate, and their ingredients - the world view and ideology that lays their foundations. Assertions of culpability for terror or calls for anyone to be silenced are extremely difficult to justify and generally don't interest me. But I do think elements of leftist anti-American and anti-Israeli thinking contribute to the views of the true haters.

Lewy14,

You're right, and it's more than the usual posturing on Telegraph Avenue. The threat is not so much capital-T terror as a very real possibility of local (and major) hate crimes, arson and worse. We've had confrontations like what the article describes, elsewhere at Bay Area campuses.

lewy 14,

As a supporter of the liberation of Iraq and as a supporter (and former resident) of Israel, I'm troubled by your seeing "great value" in the odious Little Green Footballs. I used to be a regular reader of that blog, but I think Charles Johnson-- who probably was well-meaning when he started out-- has created something that's got out of control and turned downright nasty. His commenters remind me of a school of piranhas, ripping apart whatever is tossed to them. I don't know if Johnson is personally anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, but many of his commenters certainly are, and he doesn't seem very interested in rebuking them. I hope HateWatch will confront all kinds of hatred, including that which appears all too often on LGF.

Bob Harmon emailed this story to me:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/current/feature.html

Berkeley Intifada

As students embrace the Palestinian cause, UC Berkeley has lost whatever reputation it may once have had for tolerance.

BY ANNELI RUFUS

Protesters outside the Daniel Pipes lecture held aloft dueling Israeli and Palestinian flags.

On the day after September 11, Micki Weinberg walked to the UC Berkeley campus still in shock. At the entrance to campus, facing Telegraph Avenue, huge sheets of blank paper were spread out as an impromptu memorial on which students, faculty, and other passersby were invited to write comments. Glad to have found such a forum, Weinberg scanned the inscriptions. Then he saw one, large and clear, that stopped him dead in his tracks:

"It's the Jews, stupid." ...

Gene, I want to reopen the LGF debate about as much as I want to eat broken glass. Just as tasty, just as fun.

All I'll say is that the existance of this new update series on WoC is evidence of my conviction that there is room for a forum on hatred which takes a different view, and a different tone. My goal is to demonstrate this and not just talk about it.

Fair enough. As long as we're aware of the gulf between moderate liberals like Daschle and the Indymedia crowd, I've nothing about which to complain.

btw, did you see the /. poll on good hand-to-hand weapons? http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1053&aid=-1 The Minbari fighting pike didn't do all that well, but I'm still a fan.

Lewy14,

The French just haven't been the same since you been gone.

Congratulations on your inaugural column and the even tone. Keep it up, but that'll be hard to continue with the constant demands for attitude in the blogsphere, and increasingly, the mainstream media.

As for the home-grown hate, you can find it everywhere you look. Even the U.S. Senate. Check out Fritz Hollings blaming the Iraq war on the Jews.
http://hollings.senate.gov/~hollings/opinion/2004506A17.html

P.S. I am posting this at 5:25 pm in the East. Why does it say 10:25 pm? GST?

Does this have any connection to the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch"? I found that to be highly political.

Brett, there is no connection to SPLC. But thanks for pointing this out, I'll take a closer look this evening.

Lunchbox - thanks for the link - I read it twice; while I don't intend to dive too deeply into OIF (WoC already has that well covered), Hollings ramble is incoherent on many levels. His enumeration of the Jewish "neocons" is troubling. At best.

WoC does indeed run on GST.

Bob,

The violence problem is more than just lefties attacking Jews and others - we don't want anyone to emulate the Governor either. While beating up Nazis and other anti-Semites is fun healthy exercise, especially for exhuberant young males (ask Arnold), such violence should be avoided.

It would be much preferable to make public displays of anti-Semitism a suspension offense for college students, and expel & then prosecute those who use political violence of any sort, including spitting. We do have a Safe Schools Act. The Hate Speech Act shows that such laws would be constitutional.

When it all boils down to religious war who's to say who's right and wrong?

Oh! I forgot. The fanatics will tell us who is right and who is wrong. Depending upon which place of worship your standing in that is.

Heather, 15, and fellow sophomore Lacey Fernwalt, 16, were taken to a room with a school administrator, where a female deputy ordered them to partially undress. Lacey removed her pants, and
the deputy, Marcellene Beck, looked inside her bra, she said.

According to Heather, Beck told her to remove her skirt then lifted her tank top, exposing her breasts. Then Beck told Heather to spread her legs as the deputy tugged at the edges of her underwear. "I was crying and hyperventilating. I sat there in
disbelief," she told the Post. "I'm still so embarrassed," she said.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/338/kent.shtml

Tom Holsinger: IANAL but my understanding is that incitement to violence is not protected free speech; perhaps someone can add more detail here. I'd be the first to welcome more active enforcement against blatent incitement (and actual violence, on any side). But I also believe there is a case to be made that fewer constraints on free speech on campus are in order, rather than more.

M. Simon - I believe you're getting at something here - like alot of (small l) libertarian leaning folks I'm not now nor ever have been a fan of the drug war - but I need some more direct explanation.

This is a fantastic idea, and as such I have accordingly blogged it to try to give it a tad bit more of a highlight.

I think you are unfair to Pipes though.

Gerry

Levy,

Higher education has become the not merely the refuge, but the breeding place, of political violence in America. We are also at war and under attack at home. More constraints on free speech there are appropriate given that these are not normal times.

This is aimed in particular at foreign students. Academic suspension of them for political offenses should entail loss of their student visas and prompt deportation. They are not "Americans-in-training". The ones who are problems here are Arabs.

Gerry,

On re-reading my original statement on Pipes I recognize the flaw you point out on you blog. Let me expand on where I'm coming from here.

The association many people make regarding Islam goes something like this: fundamentalist = radical = militant = a danger to us. (I recognize that Pipes does not necessarily make this association). My point is that I do not believe that all extremely pious ("fundamentalist" for lack of a more precise term) Muslims are hateful or dangerous to us. I was particularly taken by Robert Kaplan's description of the culture of the Pashtun mujahideen, contrasted with his experience with the Iranian student radicals of the Khomeini era.

(Of course, there will be those who say this view is naive. Unfortunately the influence of the wahabi on the Muslim world has shifted the center of gravity to the point where the equivalence association I gave above is more true than it was 20 years ago, and it's value as an approximation of reality in some situations cannot be dismissed out of hand.)

Further, I'm cool on the idea that "moderate Islam" is necessarily a solution, given the volume of incitement coming from outlets such as Al Jazeera and Arab state sponsored media in countries such as Egypt and Syria, delivered on air by clean shaven men and made-up, bareheaded women unlikely to pass muster with the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue.

So, in the end, I still believe Pipes' simple formula, while not without merit, elides some essential subtleties.

Tom, I would agree to this much anyway - when campuses tolerate hatred to the point of actual disruption of civil discourse - while actual civil discourse such as we're having right here would risk sanction as "hate speech", then we do have a problem, don't we? (Did you see my link to David Bernstein's book You Can't Say That?)

That said: I'd say "the ones who are problems here", as you put it, are neither identical with, nor limited to, the Arabs.

Levy,

The foreign students who are problems here are almost entirely Arabs. Making horrible examples of them, complete with lifetime bans on return to the U.S., permanent records as potential terrorists (with involuntary DNA samples), etc., will have a salutory deterrent effect on everyone else including the citizens.

Lewy 14, I like your style-- Joe hinted to me that something like this was on the horizon. I promise to be a faithful reader! :)
I deplore starting our relationship in argument, but-- I will anyways! You said:
"Here's one major thesis on the "root cause" with many proponents in the blogosphere: "It's the Islam, Stupid!" (If you know what RoPMA stands for, you know what I’m talking about). I don't accept this thesis, not out of any residual political correctness, but because I really think it is wrong and incomplete. Daniel Pipes' formulation - "Militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution" - also misses, as many devout and fundamentalist Muslims are not our enemies."
From my point of view (evolutionary psycho-biology and population genetics) Islam is the problem, and more especially the Qur'an. I think memetic engineering is the only viable solution to the problem.
I am very interested in how 'hate-memes' are transmitted, reinforced, and diluted in populations-- do you have any interest in this or am I inducing narcolepsy in everyone here? I also am interested in the biochemistry of hatred-- is hatred directed against minorities different in biochemistry than, say hatred against an oppressive boss or a rival in love?
Anyways, welcome, and this is really cool! :)

lewy14,

This is the very best explanation of the Genesis of the Drug War I have read on the www.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm

If you need background or research help, I'm your go to guy.

The reason this is so important is that next to the denigration of men in our society the drug war is one of the last unexamined prejudices.

You might also want to read "Drug Warriors and Their Prey" by R.L. Miller who catalogs the steps of hatred from the first words to death camps. It is a universal progression. All humans are susceptable to it. The only guard is eternal vigilance.

Lunch box.

The clock at this blog is on Greenwich Savings Time.

i.e. Coordinated Universal Time +1.

GMT would be more universal (check the name) but few understand its value. Or possibly how to set their clocks.

Just landed here for the first time from a link elsewhere, and pleased to see the discussion - particularly the phrase ‘catalyzed by prolonged immersion in cults of hatred and demonization.’

Whether we want to admit it or not, the US is engaged in a religious war that has been underway since shortly after the advent of the religion of Islam and the clashes that brought on the Crusades. It is, at its root, a war between the worlds three monotheistic religions that has flared up again after hundreds of years of relatively non-violent confrontation. The principle fuse was the advent of the Wahabi sect in the late 1780's. It was lit at the reformation of the nation of Israel after the end of WWII.

The causes, the conditions and the impetus behind the actions taken by radical extremist Islamicists are rooted in far more than meets the eye or ear in dialog today. Hatred is indeed the primary motivator, but one can not understand the depth of it nor how it is exported without recourse to the study of cults and occultism. Whether it is Christianity, Judaism or Islamicism - all have seen the rise, fall and persistence of various cults which depart from founding principles and beliefs. Most if not all past cults have resorted to the use of occultism, and the Wahabi sect which regards all other Islamist sects as heretical and worthy only of death, is a worst case in point.

Fear is the first motivator that ultimately generates the kind of irrational hatred we see in the terrorists we face. The best remedy is truth, as many reformed believers in Islam have attested. Since all cults survive on a fabric of half-truths, disinformation and outright lies, the eventual elimination of cult following comes when the principle lies used are exposed in undeniable or physically evident ways. Examples abound in America, principle among them are a number of my Arab friends that resoundingly support this war, and tell of their own cleansing from the tyranny of cultic and occultic lies they escaped from. Interestingly, none are without religion, several have become Christian - and all tell me that the war we are now engaged in is principally driven by radical Islamicist hatred for the successes of Christianity and Judaism. All want the ‘war on terror’ name changed - to ‘the war on radical Islam’ - or a variant of that, specifically naming the real enemy, if not Wahabism explicitly.

I'm told by these friends that what terrorists, and certain Imams, fear most is the freedom of other Muslims to expose their beliefs to the harsh light of truth within countries of the Middle East.

From my point of view (evolutionary psycho-biology and population genetics) Islam is the problem, and more especially the Qur'an. I think memetic engineering is the only viable solution to the problem.

While I think memetic engineering--or, to use a more accessible term, propaganda (in the non-value-laden usage)--has some value as part of the solution, I reject the simplistic notion that Islam and the Qur'an are the problem. Islam and the Qur'an don't exactly have a monopoly on scriptural calls to violence and intolerance towards kafir--in fact, the Qur'an isn't really any worse in this regard than the Christian Bible. And while Christianity doesn't have a great track record as far as holy wars, persecution, and institutional intolerance go, I think most reasonable people can acknowledge that the vast majority of Christians are decent people who reject the hatefulness of their more radical elements.

The solution lies elsewhere. The language in the Qur'an isn't helpful, but it's not why terrorists blow themselves and innocent people up.

I don't believe Islam is the problem. I believe some facets of Islam are problematic, but not intractably so.

The Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda lived together peacefully for many years, and if left to their own devices would most likely have continued on that way. There were a lot of factors which aided and abetted that genocide, but in my view the clincher was the leadership. They took a pot the Belgians had left simmering and boiled it over with a sustained, vitriolic call to action.

That is the problem in the Middle East today. Left to their own devices the vast majority of the followers of Islam are interested in just getting on with their lives. But they are not left alone. When all one sees and hears -- from the TV to the newspaper to the radio to the sermons in the mosques -- is designed to push one’s thinking toward hatred, it can be awfully hard to break from that. Given enough time, people are radicalized who otherwise would have just gone about their lives in peace.

If we want to stop the violence, we need to stop the state / mosque-sanctioned incitement through a wholesale change in political and religious leadership.

'Catsy': Memetic engineering and propaganda are vastly different things-- you're going to have to do some background research to enter this argument with me-- start with Wikipedia def. of memes. It is useless to equivalence religious violence-- what is your point? Are you going to equivalence Islamic violence with South American or Native American tribal violence?

Ron: you said--
"Whether we want to admit it or not, the US is engaged in a religious war that has been underway since shortly after the advent of the religion of Islam and the clashes that brought on the Crusades. It is, at its root, a war between the worlds three monotheistic religions that has flared up again after hundreds of years of relatively non-violent confrontation."

I think it is more helpful to describe 'war between religions' as 'war between coalitions'.

BooPear: You say: "I don't believe Islam is the problem."
And then you say: "If we want to stop the violence, we need to stop the state / mosque-sanctioned incitement through a wholesale change in political and religious leadership."

Given that there is no separation of church and state in Islam, which is it?

Lewy, could you beg borrow or steal Charles' quote function? I really miss it! :)

T, I'm working on making individual comments linkable when I get back. What do you mean by "Charles' Quote function"?

Lewy14: My point is that I do not believe that all extremely pious ("fundamentalist" for lack of a more precise term) Muslims are hateful or dangerous to us.

Ah, I see. Your statement in the original post that fundamentalist Muslims aren't a threat had confused me; but you meant only "extremely pious" ones. I had been given to believe that one could be extremely pious while eschewing fundamentalism. (Take, for example, the extremely pious Christian who believes "seven days of Creation" is a metaphor for "10 billion years" of natural events.) Fundamentalism, I thought, meant taking every sentence of scripture as literally true and binding as such. On that meaning of "fundamentalist," it's impossible that fundamentalist Islam is not a threat, given the overwhelming number of hostile passages in the Koran and hadiths. (Do not overlook the hadiths.)

Non-fundamentalist (non-literalist), moderate Muslims are not a threat, no matter how pious they are. Albeit one worries how precarious their perch is, given the enormous pull of scripture toward the darker mode. We need an open society in the ME, which will allow in forces that will stabilize their perch.

Someone asked about the legal aspects of this kind of hate speech. Free speech can be proscribed under the "clear & present danger" doctrine only when it is likely to produce imminent lawless action, and intended as such. Same for "fighting words," which would by very utterance inflict injury or incite an immediate breach of the peace. It's a pretty stiff standard.

Hate speech is protected, as Antonin Scalia, that great liberal justice, pointed out when he wrote the RAV v. St. Paul decision. (The city could not single out a viewpoint -- cross burning -- and proscribe it.) "St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquis of Queensberry rules. ... St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire."

PS. Some hooligan tried cross-burning on someone's lawn in Minneapolis, subsequent to RAV, and was quite properly prosecuted for malicious mischief.

That is the black-letter law to this point in this country; I know because I've just completed a year of Constitutional Law studies, so it's something more than my opinion. Unless we repeal the First Amendment that's what we have to work with, and that's before we even get into the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses (on religion).

Twisterella, it's not a given to me that there "is no" separation of church and state in Islam, nor that there can be no separation of church and state. I will grant that in the most literal sense such a thing is not supposed to exist, but that doesn’t mean it cannot.

Many, many Muslim majority countries are secular at least to a degree, Turkey being the most successful example, but Indonesia, Malaysia -- heck, even Iraq -- and others continue to struggle towards a more liberal interpretation of Islam.

Call me an optimist, but I think a reformation is coming. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but somewhere down the road Islam is going to adapt to modern realities, and despite being “the literal word of God” the Koran will be reinterpreted within the modern context.

The first step is in sweeping aside those who would stand in the way of such a thing. Turning off the spigot of hate will go a long way toward solving the problem of the "Arab street".

Joe: Charles keeps a button over the comment box to create a block quote in smaller type face-- it just reduces the comments for reference-- I remember you had trouble with links earlier messing up the comment text, but maybe the blockquote function would be less invasive-- have a good weekend!:)

BooPear: In a largely static environment, Islam evolved to be the dominant religion of the ME-- sort of like the dinosaurs. Now the environment is changing furiously. Sure, Islam will be forced into adaptive change eventually, but it is extremely resistant to change in its present form.
I hope this isn't too snarky and flippant for lewy's style, but this is what I said at lgf the other day-- An excerpt from the condensed version of my 'Theoretical Population Genetics for Dhimmies':

1. We live in a Hobbesian Universe. Y'know, "nature red in tooth and claw"?

2. Islam is a powerful, brutal, and efficent ' recipe for reproduction'.

3. You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is interested in you. Islam is competitive.

4. There may be moderate muslims, but the fundamentalists have the controls.

Twisterella,

Sure, I'd agree to a greater or lesser extent with each point you make. That's why there is a (mis-named) war on terror underway. We gotta "drain the swamp", as they say -- which was exactly my point.

The simple truth is, the vast majority of those in the ME who "hate" the west kind of hate us like the average Russian did during the cold war. They hear lots of bad stuff, and their leaders make sure to keep them all riled up, because it serves a purpose. But how many of those Russians really lived and breathed Marxism to the hilt, versus those who just kind of went along with it because there was no other choice?

Take away the leadership peddling the hate, and next thing you know they don't hate us so much anymore.

Islam can and will change, forcibly if necessary. The only question is, how many people is it going to kill before that happens?

Wow. Wow. Great discussion, and thanks to all the thoughtful posters. Meatspace obligations took me out today, but I’ll be around this evening.

I’d like to answer a few posts specifically, but reading through them, the following pair of challenges formed in my mind:

A challenge to the “Islam is the problem” proponents: recall the discussion between fundamentalism vs piety, and bear with me. I’m not an expert on the Koran, or the Bible, and I’m going to petition for a temporary pass on charges of “moral equivalencing”. From what I know and have heard, I don’t think the religious canons of faiths aside from Islam are completely “clean” with regard to incitement. Clearly some fundamentalists of certain faiths (e.g. Christians) are not a major source of terrorism and hatred (although of course some will debate even this). Clearly it is possible for them to reconcile the way of their text with the way of peace. Why not with Islam? Is it impossible to be a “fundamentalist” (i.e. literalist) Muslim and not be a danger? (Recall that not all schools give equal weight or interpretation to the sunnah and the hadiths). Is the way of the Wahabi the only Islamic literalist tradition possible? I’m still open to a cogent argument here. Perhaps this is academic given the existence and virulence of the Wahabi but I still think it’s an interesting question.

A challenge to the “Islam is not the problem” proponents: I’ve seen a lot of “this religious canon is just as full of hate and incitement as that religious canon so Islam can’t be the problem” threads on many blogs, quite literally citing chapter and verse for hundreds of posts. I’m not impressed and I don’t want to replay that particular classic hit. So, arguendo, with a scope delimiter of this paragraph alone, the texts are equivalent in this regard, i.e., problematic with regard to inciting hatred. Then a meta question arises – what does the text itself say with regard to literalism? My understanding is that the Koran embraces it. At least one faith, Buddhism, explicitly disavows literal adherence to the canon. (Few people will assert Buddhist canon is equally problematic with regard to inciting hatred, but let’s just say it was). Where does that leave us on the question of canonic toxicity? If anyone posts citations from the texts, please limit to the narrow question of literal interpretation.

BooPear: How do we remove the leadership? Assassination? Who do we take out? We can't find the really bad guys, and I don't think it is in our basic interest to whack Al-Sistani OR Al-Sadr. Where do we start? Iraq? Iran?

Ron: Hate is indeed combated by truth – and so perhaps deconstructionism is the ultimate perpetuator of hate because it aims not to deny one or another narrative but by affirming all narratives, thereby destroying truth itself. Thus Egyptian commentators perpetuate the idea that the Mossad warned the Jews of New York about 9/11, and the dominant arm of the western academy of arts and letters affirms the validity of their narrative.

Twisterella: I am very interested in how 'hate-memes' are transmitted, reinforced, and diluted in populations-- do you have any interest in this or am I inducing narcolepsy in everyone here? Yes, very interested.

Bob Harmon: Thanks for the legal input – I’m supposing one common application of the “incite an immediate breach of the peace” clause is road rage. See below.

M. Simon: OK, now I see where you’re coming from. There are a number of seemingly divergent topics which may shed light on the immediate issue of the current epidemic of terrorism and the hatred that fuels it. For instance, I experience hatred, rage, reckless endangerment and assault (and occasional battery) all too often, simply on the basis of who I am, where I am, and what I look like. I’m in the way, I don’t belong, I cause trouble, I have no right to exist. What am I? … Why, a road cyclist of course! (A pursuit I share with Charles Johnson. Coincidence? …) What is the connection to terrorism? It would lie in the systematic disenfranchisement and de-legitimization of the object of the hatred. I’m interested in the cross pollination of insights.

Pooh Bear: my own thoughts on the future of the relation of Islam to the State are roughly congruent. Now how to turn wishes and hopes into plans…

levy14:

Great start for your first day! Bottom line is, there is a group of people in the world that hate us (West/US) and we are at war. What label we place on them makes little difference to me. They do hate us though.

re: LGF- I am not a regular reader/commenter, but as I understand it, he posts headlines/stories from the Middle Eastern press. Whatever the commenters say, the information/links he provides are extremely valuable.

BooPear:

And how many Muslims will also die?

BooPear. Not "Pooh Bear". Right. I only read that bass ackwards for the last few hours or so. Sorry.

Twisterella: Memetic engineering and propaganda are vastly different things-- you're going to have to do some background research to enter this argument with me

How delightfully condescending. It's not your place to tell me or anyone else what we need to do in order to argue a point with you. Memetic engineering is 'propaganda' in the same sense that structural engineering is 'building'. The terms are not equivalent, but nor are they inaccurate--simply more accessible to someone who might not understand what you mean. That is, if you want to convey your point effectively as opposed to making yourself look smart.

The ability to throw around sophisticated terms when they're unnecessary only bolsters your argument if you're engaging in the Chewbacca defense.

It is useless to equivalence religious violence-- what is your point?

You misunderstand. I'm not equating one kind of religious violence with another. I'm pointing out that as religious texts which form the basis for many of the world's major religions, both the Qu'ran and the Bible are pervaded by language which encourages, condones, advocates, and even glorifies violence and intolerance towards unbelievers. And while intolerance (particularly where sexual mores are involved) is still very widespread in mainstream Christianity, most American Christians reject violent persecution of unbelievers.

Contrast this with Islam, where in many countries large segments of the Muslim population are willing to sympathize with the stated agendas of terrorists even though a statistically tiny percentage are actually willing to carry out these acts.

This suggests to me that the religion itself, and the intolerant and inciteful language in its holy book, are not the problem here. Most Christians have gotten beyond the truly awful things in the Bible and sought out the elements of good in it, and vast numbers of Muslims have done the same. There is something more at work here, a combination of group psychology, cultural identity, and good old-fashioned totalitarian information control that is /using/ Islam as a vehicle in much the same way as the End-Timers use the book of Revelations.

Are you going to equivalence Islamic violence with South American or Native American tribal violence?

I don't see what one has to do with the other in this context. My point concerned whether inciteful language in scripture is germane, given that both the Bible and the Qur'an contain it in spades, and yet Christian terrorism (while not extinct: see McVeigh, Rudolph, KKK, CIM, et al) is relatively rare and shunned by the mainstream religion, while Islamic terrorism seems to enjoy a bit more acceptance, even if tacit, by the Averange Man On The Street. This suggests to me that the text itself is not necessarily the problem, and that the solution lies in discerning why some people cannot or do not reject the violence in their religion while retaining their faith--and eliminating or attenuating those root causes.

I'm no scholar of religion, though I've read much if not all of major text. Still, I'm bothered by the comparison of stories of violence in the Bible with advocation of violence in the Quran.

If I am wrong in any of my assertions below, no doubt someone more knowledgeable than me will correct me.

First,
the nature of both books is very different. The Quran is (according to the faithful) a direct message from God to the people. God speaks to Mohammed (the messenger) who disseminates the message. There is a great deal of 1st and 2nd person directive within the Quran. Therefore, advocation of violence can be, and often is, interpreted as direct messages from God to the reader.

The Bible on the other hand, does not claim that from first to last page it is a directive from God. The majority of the texts are stories told in the 3rd person. Only few are "messages from God" (ie: 10 commandments). As far as I know, there is no message in the Bible directed to the reader that advocates violence. Granted there are many instances of violence being used to the benefit of Biblical figures. This is not the same as a message to me, the reader, to commit violence.

Second,
As far as I know, all sura are given equal weight among the faithful. According to belief, the entirety was given to Mohammed in one sitting. There is no evolution of thought or belief.

The Christian Bible, on the other hand, does have a clear hierarchy, with the message of Jesus and the Disciples given as the most recent and most important. The very nature of Jesus's message was to contradict, overturn aspects of previous messages. And so, the overriding message is one of non-violence and, although many "faithful" throughout history have not adhered to this message, there is no argument that Christianity's message to the faithful is the non-violent message of Jesus.

Before anyone tosses accusations my way, I'd like to say that I'm agnostic and I'm not a great defender of any faith.

I simply think that the delivery of the message (1st and 2nd person vs. 3rd person) and the heirarchy or lack there of makes a huge difference in these texts. Therefore, comparisons such as holding up a the story of Samson as a tale of using violence against a direct message of "kill the apostates" don't seem entirely comparable.

CBK

Catsy: You are repeating yourself...
"Memetic engineering is 'propaganda' in the same sense that structural engineering is 'building'."
I don't think accepting a common definition of a domain specific term is an unreasonable expectation.
I don't understand the virtue of dredging up biblical and historical reference to 'equivalence' anything about the Big Three-- all are religions, that's enough for me. My interests lie in understanding the mechanism, seeing the difference, and applying that knowledge to potential solutions.
Again, I find "inciteful language" cross-references tedious and not productive. The Qur'an is wildly different from other tomes in both form and function. My point is, drawing parallels (like with the Apache and the Yanamamu) is not valuable.

Lewy! Did you notice how polite and measured my response was? Hmmmm, maybe you CAN take the lgf out of the grrrl! :)

CBK - check out the book of Leviticus. There's plenty of direct instructions to commit violence. There isn't AFAIK anything directed at conquest, but there's certainly plenty of stories of conquest and atrocities narrated with apparent approval of God elsewhere in the OT.

Twisterella - two points: First, using nonstandard terminology is an obstacle to communication. Nobody outside insular little net cliques uses "memetic engineering" as a technical term. For most people it's a superset of propaganda, and a poorly defined one at that. If you insist on taking a superior attitude to people who disagree with you you will convince nobody. If your ideas have merit, then it's worth the time to figure out how to communicate them effectively to people who don't share your assumptions. If not, not. Second point: drawing parallels is the basic means by which one comes to understand the world. Looking at similar things yields insight. Looking at things which appear similar but yield different outcomes is the basic way in which scientists figure out which variables are important and which are not. If "memetic engineering" is to have any kind of basis in reason (as opposed to netposeurism), then it has to be grounded in comparisons of ideas and their presentation, looking at similarities and differences in the input as a means to explain similarities and differences in the output. This is the only way to constrain reason to deal with reality. Otherwise it is mere speculation based on assumptions which may or may not reflect the world outside the speculator's head: GIGO.

Twisterella, lewy14

Re: how do we do it?

What I believe is happening today in the ME is a process of differentiation. By launching a war on terror, by invading Iraq, we are notching up the pressure and forcing the governments of the ME to choose a side – either for Islamic fundamentalism or against. They won’t be able to support both sides for much longer (Hello Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran), because if the current leaders keep trying to straddle the fence eventually someone is going to come to power (through revolution, assassination, whatever) with a little more spine one way or another. When that happens, either real progress is made and they go the way of Turkey – or they go the way of Iraq (with similar end results). Some countries are a little further along in this process than others.

Lord Worfin – not sure what angle you’re coming from, here. Can you elaborate?

In general, unfortunately, lots are going to die. The real question to me is: what's the best way to minimize the number?

Also wanted to add my two cents worth on the question of the Qur'an and the interpretation thereof (literal or otherwise).

The Fundamentalists would have us believe that the Qur’an is the literal, unambiguous word of God. If it says "kill the apostates" then that's exactly what you should do. Atrocities such as 9/11 are the direct end result.

I, however, believe that the Qur'an can be, and is, interpreted every day. There was an interesting debate going on over at one of the Muslim apostate websites a while ago (can't remember which one), where a poster pointed out the many flaws in the passages dealing with "science". Basically, taken at its literal word, some of the stuff is pretty daffy. A fundamentalist-type chimed in with, basically, "You're wrong, the science is not daffy because where it says X it really means Y, and where it says A it really means B, etc... so, the Koran is actually 100% right!"

As soon as the majority of Imams realize that if you can interpret some of the Qur'an you can interpret all of it, we'll be getting somewhere important down the road to real and lasting peace between Islam and the rest of the world. I think that process has already begun.

twisterella, Catsey, Andrew Case:

For what it's worth, I think twisterella's reference to memetic engineering is valid and relevant. Memetics certainly has a place in the discussion. However, as Andrew quite correctly pointed out, it's up to the champion of the idea to explain it and make the relevance clear. So twisterella: why memetics as a basis, not more traditional foundations?

When blog surfing, where info on a particular work of phrase is no farther than one's Google toolbar, obscurity of term isn't much of a barrier. (Although some embedded links are helpul when introducing potentially unfamilliar terms, as I demonstrated).

Yes, twisterella, I noticed your tone, and I think you will find in large part it is it's own reward. While it's great fun to speak out, I'm finding these days it's more fun to be heard and understood, and sometimes one has to sacrifice some of the fun of the former to achieve the later.

Lewy! You noticed! How sweet!
'Catsy' twice tried to tell me what memetic engineering IS-- I don't think it is too much to ask to read one teensy wikipedia entry! And I won't post it here-- what a rude abuse of Joe's bandwidth!! Why did god make Google?

Andrew Case: I am perfectly willing to frame and elaborate my argument with example-- but I do think a bare understanding of what consitutes a meme is a prerequisite. As for equivalencing, I know Lewy and I (at least) have seen thousands of postings comparing quotes from the Bible and the Qur'an. I am not interested in the parallels, but in the orthogonals, and the acute/oblique change vectors.
I know the basis that informs my argument is, ummm, unorthodox? Consider my world view to be anchored by the Holy Double Helix, and the pillars of my belief are:
1. There is a biological basis for all behavoir.
And 2. Everything Evolves.

lewy14: Why memetics as a basis?
1. We used to say in Artifical Intelligence, representation is all. Theoretical Population Genetics is another representation that may yield insights.
2. It is my strongly held belief system, and my best basis for argument.
3. A different representation may yield different lines of attack for the problem.
4. If 'understanding the mechanism' is key ( and I think it is), memetics and population genetics provide valuable insight into the mechanism.

Twisterella - The two pillars of Twisterellism are sensible enough, but they need a degree of elaboration to be really useful. Unfortunately I don't have time to get into a long discussion this week, but suffice to say that there is room for interpretation. There is also room for interpretation in the tenets of that other religion, the one with the five pillars, enough to allow peacable coexistence :-)

Catsy, you miss an important distinction when you talk about the Christian Bible without differentiating the Old Testament from the New ... the Christian attitude to the Old Testament is complex, but in general it is seen as being both fulfilled and superceded by the coming of the Christ.

This is not a pedantic quibble. The rejection of violence in the name of religion by most Christians was based precisely on that distinction. Moreover, the New Testament not only isn't monolithic in authorship, it isn't monolithic in its theologies either. In fact, the idea of a Scriptural canon of multiple books is that together they delineate the boundaries that separate Christian beliefs from those of others - i.e. so long as you are somewhere in the range of those beliefs, you are consistent with Christian teaching. Islam, on the other hand, regards the single-author Quran as the final and perfect expression of Allah's will. That makes reformation much harder.

Twisterella, my research is in the intersection of AI with formal decision analysis ... the issue of how memes are adopted and transmitted is not that far from my work re: applying measures of value to information used by software agents. Keep on thinking out loud on this stuff ....

lewy14,

I think we need a new religion:

Taking the blame for our own sins. Both individual and systematic.

for a look at some of the systematic issues:

http://www.sq.zzz.com/Ted.htm

-substitute 4 m g with no spaces for zzz - the filter doesn't like that.

also:

http://www.sq.zzz.com/corrupt.htm

- same deal with the zzz -

the tendency to look for scape goats is universal.

"Drug Warriors and Their Prey" by R.L. Miller is essential in understanding the mass psychology.

Bon Matin, Le Roi Soleil! Never would I abuse your gracious hospitality! :)
Since I am definitely of the Islam-is-the-problem school, I'll land in that camp. I'd like to apologize for jumping into the middle of my argument with the 'memetic engineering' term. I see now I can't propose that as a solution without the context of what problems it can solve. I know I think differently than most beings ('bizarre and inappropriate associations and ill-conformed neural pathways' was one criticism), but I honestly think there is value in wildly different perspectives. I truly don't intend to exhibit a superior attitude-- indeed I am humble and grateful for an audience.
So let's start at the beginning. Islam did not spring full grown from Mohammed's forehead. The Early or 'short' Suras evolved (oops, there's that word again) from the oral tradition of the classic Arabian Ode. In reading from the jahilyyaa (the 'ignorance', or pre-islamic poetry), I was immediately struct by one of my favorite orthogonals-- what happened to 'wine, women, and song' in the Qur'an? The only one of the 'Big Four' that persists in the Qur'an is 'battle'. So here is a huge difference from the Bible or the Torah-- no song of Solomon, no heroic Esters and Judiths, no wine, no songs.
Why? Well of course I have an opinion, but I'd like to stop here and see if I've missed any background or not made myself clear, and I'd also be very interested in anyone else's hypothesis. And I have to go drag a pasture. :)

A rejoinder on the Bible. Though it may be true that the Old Testament, sanguinary as it is, is possibly succeeded by the New, it's worth remembering that the four Gospels on the life and teachings of Jesus are only part of the New Testament. A lot of the rest are the jeremiads of Paul, who can be very hostile to women (e.g., the bits in Titus, Ephesians and elsewhere about being silent and not allowed to teach) and gay people (e.g., the death threat at the end of Romans 1).

Then there's the Book of Revelations. There's a very large industry just on the LaHaye novels about the Endtimes, Armageddon, the Rapture, et al, and apparently a lot of Americans seem to focus on that part of the New Testament.

For purposes of disclosure, I'm a member of the United Church of Christ. I do have to admit some dismay that Christianity has tended to be universalist and triuphalist -- but then again some in Islam seem to have those same tendencies.

"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
- Mark Twain

twisterella: no song of Solomon, no heroic Esters and Judiths, no wine, no songs

No Queens of Sheba (located in modern Yemen) either. Agreed, WW&S are part of most cultures. There is a subset of Christianity which tries to stamp these out as well (see, e.g. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco for an illustration) but they largely failed and continue to fail. Khomeini said: "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun" (see this link).

So how did pre-Islamic culture lose this meme in the evolution towards Islam? And what are the consequences? Is this what you're getting at?

Can I still comment? Guess so, absolution trumps permission, everytime.
I see I have achieved my stock response set-- either zzzzzzzz or whoa! that grrrl is friggin insane!
To continue, the value of orthogonals-- Let's pick one, and I choose-- Womyn! Since I am an XX being myself.
Most beings agree that one problem with Islam is the lack of secularization-- Islam never underwent reformation-- it is still a closed system. So, if we want to drag Islam (kicking and screaming) into the twentieth century, we need to open the system. In the Jahilyyah, women had power--
'she is the disease, she the cure'--
And some of the Odes were even written by women! If we can reintegrate the concept of woman into Islam, we can dilute and transmute the transmission of some undesireable memes.
I think WW&S were excised from the Qur'an to form an aesthete, a warrior guild, that focused all their avaiable energy on battle, the conquest of territory. This process was gradual, a slow trial and error, and evolution always selects for 'what works'. So the non-XX version of Islam spread and succeeded. Today, disenfranchised young arabs can be persuaded their reward (of a complement of women) can be achieved through the ultimate sacrifice for Al-Lah. This is one tiny example.
So, how do we implement change? Consider the power of memetic engineering-- 1.3 to 1.5 billion Muslims, each with a full complement of memetic receptors, that can be turned to a different purpose. Let's say the meme extant in the Muslim population today is something like-- (arabs are heir to a proud cultural tradition with important contributions in science and mathematics). Let's change that just a little, to read (arabs are heir to a proud cultural tradition with important contributions in science and mathematics, AND literature, particularily the Classic Arabian Ode and the poetry of the Jahilyyaah). How do we do this-- simple, publish them, advertise them (we're good at that!) and sell them.
Memetic engineering is much more like psyops than propaganda in some cases, but in others can occur without deliberate intent, and still yet in others require physical engineering.
OK, I said enough for now. If there is any interest I'd love to talk about memes as viruses, but if I am totally boring everyone to tears, I'll quit. :)

Twisterella,
Maybe Joe can give you your own WoC update. Something like "Wha'd'ya Meme" perhaps?

Is memetic engineering advanced enough to be its own discipline? Can you point us to some foundational texts? Wouldn't it have to be related to public relations, or it's governmental cousin, public diplomacy? Are you hiring?

Lurker, LOL!
Here is one. http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id133/pg1/
Google turns up over eight thousand refs.
I haven't seen any cohesive tomes on the subject, but there could be one.
My thoughts on memetic engineering and Islam are my own-- mostly I just read books and hang out at LGF. After ten years in a SCIF, I have not the habit of googling! :)

twisterella, you are absolved. 8)
I liked your example - I think it demonstrates the difference between memetics and traditional propaganda quite nicely.

Yes, the warrior cult of Islam was successful, but analagous to viral propagation, demands a supply of hosts...

...Our government has yet to demonstrate substantial competence in winning the media war either here or abroad, so acting on your ideas will likely be left to the blogosphere, much as the American Spirit TV equipment drive was.

So far I have seen statements saying that Islam can "interpreted" to allow for tolerance of followers of other monotheistic religions.

I happen to think that Mohammed the prophet is a terrible role model. I am a polytheist and an idol worshipper. I do not ever want to NOT be a polytheist or an idol worshipper. In other words, I am Hindu. Do you think Islam can be interpreted to take out calls to violence against people like me? I am not sure that Islam can ever allow such a radical reinterpretation and remain Islam, but I am curious to hear others' opinions.

JM

There are (admittedly minority) sects of Islam that are compatible with tolerance. Parts of my extended family practice Subud, an Indonesian Muslim sect, that shares some of its practice method/philosophies with Quaker/Sufi/Buddhism. These folks are extremely tolerant, in my experience, similar to Unitarians.

That said, and perhaps related to twisterella's notions re: memetic competition, I doubt that moderate sects of Islam can compete effectively with fundamentalist extremism over the long haul. Fundamentalists of any faith can always claim to be more religiously authentic, and more spiritual than moderates (and can also justify their violence against "heretics" more effectively). The historical persecution/marginalization of Sufism by the major sects of Islam provides my basis for thinking this (quick/lazy google example here: http://www.mindspring.com/~altafb/sufipers.html - sorry, I'm unfamiliar with embedding links).

One thing the US could do to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism, IMO, would be to prevent the spread of (Saudi funded) Wahabbist madrassas among the more historically moderate Muslim countries, or at least to counter that with some sort of pro-Western infotainment. As media saturated/savvy as the US is, I'm kind of surprised that we aren't better at this.

Gene Thug:

That said, and perhaps related to twisterella's notions re: memetic competition, I doubt that moderate sects of Islam can compete effectively with fundamentalist extremism over the long haul. Fundamentalists of any faith can always claim to be more religiously authentic, and more spiritual than moderates...

It is now a Unitarian church, like many others with simillar history in New England.

It was the fundamentalist sects of Christianity which were not as successful around where I grew up; the evolution was toward moderation. Why did this happen? Can this happen with Islam? Can it take less than centuries? Twisterella???

Gene Thug, Yes! The fundamentalists have the controls. From Pascal Boyer, The Evolutionary Theory of Religion:

"...fundamentalism is neither religion in excess nor politics in disguise. It is an attempt to preserve a particular kind of hierarchy based on coalition, when this is threatened by the perception of cheap, and therefore likely defection."

That is why apostacy is so fiercely punished in Islam.
If I wasn't a geneticist (my religion) I would be a Sufi. Even better, a Falasef or Mutazili, except that those sects were wiped out by the fundamentalsts in the 14th century. :)

lewy! Is it your intent to let me hijack this thread completely? :) Here's your headline-- "Grrrl from Biker Bar (that's what A.L. used to call LGF) Makes Good as Courtesan in the Court of the Sun King"!

'It was the fundamentalist sects of Christianity which were not as successful around where I grew up; the evolution was toward moderation. Why did this happen?'
Hmmm, I haven't really thought much about that-- Are you interested in Unitarians in particular or in Christian fundamentalism in general? I'll see what I can come up with...

' Can this happen with Islam? Can it take less than centuries? Twisterella???'
Well yah, and we can even measure it! Cultural transmission can be described as genetic inheritance (see Dawkins, Wilson, Pinker, Cvalli-Sforza, Durham, etc, etc.) All you need is a set of units, a set of variant producing changes, and a mechanism that chooses between variants. :) And it can happen at speed-- look at the blogverse-- memes here are generated, reinforced, transmitted, diluted, destroyed and recreated in days or hours-- this furious activity is fuelled by information and argument! Granted this process is much slower in the carbon-based realm, but not centuries-- if we are clever and subtle, weeks or months would be a more appropriate metric. Now for the clever and subtle part, if we could leave the meme/gene metaphor for a while and consider the 'memes as viruses analogy'.

twisterella: Are you interested in Unitarians in particular or in Christian fundamentalism in general? I think it's interesting that the "dharma successors" of the early New England Churches are now so moderate, and that the existing Fundamentalist churches seem to need to regenerate every generation or so and never get critical mass. (And I'm aware of the fundamentalist vs evangelical distinction).

Anyway, Gene Thug's comment rang this particular bell with me and I thought you might be interested in pursuing it.

lewy14

> Interesting that you compare your faith to the Unitarians.

Subud is my matrilineal family's religion. Though I love and respect them immensely, I studied far too much comparative religion and molecular biology as a young man to earnestly (sincerely?) commit to gnostic mysticism. Pardon me if I was unclear on this.

twisterella,

> Well yah, and we can even measure it!

I was wondering what a good metric for the assimilation of post-Enlightenment/Western values or Islamic Moderation might be. That is, is there anything we could measure that would let us know how this WoT is doing? Rumsfeld discussed the need for this in a memo, as I recall.

Exogamy rates have been discussed over at gnxp as a descriptor for Jewish assimilation in America, but I'm not sure how one might measure "moderateness" (except, perhaps, the health of apostates, or the absence of extremism/sectarian violence against them over time, as per your description of the fate of the Falasef and Mutazili sects). I suppose one could also invert this and measure the (roughly estimated) number of extremists, or the number of Extremist madrassas/Islamofascist training camps over time as well. Any thoughts?

twisterella,

From my point of view (evolutionary psycho-biology and population genetics) Islam is the problem, and more especially the Qur'an.

Thanks for introducing some evolutionary psychology to this discussion. To me, the applicable concept from evolutionary psychology to our current conflict is the concept of a trade-off between our selfish genes and their containers (i.e. our conscious selves). Our selfish genes reproduce by making sex a pleasurable experience for their containers.

I'm an atheist so I don't believe that Islam and Christianity are "revealed" in the sense that God woke up one day and decided to send a messenger to reveal His master plan to us. But I do believe that Jesus and Mohammed discovered and revealed some fundamental truths about human nature. This is why the faiths they founded along with the civilizations structured around these faiths have been so successful in the sense that they have spread and displaced other faiths and civilizations.

I think that Islam is the faith of the selfish-genes. Islam recognizes that the female egg is the most precious reproductive resource. The egg is fought over and hoarded by successful males. Women are sexual slaves and war-booty. The excess males denied access to females because of the Islamic practice of polygamy are sent off to wage Jihad and expand the borders of Dar-al-Islam. If these excess males survive their Jihad, they can claim the women of the conquered societies as their prize and get to reproduce. If the excess males are martyred, they go to paradise and claim their virgins.

On the other hand, I think of Christianity as the faith of the containers. As such it grants a larger role for free-will and negotiation between the sexes. Concessions are made to both genders that are positive sum. Males compete for access to the female egg by demonstrating they can successfully acquire resources in a cooperative society and that they will dedicate those resources to an individual female. Females grant access to their eggs in exchange for a committment to monogamy and exclusive access to the resources provided by the male.

The problem is that the technological and social progress at a pace that is only possible in a cooperative, Christian-based society has led to changes that break the Christian model. The technological progress is the pill. It gives us sex without reproduction. The social progress is the feminist movement which has suppressed the maternal instict by breaking the male monopoly over the acquisition of resources. Now, males realize the pleasures of sex without having to commit their resources, and women grant sex without having to secure the commitment of the male controlled resources.

The end result is a collapsing fertility rate in the Christian world and an exploding fertility rate in the Islamic world. And now, the Islamic world is displacing the Christian world. The Christian model with its tilt in favor of the container and its greater emphasis on cooperation may have led to greater material success short-term. However the forces of evolution now favor the Islamic model with its tilt toward the selfish-gene and greater emphasis on conflict. This is basic Darwinism in action. Obviously I over-simplify things, but this is a blog comment after all.

lewy, ma Roi: Are we having the same conversation on two threads? I loved this!!
"Maybe you mean secularized Islam. Otherwise, you have to argue that the decrease in religious wars from the 17th Cent. to today was caused by Christianized Christianity.
Posted by: Andrew J. Lazarus on May 27, 2004 02:39 PM"

HA: I LOVE your organic argument!!!
But if we really defer to Sir Richard, musn't we belive that all 'coalitions', including Christianity and Islam, basically seek to extend the benefits of membership to a wider gene pool?

Gene: We can use the population genetics maths if we can acquire the data set to operate on. :)

HA: I too like your argument, at least as far as explaining the problem. I'd prefer solutions which don't suggest that we revert to Victorian standards of sexual conduct and "get busy" within the bounds of matrimony in outbreeding Muslims. There is alot to object to in that "solution", quite apart from the inevitable conflict and overpopulation it would entail.

twisterella - yes, and we'll likely recapitulate these themes over the coming months. As long as we keep "twisting"... actually, I kinda like Andrews comment. The degree of Christianization of Christianity has indeed ebbed and flowed over time and space.

Some other thoughts - meme as a virus - virus needs hosts (And destroys them) - hosts can be weakened via damage to the immune system - leftist politics (particularly of the Chomskyite variety) weakens the immune system. This is something I thought of last summer, when I saw a CNN special on the madrassas of Indonesia. It featured a Westernized, leftist, english fluent, single mother who had sent her son to a madrassa. Tracing the likely trajectory of her eventual destruction is left as an excercise for the reader.

twisterella,

musn't we belive that all 'coalitions', including Christianity and Islam, basically seek to extend the benefits of membership to a wider gene pool?

Of course. But obviously the characteristics of Christian and Islamic civilizations are different. The more cooperative, positive sum nature of Christian based civilization led to environmental changes that made the regions it occupied more productive of the resources it needed to expand. The more aggressive, zero-sum and even negative-sum nature of Islam based civilization made the areas it occupied less productive of resources, but this was more than compensated by the resources Islam acquired through conquest.

Unfortunately for Islam, the greater productivity of Christendom eventually reversed the tide of Islamic conquest and for centuries Islamic civilization declined due to its comparative non-productivity. Unfortunately for Christianity, technological and social progress changed its environment to a great extent and Christendom is proving maladaptive to this new environment.

I'm ignoring for the moment the rapid adoption of Christianity in the third world. The third-world still largely resembles the barbarism of pre-Christian Europe. If my theories are correct, as the third world adopts Christianity in greater numbers, it should follow the trajectory that Europe followed as it converted to Christianity. The key environmental factor that is different with third-world Christendom is the competing fundamentalist atheism of Marxism.

Of course, these are just my amateur opinions.

Lewy,

I'd prefer solutions which don't suggest that we revert to Victorian standards of sexual conduct and "get busy"

I agree. I like a little debauchery as much as the next guy. I'd prefer that Islam become more Christianized. I use the term "Christianized" instead of "secularized" deliberately because it is more provocative. If I'd called for a secularized Islam, nobody would have noticed. Christianity is inherently secular because of its theological seperation of the spiritual and temporaral spheres, so it the term still fits.

Lewy: Excellent points, but I'm working at a lower level-- you know I am a nuts-n-bolts kind of grrrl! I guess we could call this part "memetic mechanics"! :)
I defer to Sir Richard (http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html) for the definition, but Brodie has a good whole book on the subject also.
I like your example of Spirit of America, so we'll use that.
Considering memes-as-viruses-- what is the goal of a virus? Reproduction. It uses its dna to subvert the reproductive process of the host. If the virus is wildly different, the immune system gets involved, and the viral templates are destroyed-- rejected. If we are clever, we change the meme just a little, so that the receptors are fooled, and we can leverage off a meme already extant in the population.
With Al-hurrah (I like to call it Al-Hurayrah, the 'kitten' network), we tried to do a monolithic replacement-- the extant meme is probably something like (It is good to watch Al-Jazeerha tv, because it is about arabs/muslims like me). We tried to change it to (watch Al-hurrah!!)-- bzzzzt rejection. Here's what we should have done (and maybe are doing now)-- change the meme just a bit, spoof the receptors-- (It is good to watch Al-Jazeerha tv, because it is about arabs/muslims like me) becomes (It is good to watch Al-Jazeerha tv, because it is about arabs/muslims like me, but it is BETTER to watch SofA tv, because it is about LOCAL arab/muslims, who are even MORE like me)! Get my [genetic] drift? :)

Actually it is believed that some viruses have integrated into the genome of many species over millennia, including humans. This is one possible mechanism of evolution.

Given this, what does this say about the meme-as-virus analogy?

HA: I admire your skill at arguing on two fronts-- I like 'Christianized Christianity' too! Representation is all. Hmmm, maybe that can be the 'third pillar'. :)
Lurker: Spot on! You could teach this course! And this totally supports meme-as-virus! What do you think of my last comment?

twisterella - I think I understand your point about the small changes.

Lurker - yes, viri can be incorporated into the genome.

And so here's an example: recall Mahathir
s speech to the OIC a while back.

Old code: "Jews oppress us and we must fight them".

New code: "Jews oppress us and we must fight them by getting smart at math and science and building a military capability that can fight them on their own terms".

There was alot of debate about Mahathir's intentions here - there was an argument that he was cleverly using some memetic engineering here to steer the Islamic world away from suicidal jihad. 'Course it could be plain old judenhasse as well. I don't really care about Mahathir's intentions. I just like his meme because of where it leads.

In order to develop the weapons Mahathir talks about, you need a strong society educated in math and science (in other words, stuff besides the Koran). This will broaden the horizons (intellegctual and material) of enough people so that the jihadi recruiting pool and social reinforcement will be reduced. As an example I like to give, my primary blogging laptop is made in Malaysia.

Further, to the extent that those weapons Mahathir envisions are developed, the result is an armed state which will respond to the logic of deterence and balance of power equations - symetric vs asymetric threats.

This leaves the problem of sophisticated weapons in rogue hands. The bad news is that in addition to my laptop, Malaysia was making parts for Khan's distributed global A-bomb supply chain. The good news is we found it out, and it's not clear that the Malay government was involved or approved.

But this is not a post about strategy, but about hatred - the general meme here is that we want to go from "the jews oppress us and we're helpless" to "the jews oppress us and we can help ourselves" - and in the process of helping themseleves, they will achieve a society where they'll be less sure about what it was that pissed them off in the first place. And reluctant to lose what they'd achieved if they remember after all.

Lewy: Yesyesyesyes! So, now we can put this thread to bed? That was excellent, really, and I would nominate you for the official Twisterella 'Cool to thee Chromosomes' award, except that how does one knight a king?

Whoa! This memes and viruses bit really did it for me. The sad truth is that islam is indeed a genetically stronger affliction - probably the strongest (in terms of infection rate) religious virus around.
And I shudder to think of a world completely infected with islam. That would be a joyless orwellian world - replace 1984's Big brother with 'Allah', the thought police with religious vigilantes, the ministry of peace with jehad and the ministry of love with regressive, bigoted intolerence and the ministry of plenty with the productivity challenged islamic record (pls note, I'm not saying 're'-productively challenged) and you get the drift of what's happeneing. The rest of the world ought to gang up against this virus and find a cure - fast! therein lies the only hope for humanity.

Sud,

Don't overestimate your opponent.

Statistically, the strongest "memetic virus" in the globe is.... Christianity. At least in terms of reproductive spread. Trends we can see in China and Africa look set to accelerate that, if anything.

Meanwhile, Islam is courting various levels of warfare with 3 major civilizations (American, Russian, Indian), moving toward friction with a fourth (China), and seeking to assimilate a fifth (Europe) but risking a terrible backlash if there are major missetps. Oil helps make all this sustainable in the short term, but colonization is not an uncommon human strategy in history and their status as custodians of the oil is within the capability of many of their enemies to revoke. This has happened in the past.

Would I trade places on this game board? Nooooo.

In the larger scheme of things, Islam needs reform to save itself more than it needs reform to save us. Accelerating that process will also make us safer, so it's the prudent as well as the humaniarian thing to do.