{"id":147,"date":"2009-11-15T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2009\/11\/15\/147\/"},"modified":"2010-05-02T21:06:46","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T02:06:46","slug":"147","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=147","title":{"rendered":"Psychologist Jihad"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has been said in the press and in the blogosphere over the past few weeks about Major Hasan and the massacre that he carried out at Ft. Hood, Texas, seemingly in the name of radical Islamic beliefs. To many people, however, the Islamic angle does NOT seem to be relevant, even though a lot of evidence points to Major Hasan’s involvement with \u201cjihaddist\u201d proselytizers and his acceptance of their dogmas. They point to Hasan’s many problems in life, and conclude that his actions were a function of universal human weakness and not specific beliefs. <\/p>\n

I myself sympathize with those who espouse that line of thought, including many high-level commanders within the Army itself. They are trying to take the high road, so as to discourage others from taking the low road (i.e., blanket prejudice against all Muslims or Arabs). However, I myself feel that semi-conservative (or sometimes quasi-conservative) NY Times columnist David Brooks came close to getting it right on this point. In a recent column<\/a>, Brooks concluded that although the dangers of Hasan’s actions fanning irrational hatred and prejudice in our nation against those with an Islamic heritage are quite real, the truth is that certain quarters of modern Islam do put forth dangerous ideas; ideas that a disturbed person like Major Hasan might act upon in violent fashion. <\/p>\n

Yes, radical jihad emanates from a small and non-representative portion of the \u201cIslamic spectrum\u201d of belief, practice and culture. But this small faction seems to be very vocal and assertive, and the balance of mainstream Islam seems afraid to strongly challenge and condemn it (perhaps with good reason; the jihadists reserve a special fury for those who claim to follow The Prophet but act, in their eyes, as infidels).<\/p>\n

Radical Islamic thought focusing on violent jihad has become what certain philosophers and linguists call a \u201cmeme\u201d. The term and concept of meme<\/a> is from the 1976 book by Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. In a nutshell, a meme is \u201ca unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.\u201d It is meant to be compared with the genes of a living creature and how they participate in the process of evolution. Genes mutate in all sorts of ways, and those changes that help a creature to survive in its particular environment and reproduce are rewarded with survival and multiplication. Those that don’t become extinct. Memes are also selected (theoretically) for their survival benefits in a particular environment. <\/p>\n

As we know, some genes that thrive in certain environments cause havoc with creatures from different environments. Viruses and bacteria come to mind. Most of these microorganisms are harmless to most other living things, but now and then some real killers come along. I can’t help but wonder if we need to look at radical Islamist thought as a dangerous infective \u201cmeme\u201d. Unfortunately, though, we have no way of curing it, no antibiotic or anti-viral agent that can stop the disease without harming the host. Or even how to slow the spread. <\/p>\n

But then again, for most of human history, we couldn’t do that with microbial disease either. If we put our minds to it, we might eventually come up with something. But for now, we do need to be on the lookout for symptoms of \u201cjihadist meme infection\u201d. At the same time, we must not confuse it with normal religious piety, as not to violate our Constitutional mandates. This will not be an easy task. But if this infection spreads and finds its way to our shopping malls and subway stations and restaurants and schools, our nation is in for some real trouble. In that light, I hope that the people who explain Major Hasan mainly as a psycho psychologist (I’ve heard that more than a few psychologists have some screws loose) are correct. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot has been said in the press and in the blogosphere over the past few weeks about Major Hasan and the massacre that he carried out at Ft. Hood, Texas, seemingly in the name of radical Islamic beliefs. To many people, however, the Islamic angle does NOT seem to be relevant, even though a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1445,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}