From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 07 Jan 2004 - 05:43:44 GMT
>From: Vincent Campbell <VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: Memetics basics
>Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 12:51:33 -0000
>
[brevity snip]
>
> Yep, that's certainly true. Joe's views are typical of a post-cold
>war "search for an enemy" necessary to maintain certain ideological
>frameworks, particularly but not exclusively in the USA, in not dissimiliar
>ways to how the ufo/abduction movement has sprung up in the face of
>science's ever greater rolling back of the unknown, challenging religious
>certainties- indeed fundamentalism can also be seen as a response to this.
>
I don't know if it's necessarily a search for an enemy. Instead it boils
down to conflicting worldviews generating mutual mistrust and enmity, a two
way street. Enemies might not actively be searched for, but passively found
on both sides of the equation.
I think looking at the history of US conflict and related foreign policy
from WWII onward one might make use of a concept of perspctive shift or
change in ideological relations.
WWII was "anti-fascistic". There was an effort to crush the German and
Japanese war machines in the European and Asian theaters. In undertaking
this task, bridges were built between the ideological poles of capitalism
and communism. The US was allied with its Soviet antipode to stand against
the fascistic Germans. To a very small degree, a tempest in a teapot in SE
Asia, the Office of Strategic Services (CIA predecessor) made contact with
future enemy Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh organization as a contingency
against the Japanese in that part of the Asian theater (see OSS officer
Archimedes Patti's informative _Why Viet Nam?_ for more on these obscure
historical details).
After WWII the US ideological outlook shifted against communism (ie-
"anti-communism") and the Cold War was the over riding concern. The US and
Soviet Union squared off against each other, as conflicting ideologies
competed for facts on the ground, no longer allies of convenience against a
common fascist enemy.
Ho Chi Minh, somewhat courted by OSS ("Deer Team") for help against the
Japanese during WWII became *persona non grata* in view of policies of
*containment* and mindsets such as the *domino theory*, especially when
Mao's group sent Chiang's Nationalists packing for Formosa (aka Taiwan).
[terrible segue here]
Fast forward to the 80's and the interests of US anti-communism and Islamic
fundamentalism dovetailed after the '79 Soviet communist invasion of
Afghanistan. Washington and the mujahideen both wished for the exit of the
Soviets from Afghanistan.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union another shift occurred where former
allies of convenience (the US and some "Arab Afghan" mujahideen) against the
Soviets became enemies.
In a strange way, the historical overview above might show how contigency is
such an important factor in historical systems, as former allies, due to
circumstance, become enemies as the perspective changes. Maybe the shift is
in perspective determining the relationship(s) between ideologies, but
historical events and interpersonal and national realities play major
roles.
I'm not sure how redily this can be distilled into a simple and
straightforward approach like memetics, without losing important subtle
points that add necessary context.
One could focus on sterile abstractions like communism and capitalism, but
they'd lose the distinctions within these abstractions. Is Ayn Rand
equivalent to Bill Gates or Objectivism anything like Microsoft? ;-)
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