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Canons as the cannons of memetic warfare?
Capital Punishment of Canon Fodder (Part #12)
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The promotion of a singular dominant canon is increasingly called into question -- despite the vigorously articulated ambition of leaders of some countries to make their own country "great again". The Western canon is the body of Western literature, European classical music, philosophy, and works of art that represents the high culture of Europe and North America. As noted, the music of Bach and Beethoven has been a primary articulation of this.
From the mouth of a cannon born? Tragically it could be said that the Western canon, especially exemplified by Europe, was born from the "mouth of a cannon" -- a process in which the Catholic Church was especially complicit. Paradox has been evident in the bloody conflict between forms of Christianity -- and the abysmal failure to engage fruitfully with other religions or other cultures.
As a method of capital punishment extensively used by the British in the 19th century, blowing from a gun tragically and appropriately reinforces the argument. The victim was tied to the mouth of a cannon which was then fired, as surprisingly depicted in a video (British Kill Indians With Canon Executions) and in the following painting.
| Onward Christian Soldiers ? Suppression of the Indian Revolt by the English |
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| Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin, circa 1884 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons |
An historical review of those times (of which the painting is one record), argues that up to 10 million Indians were slaughtered over a 10 year period in revenge for the so-called "Indian Mutiny", namely India's First War of Independence (Amaresh Misra, War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, 2008). In India this period of acute terror was called "the Devil's Wind". Being blown to pieces at the mouth of a cannon was regarded by the British perpetrators as one of their more humane methods of slaughter ("instant death to the victim, salutary terror to the onlookers who had body parts sprayed all over them").
Cannon fire is readily recognized as a means of "hammering" opponents. This usefully recalls the major text of the Catholic Church on witchcraft (Malleus Maleficarum, 1487), commonly translated as The Hammer of Witches. It prescribed inquisitorial practices for secular courts in order to extirpate witches; recommended procedures included torture to obtain confessions and the death penalty. Despite controversy, the treatise remained influential on culture for several centuries, being later used by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributing to the increasingly brutal prosecution of heresy and witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Echoes of this framing remain evident in the modern effort to eradicate terrorists (Eradication as the Strategic Final Solution of the 21st Century? 2014; European states complicit in CIA torture, The Nation, 1 June 2018; True scale of UK role in torture and rendition after 9/11 revealed, The Guardian, 28 June 2018).
Understood in this light, the primary symbol of globalization could be recognized in the ambiguities of the "can(n)on ball" -- and the "can(n)on fodder" they engender.
Musical framing of inter-canonical violence? Creative efforts have been made to frame "inter-canonical violence" through music. Ironically the birth of modern Europe could be dated to the defeat of Napoleon in battles "celebrated" in music using cannon fire (Philip Shaw, Cannon-fever: Beethoven, Waterloo and the Noise of War, University of Leicester, 2017). The 1812 Overture of Tchaikovsky is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire.
Anecdotal tales recount the influence of cannon fire, real or imagined, on Beethoven. He included 193 live cannon in his commemoration of the Duke of Wellington's victory over Joseph Bonaparte in 1813 -- in a work known as Wellington's Victory (Op. 91).
Number patterns: The reason for 193 can be understood in the light of Beethoven's use of a system of numbers to guide aspects of many of his works, especially major ones, as explored by I. Grattan-Guinness (Some numerological features of Beethoven's output, Annals of Science, 51, 1994, 2, 103-135). The system is manifest in the number of notes in a melody and/or of bars in a work or part of it, in groupings and numberings of works of a given kind, and in his deliberate choice of Opus numbers. The interpretation of the numbers was not his own innovation, but came largely from Christian and Masonic traditions.
As composer of what was subsequently recognized as the Anthem of Europe, it could then be said that the birth of Europe was numerically framed, as had been the case with iconic cathedrals. Most obviously:
- 193: a prime number; a happy number; a lucky number; an odious number; the sum of 2 square numbers: (3x4)2+(3x4)2; the difference of 2 square numbers: 972 - 962 (or 9409 - 9216); a square-free number; a centered 32-gonal number [There is the strangest of ironies with respect to this argument in the fact that the world record claimed for projection as a human cannonball is 193 feet.]
- 91: a distinct semiprime; a triangular number; a hexagonal number; a centered nonagonal number; a centered cube number; a square pyramidal number, being the sum of the squares of the first six integers
Of some relevance, particular attention is given in the mathematical and computer sciences to canonical form. The distinction between "canonical" and "normal" forms varies by subfield. In most fields, a canonical form specifies a unique representation for every object, while a normal form simply specifies its form, without the requirement of uniqueness. In reconciling the relationship between seemingly incommensurable canons, such distinctions may be vital to the success of any exploration of mathematical theology, as separately argued (Mathematical Theology: future science of confidence in belief, 2011).
Symbolic projection? With respect to the Anthem of Europe, as concluded by Richard Taruskin (The "Ninth", Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 2009):
The meanings embodied in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are no longer public in this way. Though they are clearly crucial components of the work, they cannot be fully comprehended according to some socially sanctioned code. They have become subjective, hermetic, gnomic, "not of this world". They are not so private as to render the musical discourse unintelligible, but they do render its message ineffable and inexhaustible and, to that extent, oracular. Intuitive grasp, aided of course by whatever can be gleaned by code or study or experience, is the only mode of understanding available. Just as often we may be deeply moved without quite knowing why or how. And that must be what Beethoven meant by insisting, in his late years, that he was not merely a composer (Tonsetzer) but a "tone-poet" (Tondichter).
Commentators noted the deliberate choice of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as celebratory entertainment on the occasion of the G20 Summit (Bryony Jones, Why Merkel chose 'Ode to Joy' for G20 concert, CNN, 7 July 2017). Long accepted as the Anthem of Europe by the Council of Europe and by the European Union, the Ode to Joy has been variously used in support of quite diverse political agendas.
As a metaphor, imposition of the experience can be understood otherwise in that it was Beethoven's final complete symphony, composed when he was almost totally deaf. Those protesting the Summit in the streets of Hamburg would readily subscribe to the "deafness" of the G20 leaders (Arrests and injuries as Hamburg gripped by mass anti-G20 protests, The Guardian, 7 July 2017).
The inability of world leaders to "hear" the water cannons deployed against the demonstrators, echoes anecdotal accounts of Beethoven's inability to hear cannon fire during his composition of music in which cannons were incorporated (Group of 7 Dwarfs: Future-blind and Warning-deaf -- self-righteous immoral imperative enabling future human sacrifice, 2018).
Noopolitics and memetic warfare? As presented by Wikipedia, noopolitics is an information strategy of manipulating international processes through forming in the general public a positive or negative attitude by means of mass media. The aim is to reframe external or internal policy (of a state of block of states) such as to create a positive or negative image of ideas and promulgated moral values (David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla, The promise of NoÖpolitik, First Monday, August, 2007; A. V. Baichik and S. B. Nikonov, Noopolitik as Global Information Strategy, 2012).
Given the increasingly widespread preoccupation with information warfare, what indeed is memetic warfare? For Brian J. Hancock (Memetic Warfare: the future of war, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, April-June 2010):
Memes form the invisible but very real DNA of human society. A meme is essentially an idea, but not every idea is a meme. In order for an idea to become a meme it must be passed on -- or replicated to another individual. Much like a virus moves from body to body, memes move from mind to mind. Just as genes organize themselves into DNA, cells, and chromosomes, so too do replicating elements of culture organize themselves into memes, and co-adaptive meme complexes or "memeplexes"...
The principle of memetic warfare is to displace, or overwrite dangerous pathogenic memes with more benign memes. Once a critical level of saturation of the new meme set is achieved in the target population, undesirable human artifacts and behaviors such as weapon caches and IED attacks will disappear. Ideally the virus of the mind being targeted will be overwritten with a higher fidelity, fecundity, and longevity memeplex in order to assure long term sustainability. When this is not practical, it is still possible to displace a dangerous memeplex, by creating a more contagious benign meme utilizing certain packaging, replication, and propagation tricks.
As yet to be clarified is the extent to which "memetic warfare" is a primary characteristic of noopolitics, as might be readily assumed. Seemingly there are as yet no studies of "memetic warfare" (as such) in relation to "noopolitics" (as such), as noted separately (Noopolitics and memetic warfare within the noosphere, 2014; Missiles, Missives, Missions and Memetic Warfare: navigation of strategic interfaces in multidimensional knowledge space, 2001)
Imaginary revolution? 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, Memetic warfare with aesthetic weapons? 2012)? 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).
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?
Recent reports to the Club of Rome can be seen as efforts to frame a new secular canon (2052: a Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, 2012; Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, 2018). Can be understood as revolutionary documents -- a call for some form of revolution in thinking or imaginative engagement, as separately discussed (Engendering 2052 through Re-imagining the Present: Review of a report to the Club of Rome, 2012; Exhortation to We the Peoples from the Club of Rome, 2018)? 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?
Contrast with "cannon": Even the possible use of "cannons" against "canon" has been evoked (Azade Seyhan, Cannons Against the Canon: representations of tradition and modernity in Heine's literary history, Vierteljahrsschrift fÜr Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 63, 1989, 4). The relation between "canon" and "cannon" has however been used to frame a more fruitful approach to strategic communication of relevance to the issues raised above. For Antonio López:
In order to convey the dangers of climate change, many activists deploy the old canon of communication theory, which views mass media as a kind of "magic bullet." Influenced by theories such as George Lakoff's cognitive linguistics, they propose that environmentally "progressive" mass media frames can be aimed like a cannon at the "public mind." This article argues that such an effort mirrors a mechanistic strategy of industrial production and remains a "shallow" method of environmental communications. In response, it is argued that "organic media," like glasnost, is based on open and local contexts. (Defusing the Cannon/Canon: an organic media approach to environmental communication, Environmental Communication, 4, 2010, 1, pp. 99-108),
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