Memetics in the battle of ideas?

[Rob Thornton]

JD,
I'd say keep it to this thread since you/we are already developing the thought/thread. Its alright if the subject evolves some. Regards, Rob

[TT]

JD,

On the issue of ‘rationality’, a book I would highly recommend is Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (1978?), which is still in print or you likely can find in your local university or other library. Jervis addresses the question of why opposing leaders may do things that appear to us as irrational.

As the book title suggests, it is about the interaction of state leaders, and is very much addressed to the fundamental assumption that underpinned the theorizing up to that time on deterrence and crisis behaviour – which is that the decision makers are rational and will act rationally. So what he explores are a multitude of reasons why an opponent may well act in a manner which we consider irrational but which is an action that is perfectly rational to them. He covers many of the reasons that several of the others have raised earlier on this question Though dated, the general arguments he makes, which he takes largely from the cognitive sciences of the time, still hold up well. After reading Perceptions and Misperceptions it is much easier to see why we should never assume that someone else will act in the manner we expect them to do so based on our ‘rational’ assessment (such as Tom Odom’s example of Saddam).

Some aspects Jervis discusses may a bit broad, given what you are seeking to explore, such as one reason why a state leadership may not act in the way we think is rational is because their world view is not the same as ours – this speaks to, but does not directly address, questions of culture, etc. But his arguments are still very useful. I would highly recommend Perceptions and Misperception to any one – indeed, I require all my PhD students to read it regardless of whether it is of direct relevance to their research or not, and the same for any of my Postgraduate students who are ‘upgrading’ their education to get ahead in whatever government department they are in.

Best

TT

[Rob Thornton]

JD,
Who is the target audience for your work? The reason I ask is I think it might be helpful to place the article/proposal in the right context. We've spent a little time here talking about it as a logical line of operation for campaign design. Some thoughts:

- Discuss where you see this doing the most good. Is this something limited to a COCOM, or is it applicable to a JTF stood up by a COCOM? Or is it both?

-You've identified the need for the capability, but you might also want to outline where the capacity is most needed and why. You might also look at how the HQs could tap into an already existing capacity - maybe from a country team in the region. There is also the possibility of having the inter-agency connectivity and the ability to work with International Organizations and NGOs. I've known some very culturally integrated NGO members - their level of cultural literacy exceeds most due to their level of immersion - but.... they have their own perspectives.

- This gets to the problems of our own military culture. We talk about culture awareness & sometimes you'll here sensitivity. I think the choice of words also speaks to our level of commitment in some ways. I don't mean to say this is bad or good, its just who we are right now. The reason I bring it up is the biggest challenge with this type of LLOO is the time it takes to work, and the ways you measure its effects - level of returns so to speak. So, this may do the most good as a shaping LLOO, part of a strategy for conflict prevention (you might include Theater Security Cooperation type activities here as well), or a part of the conflict termination/winning the peace and SSTRO. Certainly it has a place at the table during major combat operations, but just realize where the emphasis during that part of the plan is likely to be given our own strategic culture.

-Generating the capability on a large scale as a standing billet, while relevant is going to be expensive - so its always good to outline the requirements - a good way to do this might be to discuss the value added in terms of the cost of doing without.

- Is this capability more applicable to the implementation of an OPLAN, or is it applicable to a contingency plan? What I mean is - having a regional COCOM capability that can pushed down to a subordinate JTF (three star HQs) stood up to deal with a regional crisis could be very helpful for that JTF.

I am going to talk about the three domains of the physical, informational and cognitive. We have Sea / Air / Land / Space because because each part of the physical domain has its own challenges and requires a certain skill set and culture to deal with these challenges. Increasingly, there are communications / IO specialists to deal with the information domain either with information as media or message. There are, however, few, if any, experts on the cognitive domain where the ultimate effects will be wrought. Do we need to create cognitive experts in line with Sea / Air / Land experts? And should a cognitive effects based approach be the lead of operations with physical effects in support?

\

We still talk in terms of LOOs and Centers of Gravity. So here you might talk about how you would target the CoG through the identification of Critical Requirements, Critical Capabilities and Critical Vulnerabilities (Google "Strange & Centers of Gravity", or see it in the Campaign primer). Consider it at the strategic CoG and the Operational CoG.

You might also do an assessment of our CoG (strategic) and talk about how an enemy might use the same capabilities to attack our CoG - think public will, domestic resolve/commitment, international/regional will, coalition the media etc. A factor planners must consider in a democracy is the access we have to all forms of media - anyone can post a video, or appeal to our citizens on both an individual and mass basis - our enemy understands this and uses the info-sphere to good effect. Can we develop a LOO that anticipates and counters their message (or at least one flexible enough so we can react quickly), while getting across our own both domestically and internationally. How might that look?

Finally, you might consider how (and if we should) better to tie together IO at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Also consider Operational Art in your argument - how does this provide the CDR an advantage, retain the initiative and translate toward strategic success.

You can do this a number of ways. Two are to take a historical campaign and explore it. The other is to take a fictional campaign that has not happened yet, but is set close enough in the future to where the reader can extrapolate the lessons we are now learning and integrate them to make your point.

p.s - take a look at some of the work Marc has done - like the DR. Johnny piece and related thread. I think it has some great insights!

[Stan]

Hey JD,

Stan,
I am interested in your comments on the rationality of individuals and groups. I personally have a tendency to assume that anyone whose motives I can't understand is irrational but I am increasingly getting the uncomfortable feeling that the problem is my inability to grasp a foreign thought process not the irrationality of the other perspective. I think it is possible to simultaneously be sane, rational and incomprehensible to others, just as I feel the west is to the East at times. A rational view can still be logically flawed or based on faith, culture or emotion. Any faith system can be challenged by logic without assuming the beiever is irrational or insane. It then gets down to a matter of degrees and subjective judgement to the point at which irrationality sets in.

My further concern is that if we dismiss too many ideas as irrational we lose the IO campaign / battle of ideas by failing to contest it in the most vital areas. Again, I go back to finding a disciplined apporach to analysing thoughts and cultural norms to ensure we don't impose our own emotions, norms or ethnocentricities on our chosen courses of action.

Your thoughts?

JD

It looks like you've received a ton of good info from the smart folks herein !

I would echo what Tom covered in his response and add that logical thinking won't get you very far when dealing with cultural misconceptions. Logically derived conclusions in say, an abnormal place like Zaire will only serve to make you crazy.

Back in Sub-Sahara Tom and I were thought of as Jungle Medicine Men. Trying to assist the JTF, carefully watch the French and answer DC's barrage of questions by second-guessing the Zairian forces (in the middle of a civil war with political and social upheaval) and the Rwandan refugee crisis and fleeing ex FAR.

I credit our successes to our language abilities, keen awareness of cultural differences and social taboos. Tom brought along his immense background and sneaky demeanor

Even with the odds in our favor, there were still plenty of irrational folks around to keep us on our toes.

Do we need cultural advisers? Indeed, but we’re only going to end up with a real smart individual without basic soldiering skills, or be dependent on a local national strapped to your side (who all too often fails you the very second you need him/her most).

I would rather have a skilled can-do soldier with the ability to operate in a cross-cultural environment.

[Tom Odom]

My understanding of what you say is that it is not possible to feel comfortable in a culture unless you hold its values and it is not possible to simultaneously adhere to contradictory values. This may well be true but the next question is: is it possible to understand a society without adhering to its values in the same way that it is possible to predict a criminal mind without being a criminal?

No not what I said (or at least meant). You can feel comfortable in a foreign culture depending on the depth of immersion. But if you expect to become one with the culture, that is transformational--the worst cases I have seen are those who become more African than the Africans or more French than the French.

It is possible to understand the tendencies of a culture and use those tendencies as a predictive framework--as long as you understand it is a framework and never absolute in its accuracy. Interesting parallel with the criminal mind but again you are talking a criminal mind and a cultural assessment is by its very nature a group target.

Best

Tom

[JD]

Rob,
Thanks again for your reply. Just to introduce my background, I am currently on Command and Staff Course. My background is in aviation particularly Joint Terminal Attack Control / FAC so my grounding is psyops is not strong. It is, however, an area I am increasingly coming to view as critical.

I think a structured approach to examining effects in the cognitive domain will benefit any campaign planning process. The reason I am drawn to memtics is it may allow the portrayal of intangibles in a similar manner to more traditional physical targets and allow the same level of analysis. I think CofG analysis could work for example: the endstate may be the cessation of hostilities, the CofG may be the bleif that the conflict is a Jihad and the CC / CV may be the reputation of certain religious leaders. These can then be linked to actions in and through both the physical and informational domains.

The problem is understaning the problem and I think a cultural expert without an agenda is going to be very hard to find. The best option I could think of is a member of the diplomatic corps who has undergone campaign training at a war college / staff college. This may give them a skillset that makes them useful to both the military and the diplomatic corps.

In terms of describing the concepts, I don't think it is wise to use a real conflict as so many people are so emotionally invested in the current operations and it can appear disrepsctful and arrogant to deconstruct an event with 20/20 hindsight.

I apologise for not having more to offer at this stage but I am increasingly convinced of the need to stress the importance of activities other than kinetics and coordinate these with the overall campaign. 'Wars are won in the will' and I am starting to believe any CofG will be resident in the cognitive domain so all lines of operation should be geared toward that effort.

Controversial for a pilot I know!

JD

[goesh]

IMHO, memes are like string theory and 5th dimensions in quantum physics - easy to talk about and even easier to hypothesize about but impossible to objectify with isolation and analysis via Western Science. It's sort of like the blood-brain barrier in which only certain substances can easily cross over and do their thing - we aren't getting through and nobody likes voo-doo science in trying to understand and predict human behavior, least of all the Military.

Take the phenomenon of young Muslims easily memorizing the entire Quran for instance, and thousands of them do. What if it wasn't the message or the teacher or the setting or the genetics and brain of the kid or his family and culture all pushing and motivating the kids to memorize it but rather the actual Quran itself that had been repeatedly used for the same purpose? An imprinted, cultural accouterment? Or take the Chippewa medicine man I knew years ago who had a couple of round, smooth, well handled black rocks that he called his telephone, saying he used them to communicate with other medicine men. Or take the Indian who once told me it was easier to turn into a bird and fly over a mountain than to walk over it. We have psychogenic pain and seizures for instance that are acknowldged realities carrying scientific validity yet the diagnosis of illness via a shaman ingesting a psychoactive substance such as peyote or using an ancient, imprinted turtle shell rattle is bogus.

I think the trick to accepting another culture's norms lies in the realization that our logic is ofen bogus in and of itself.

[Tom Odom]

Rob,

I apologise for not having more to offer at this stage but I am increasingly convinced of the need to stress the importance of activities other than kinetics and coordinate these with the overall campaign. 'Wars are won in the will' and I am starting to believe any CofG will be resident in the cognitive domain so all lines of operation should be geared toward that effort.

Controversial for a pilot I know!
JD

Ok either turn in your scarf and flight rompers or report for reprogramming

Seriously keep asking questions. We will try and answer.

Tom

[Rob Thornton]

Goesh,
Good post. I was listening to NPR on the way down and there was a psychologist who'd written a book about writing some stream of consciousness lines every morning upon waking up because that was when the hold of daily perceptions was weakest. Cultural perceptions do influence our reality - how much is probably dependent on circumstance and environment - its like when we say there are somethings that only make sense in the context of the environment you are in.

A while back we had a thread on magical realism where I was telling Marc & Slapout about the conversations I was having with my Iraqi peers about genies/ djiin. It was a pretty fantastic idea for me, but for them it was day to day.

I'll reread your post a couple of times I think. I always do when I think ideas/things are related but can't define how - it just kind of rumbles around in my head like Tetris until it finds the right spot. Thanks for providing food for thought.

JD, to echo Tom, you are raising some good questions and facilitating a discussion - you are contributing & we're glad to have you aboard.

[JD]

Rob,
I was just reading your post regarding viral extremism. Memetics often uses similar terms and you may be interested in the book - Virus of the Mind:: The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie.

Memetics is pesented in different ways but a basic tenet is that a meme / thought / cultural unit is a replicator copied by the human ability to imitate. Those ideas that are spread follow a basic evolutionary algorithm where those most able to replicate do so in fairly dispassionate way and that process is influenced by the fidelity, fecundity and longevity of the meme. Its very much like a virus so I find your parallel with extremism quite interesting. Sept 11 gave extremism fecundity through publicity, longevity through the imagery and the internet and media gave it fidelity allowing it to tranfer its ideas without modifation or moderation. The model and analogy appear to hold up. I was reading a recent study which showed a link between horrific events, the degree of media coverage and the incidents of follow on copy cat events. The viral analogy seems apt.



JD

[Ken White]

To Slapout9,...

. . .

For everyone,
A general question: do we now need cultural advisors in Joint HQ with the same level of recogniton as politcal and other advisors? Would it be possible to find one without an agenda of his/her own? And if so, would they not be there merely to provide an insight into the mind of those to be influenced - in other words should there not be another element interpreting the cultural advice to turn it into psyops?

... Do we need to create cognitive experts in line with Sea / Air / Land experts? And should a cognitive effects based approach be the lead of operations with physical effects in support?

. . .

JD

Cultural Advisers as an entity at the geographic command level may have some merit but it will take some time before they're accepted and a long time before they're accorded equivlency to the Political adviser, I expect. Plus, I suspect State would consider that a turf intrusion...

Since the geographic commands react, mostly, to directives from the NCA, better locations for your cultural advisers might be at State, DoD and the WH / NSC -- those are the places where that cultural knowledge would be beneficial before any rash decisions are made...

Unfortunately, I also think you need to find a way to work on our memes. There was plenty of cultural advice available at all levels prior to commitment to Viet Nam (all five Administrations involved in such commitments) and the bulk of it was diligently ignored. The same comment applies to this commitment to Iraq; advice in trainload lots, mostly ignored. If I recall correctly, there were a couple of people with extensive local and cultural knowledge who tried to talk to Jonathan Howe on the ground in Somalia -- they were also ignored.

Maybe the issue isn't our meme -- it's the egos of those in high places...

I think the determination of lead effort, cognitive effects versus physical effects, is situation dependent but I also think that at least a teaming would have been nice going into Iraq. Come to think of it any consideration at all of cognitive effects would have helped...

We could certainly sure benefit today; those guys are stomping us in the info war...

We spend millions of dollars training Foreign Area Specialists, most of whom don't get promoted above LTC and who do great work but are rarely, in my observation, called upon by those on high for advice and counsel before they maks decisions. That's just dumb.

No intent to rain on your idea, it's a good one; much needed. Just some thoughts for you to consider in your formulation. Egos, I think will be your greatest obstacle. You're on to a need, keep plugging.

[Rob Thornton]

Rob,
I was just reading your post regarding viral extremism. Memetics often uses similar terms and you may be interested in the book - Virus of the Mind:: The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie.

JD. I've heard of Brodie - so I had to look him up. Looks like a good one to read. I'll pick it up. Thanks for the tip.
Best Regards, Rob

[JD]

The points about resistence to change and egos are well taken. In my relatively short experience the major problem in moving forward has been different cultures and engrained beleif patterns. I'm not talking here about the societal differences but the differences between organisations such as army / air force / navy / civilian and the way narrowly defined loyalties create an assumption of incompetence in others.

Knowing, however, that so many people enjoy a scientific approach I went digging for some behavioural modelling. It basically models peoples behaviour on their beliefs / perceptions and indirectly compares them to a contagion much like a virus. Its interesting but the result is obviously dependent on the input. The ability to persuade will depend very much on the audience.

I have also included two short and highly digestible articles that harken back to the mind virus discussion.

http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/5/3/1.html

http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2001/vol5/marsden_p_let.html

http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2005/vol9/gatherer_d.html

JD

[Tom Odom]

Maybe the issue isn't our meme -- it's the egos of those in high places...

We spend millions of dollars training Foreign Area Specialists, most of whom don't get promoted above LTC and who do great work but are rarely, in my observation, called upon by those on high for advice and counsel before they maks decisions. That's just dumb.

Too right on those comments, Ken

Tom

[Hardrockxo]

Greetings all,

First time post - long time lurker, (as with many, I am in awe to be associated with like-minded professionals).

I must admit, I am not fully up to speed with memetics, but I am going to do some more research. I am an Active Duty PSYOP Commander, currently in the fight, and I have some interesting observations regarding lethal and non-lethal operations.

Interesting post earlier, about having PSYOP/IO in the lead, with everything else as a shaping operation. I have seen too often in my limited time here, that Information Operations, and the "perception" index of the local nationals not taken into account, and the tertiary effects of our operations.

Perhaps PSYOP or IO Consideration should be the decisive effort, where tactical commanders mass all of their combat power to achieve the desired in conjunction with the all elements of combat power. I am just spitballing...

The biggest challenge that I see is that our tactical commanders are not properly schooled on the principles of EBO (hell, it is not even Army Doctrine). I surmise that although are doctrine explicitly discusses "effects on the enemy" in tactical tasks, the power of shaping the informationr realm and the cognitive perceptions is often counterproductive to overarching campaign.

Just my two cents, would love to hear back from you all.


Godspeed!

[Tom Odom]

Greetings all,

First time post - long time lurker, (as with many, I am in awe to be associated with like-minded professionals).

I must admit, I am not fully up to speed with memetics, but I am going to do some more research. I am an Active Duty PSYOP Commander, currently in the fight, and I have some interesting observations regarding lethal and non-lethal operations.

Interesting post earlier, about having PSYOP/IO in the lead, with everything else as a shaping operation. I have seen too often in my limited time here, that Information Operations, and the "perception" index of the local nationals not taken into account, and the tertiary effects of our operations.

Perhaps PSYOP or IO Consideration should be the decisive effort, where tactical commanders mass all of their combat power to achieve the desired in conjunction with the all elements of combat power. I am just spitballing...

The biggest challenge that I see is that our tactical commanders are not properly schooled on the principles of EBO (hell, it is not even Army Doctrine). I surmise that although are doctrine explicitly discusses "effects on the enemy" in tactical tasks, the power of shaping the informationr realm and the cognitive perceptions is often counterproductive to overarching campaign.

Just my two cents, would love to hear back from you all.


Godspeed!

Take a look at CALL products such as the Special Study on Brigade Planning, the Special study on Battalon Planning, the Company-Level SOSO series of newsletters, especially Vols 2 and 3. Vol 2 covers EBO at the company level and is an extract of the CALL Handbook, EBO from Brigade to company. Vol 3Int, IO, and Patrolling at the company level. Wheher you call it EBO, effects based process, or full spectrum planning, we have been working this hard for the past 5 years at JRTC with the stated, simple to say but hard to do, goal of synchronizing lethal and non-lethal operations and their derivative effects.

Best

Tom

[wm]

Maybe the issue isn't our meme -- it's the egos of those in high places... . . .


Egos, I think will be your greatest obstacle.

I am not so sure that egos will be the biggest obstacle. Rather, bucking the accepted wisdom is more likely to be so. (I submit we have a case here similar to that discussed in another thread on anthropology's antipathy to the military.)

Memetics seems to have passed out of vogue in academia. The Journal of Memetics had an 8 year run with its last issue being in 2005. Much of what I read in the literature smacks of another idea that has long since fallen out of vogue, namely Social Darwinism. It could be that this is what has caused memetics' demise.
The following extracts come from Daniel Dennett's lecture, "Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination," The David and Miriam Mandel Lecture, American Society for Aesthetics, October 27, 1989 found here. I suggest a reading of the whole thing.

I don't know about you, but I am not initially attracted by the idea of my brain as a sort of dungheap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational Diaspora. It does seem to rob my mind of its importance as both author and critic. Who is in charge, according to this vision--we or our memes?

And

The important point is that there is no necessary connection between a meme's replicative power, its "fitness" from its point of view, and its contribution to our fitness (by whatever standard we judge that). The situation is not totally desperate. While some memes definitely manipulate us into collaborating on their replication in spite of our judging them useless or ugly or even dangerous to our health and welfare, many--most, if we are lucky--of the memes that replicate themselves do so not just with our blessings, but because of our esteem for them.

And finally

[C]oncepts from population genetics . . . transfer smoothly: here is a case of what a geneticist would call linked loci: two memes that happen to be physically tied together so that they tend always to replicate together, a fact that affects their chances. There is a magnificent ceremonial march, familiar to us all, and one that would be much used for commencements, weddings, and other festive occasions, perhaps driving "Pomp and Circumstance" and the Wedding March from "Lohengrin" to near extinction, were it not for the fact that its musical meme is too tightly linked to its title meme, which we all tend to think of as soon as we hear the music: Sir Arthur Sullivan's unusable masterpiece, "Behold the Lord High Executioner."

This is actually just a vivid case of one of the most important phenomena in the infosphere: the mis-filtering of memes due to such linkages. We all have filters of the following sort:

ignore everything that appears in X

For some people, X is The National Inquirer or Pravda; for others it is The New York Review of Books; we all take our chances, counting on the "good" ideas to make it eventually through the stacks of filters of others into the limelight of our attention.

All leading to

I submit that the meme's-eye view of what happened to the meme meme is quite obvious: "humanist" minds have set up a particularly aggressive set of filters against memes coming from "sociobiology," and once Dawkins was identified as a sociobiologist, this almost guaranteed rejection of whatever this interloper had to say about culture--not for good reasons, but just in a sort of immunological rejection.

[Hardrockxo]

Tom,

Thanks for the info - I have indeed referenced those publications, and I am very much an advocate of EBO. During my tenure with my supported unit, I have had some successes in intergration of non-lethal and lethal assets.

Although I conduct Psychological Operations, I like think of myself as an "agent of influence"; exploiting the tactical plans and successes, and amplifying the beliefs and perceptions of the locals...

I think that with my supported unit, I have achieved success with regards to advising them, and at least having them consider the ramifications/benefits/options associated with the effects of a kinetic operation.

Again, thanks for the response, looking forward to being a proactive member of the team.

[JD]

Are we prosecuting 21st Century conflict with 16th Century structures? Originally there were the army and the navy and environmental separation seemed logical as each required unique skills and a certain distinct culture (although the contribution of marines and sailors operating on land was significant). Enablers such as intelligence and logistics could be handled in house particularly when information moved at the speed of a horse and army's often lived off the land. Then came the air force and the environmental separation still seemed to make sense. But the change in the manner of conflict and the proliferation in information technology have changed the function of the combat enablers that necessarily straddle all the services. The addition of the air force came from a change in technology and the manner of warfighting. On the basis of advancing technology, skillset and culture, is it not time to generate separate services to represent the changing nature of warfare.

My best guess is to divide responsibilities into sea, air, land, space, logistics, intelligence and communications. The skillets, culture and required attributes of personnel would be different and distinct e.g. a communications expert launching a computer virus may be a very different person from an infantryman with a bayonet but both are doing vital work.

My particular interest is the communications area where information may be both the media and the message. WRT media, it would be nice to have a single service providing a coherent and interoperable combat enabler to all other branches rather than the current issues faced with interoperability. The second part is information as a message where there is a real need for expertise in turning intelligence into the vital information campaign. Without such experts or recognition of the importance of this campaign, the chance is we will be whipped in information operations.

Any thoughts?

JD