Islamist piranha cults

In a previous entry, parallels were drawn between some aspects of the Islamist ideology and memetics. While the latter is by no means universally accepted model for human behaviour, the striking similarity between the two compels one to explore this further, if only to attempt to understand the mechanisms involved in what would otherwise be quite complex behavioural systems. In this entry, Islamist cults are likened to memes ... piranha memes!

A meme is defined as

Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

A cult is defined as

A cohesive group of people devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream, either due to its novel belief system, its idiosyncratic practices, or other causes.

A cult-meme is defined as

A kind of mono-culture (aka ideology), which tends to see itself as the only valid source of truth and understanding.

A piranha is defined as

An omnivorous freshwater fish known for its sharp teeth and an aggressive appetite for meat and flesh.

While a meme will, by definition, seek to replicate itself by infecting minds (particularly those minds that are either actively exploring new ideas, or are receptive to intellectual dialogue), this infection is not always done in an exclusive manner. In other words, many memes are perfectly happy coexisting with other memes, forming - you guessed it - memeplexes (aka meme complexes).

Islamist cults however, when viewed as memes, can be quite aggressive, cannibalistic even. Islamist cult memes not only infect a person's mind and then propagate like a virus, but tend also to feed on its host's cultural and intellectual stock, leeching like a parasite, and growing like a cancer.

At some point, the mind looses the ability to function indepndently of the Islamist cult meme, and takes conscious actions to block any efforts to de-contaminate it. The growth of such malignant memes continues until, wherever possible, they totally dominate their hosts' thinking and mould their relationships and behaviour. Such people then becomes active advocates and recruiters for the Islamist cause, and for all intents and purposes, they become the physical personification of the meme.

The almost unique thing about Islamist cult memes is their refusal to co-exist with other religious, ideological or political memes. The Islamist memes are monocratic, have a huge appetite for blood, and hardly ever give up; they either prevail or die in their struggle to dominate (they tend to prevail).

It is fascinating to think of the sociological change taking place during the Islamic revival as a series of bloody battles raging between opposing schools of cult-meme piranhas: the Islamist school (a far from homogeneous one) and the liberal secularist school. Other, more benign and tolerant memes, share the same waters, and feed on the scraps of this battle. This topic is worthy of further investigation.