War Definition

re: naming the war.

First, we assume (know?) that the war we are in is primarily ideological. What, then, is ideology?

Robert Young writes:

"The concept of ideology refers to legitimation and to the intrusion of values into putative facts. At a deeper level, it refers to how frameworks get constituted and how criteria for acceptable conclusions get established on the basis of value systems or world views. There are two particular concepts at work here. One is social location or interest group; the other is power. Ideologies reflect social locations and serve established or aspiring powers."

The framework for ideology itself permeates our existence; the scientific revolution, for instance, was awash in "sub rosa" themes that were "pervasive but often implicit." One of the most significant ideological shifts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the replacement of Aristotelian "final causes" with Newtonian mechanical philosophy. Until this revolution in ideology, the idea of "a teleological cosmos in which all things had a final purpose, (namely, to realise their implicit perfection) [wikipedia def. final cause]" was simply assumed as fact. We no longer see the cosmos as moving towards a set point, no longer believe in a predetermined narrative, and this fundamental shift played a large part in mid-wifing Western Civilization.

If we stop here, we might register a question pertinent to our original task: was the shift towards mechanical philosophy contingent or non-contingent on the pre-existence of a teleological framework of the mind? In this equation, does A have to come before we can get to B? The answer to this question poses vast implications to the ideological war we are expecting to win.

And it is here where most of our questions will lie. Did Christianity have to come before Enlightenment? Did England have to come before Locke? Is there something special, and exclusive, about the geneology of our ideals that cannot be transmuted to another geneology?

And furthermore, if we are to accept an organic paradigm for ideological evolution, we most certainly must accept a Darwinian selective paradigm for ideological interaction. This assumption also poses questions, and problems.

Dawkins believes that evolution favors strategies that allow an organism's genes to survive and propagate. Starting at the level of the gene, evolution can be thought of primarily as an "arms race" between "gene vehicles", with the goal the continued existence of those genes.

Therefore, ideology can be thought of as the memetic evolutionary strategy as opposed to the biological. Humans won the evolutionary arms race by substituting thought and ideology for biological weakness. A great example of this is the helplessness of the human baby relative to other mammalian newborns. Most of the development of the child, that which allows it to survive, takes place oustide the realm of biology.

Therefore, the history of culture is the history of ideology writ large. Culture has an evolutionary value insofar as it encourages the progagation of our genes, and the presence of more than one culture makes the evolutionary value of one culture co-dependant on the values of all others. When one culture or another becomes parasitic or predatory on the others, endangering the health of the cultural ecosystem and thereby the propagation of gene vehicles, the response is an immunological one. The co-dependant cultures swarm the invader, and to the victor goes the spoils.

This history of warfare then becomes the history of ideological evolution and in a very real sense a history of Dawkinian arms races. The ideology that allows, that tolerates, the greatest amount of gene vehicles and can organize them for its own defense will win the evolutionary battle. The strategy that maximizes cooperation and organization will take the field and win the war.

So, when trying to figure out what to call this war, is it not paramount to discover under what banner the largest number will fight? The difficulty lies in rallying all free, cooperative and tolerant ideologies under one slogan, one war-cry.

We might as well accept that Islam will have to be incorporated under this banner. We also might as well accept that the Left will have to be incorporated as well. What we cannot do is artificially limit our allies for the sake of our tepid sensibilities. For all those who wish to live and let live are in a battle to the death with murderous intolerance. Even if they do not know it, it is their fight, too.

So, what do we call it? What would be a clarion call for action across the broad spectrum of life-affirming individuals?

It is not easy, is it?