Memetic warfare with aesthetic weapons?

Engendering 2052 through Re-imagining the Present: Review of a report to the Club of Rome (Part #11)

The possibility could be understood as a memetic initiative which all are free to explore in a global knowledge society (Missiles, Missives, Missions and Memetic Warfare: navigation of strategic interfaces in multidimensional knowledge space, 2001). In the emerging context, the issue for many "belief systems", notably including science, is who to convince and how -- and how to sustain confidence, credibility and coherence in any preferred system (as noted above). This is most obvious in the case of product marketing, of religion, of finance, and of political ideology.

Re-inventing the present: It is relevant to note the initiative of The Economist on the occasion of its 150th anniversary (in 1993), in inviting selected commentators from around the world to imagine the future 150 years from now (The Future Surveyed, 11 September 1993). The document was divided into sections by region and topic (education, technology, health, etc). In commenting on this initiative at that time, the US Center for Public Justice noted that:

But even among this highly select group of rational humanists, the dissonance is significant.... Christians should now be hard at work seeking afresh, on biblical grounds, to re-imagine the future. The world as once imagined by modern humanism is now in crisis, just as the medieval imperial imagination came to crisis in the 15th and 16th centuries. This is the time, then, to re-fashion our world image -- our picture of a world that is more than ever before a "global village" demanding transnational justice, but a world in which competing religions (including secular religions) struggle for supremacy in hearts and minds to gain the power to define education, the family, economic enterprise, the task of government, and human nature itself. (Re-Imagining the World, March-April 1994) [emphasis added]

Boston University, used a sesquicentennial symposium to elicit metaphors best able to articulate the dilemmas of the time (Lance Morrow, Metaphors of The World, Unite!, Time, 16 Oct. 1989). A key metaphor that emerged was the "tessellation" of disparate orders. Such tilings of zones of order, might also be understood metaphorically as paving stones separated by cracks of varying sizes. For optimists these might be hairline cracks; for pessimists the degree of separation might be such as to prevent movement and to offer little protection from the disorderly 'gunge' rising from beneath.

Creating new realities: With respect to the credibility of political initiatives in relation to the increasingly delusional anticipation of any international legal consensus, especially insightful is the account of the neocon strategy of governance. This is presented by Ron Suskind, following an exchange he had with an aide in the decision-making circle of President Bush, in the following terms:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." (Without a Doubt, The New York Times, In The Magazine, 17 October 2004)

In a memetic warfare context, a major strategic opportunity lies in responding proactively to this situation -- rather than deploring it. Inspired by the Eastern martial art philosophy, rather than endeavouring to resist, the "art" lies in going with the flow. The question is then how to imbue the situation with an even higher order of aesthetic attractors, whatever that might imaginatively mean, as previously explored (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006). Many traces of this approach are already emerging in the aesthetic contexts explored in the various forms of virtual reality and online gaming (as noted below).

As envisaged by the neocon strategy, those in a reality-based context are effectively "sitting ducks" -- easy targets for those operating within the fluidity of imaginative worldmaking "on the fly". Especially interesting in this transformation is that widespread use of "targets" and "targetting" -- as favoured by the neocon worldview -- becomes of questionable relevance with regard to strategic initiatives and social change. As separately discussed, the "targets" are no longer patiently awaiting their "assassination" (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998). They are on the move. They are no longer "reality-based" and are not where they might have been assumed to be. In a sense they may not even "exist" or have an "identity" in any conventional sense, as with "Al-Qaida" and the "Tea Party movement" -- or, perhaps more self-consciously, the Imaginary Society.

Avoiding pipeline dependency: The possibility has been expressed otherwise by the senior director of Global Community Affairs at Microsoft Corporation, Akhtar Badshah (Reimagining the World: we are at the Center of Information Flow, Microsoft Corporate Citizenship, 18 April 2011):

What is common among the recent events in the Middle East is that they are leaderless uprisings with no visible leader in the mold of a Gandhi or King. Why is that the case, what has changed? I would posit that the changes in how we consume and contribute information is at the center of these changes. We are no longer at the end of the information flow pipe as consumers of information rather we are at the center of information flow. We are both creators and consumers of information and actively adding to the body of knowledge. This I believe is a fundamental reimagining of the world and the opportunity it opens up for those of us in the development space is exciting. [emphasis added]

As implied by the last sentence, and from the widespread adoption of slogans like "reinventing the future", many groups are already orienting themselves in these terms -- initiating what may well be framed through competitive, military metaphors as an "imaginative arms race". Who can out-imagine whom? The question is how radical is the nature of the invention open to the individual, irrespective of whether what is re-imagined is shared to any degree with others?

With respect to the 2052 Report, individuals are free to be part of the Club of Rome's "target" audience, or to respond imaginatively quite otherwise -- as suggested here.

Cognitive evolution: Is there a case for recognizing the possibility of a "metaphoric revolution", an "imaginary revolution", or a "revolution of the imagination" -- as previously explored (Metaphoric Revolution: in quest of a manifesto for governance through metaphor, 1988)? The Arab Spring of 2012 has been explicitly framed in these terms (Tarik Ahmed Elseewi, The Arab Spring: a revolution of the imagination, International Journal of Communication, 2011; Jonathan Jones, Tahrir Square aflame: the visual basis of an imaginary revolution, The Guardian, 9 December 2011). It has been framed as a quest of surrealism (Kate Gearity, Revolution of the Imagination: the quest of André Breton, 1999). The possibility of such a revolution has been contemplated by poets such as Wordsworth. The student revolution in France in 1968 -- notably inspired by the writings of Sartre on imagination -- has been interpreted as an imaginary revolution (M. Seidman, The Imaginary Revolution: Parisian Students and Workers in 1968, 2004).

Are the powerful metaphors of the future likely to enable new forms of integration and the emergence of collective entities of higher orders of complexity -- by analogy to the discover by mathematicians of new classes of symmetry groups? Or are they likely to be memetic analogues to the neutron bomb -- information bombs with catastrophic effects of unforeseen dimensions on identity and the social fabric? The possibilities of such metaphors are already evident in viral marketing. A worldwide tsunami of desperation?

Is the 2052 Report to be understood as a revolutionary document, as a call for some form of revolution in thinking, or a call for imaginative engagement?. And, if not, why not? In the light of the trends presented, what is the requisite strategic paradigm shift and how does that relate to a scientific revolution in thinking?

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Memetic warfare with aesthetic weapons?