Antivirus Mindware
Rene Girard, Part III — Are the Anti-Theists Right About 'Viruses of the Mind'?
Articles in the Rene Girard series:
Part I — Ancient Memes & Modern ‘Lawfare’
Part II — Simple Things Replicate; Complex Things Grow
Part III — Antivirus Mindware
Part IV — ♪♫ ‘We Built This City …’ ♪♫
Part V — Jesus Christ, Memelord?
Virus, virus everywhere, And all the minds did shrink; Virus, virus everywhere, Until you stop to think. — my parody of a famous stanza in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Ah, the much maligned, much sublimed virus!
Whatever one believes about the existence of biological viruses, the term has taken hold in our figurative reality and language.
Videos on hosting platforms “go viral” when they receive enormous amounts of views and shares.
Computer software is said to have a “virus” when an abnormal bit of code finds its way into a program.
And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins famously/infamously used the term “Viruses of the Mind” in a paper to refer to religious beliefs.
This last item is most intriguing to this essay, as it allows another discussion of Rene Girard and mimetic theory. Again, I’ll link to Girard’s book, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, and the “History Homos” podcast episode (listen at Spotify, Rokfin, Odysee, Rumble, Bitchute, and here on SUBSTACK) where I got to try out some potentially parasitic analysis on the very kind hosts, Scott and William.
It also provides a counterweight to last week’s article, in which I argued that Dawkins’ insights — though he’s an atheist — illuminated the work of the Christian anthropologist Girard. As I’ll put forth here, Girard’s take on memes helps contextualize Dawkins’ derogatory view of religion in his “Viruses of the Mind” piece.
Let’s get infected, shall we? Metaphorically, of course …
“To a certain type of modern mind it seems obvious that religion is based on psychological illness. … The rationalist expulsion of religion continues to dominate contemporary anthropology,” wrote Girard in his aforementioned book, clearly trying to refute the strain of scientific thought that was hostile to religion, in his view.
Girard could’ve been talking about Dawkins, whose “Viruses of the Mind” cast traditional religious beliefs and other rationally suspect behavior in the title role.
Dawkins, to his credit, doesn’t arrive at his position lightly. His paper — later included in a collection of works, Dennett and His Critics — draws detailed comparisons between viruses in the biological, computer, and psychological/mind senses.
He diagnoses a mimetic/meme virus of the psyche/mind according to “symptoms,” which all hinge on the lack of evidence for the persistent belief. Some of the highlights:
… a conviction that doesn’t seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing: … “faith.”
Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.
… the conviction that “mystery,” per se, is a good thing. It is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather we should enjoy them, even revel in their insolubility.
… behaving intolerantly towards vectors of rival faiths[.] … He may also feel hostile towards other modes of thought that are potentially inimical to his faith.
It’s difficult to argue with Dawkins’ premise about mind viruses, and in the podcast, I didn’t. I instead suggested Dawkins should’ve expanded his criticism beyond his typical foil of religion. As I said, in casting a much wider net:
Religious memes are garbage, but it’s not because they’re religious. It’s because they’re memes. …
If memes remain memes, they’re parasites. They’re potentially harmful. …
As long as memes remain memes, you’re stuck in intellectual hell.
Science suffers, too, as the #COVIDHoax showed
Is Science really immune to this kind of mental virus?
The predominant narrative advocating lockdowns, masks, social distancing and the ridiculous gene-therapy injections to stop an alleged virus-caused disease since early 2020, suggests otherwise. All of those “backed by science” tactics fit Dawkins’ derogatory description of, “a conviction that doesn’t seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless … feels as totally compelling and convincing.”
And the threats and sanctions against the noncompliant was a clear example of, “behaving intolerantly towards vectors of rival faiths.” Likewise, the refusal to consider alternative information reeked of being, “hostile towards other modes of thought that are potentially inimical to his faith.”
I’ve written previously that all governments are religions, and neither claims of secularism nor cries of “science!” immunize against the possibility that fanatical, meme-level beliefs will emerge and spread. I spoke similarly in the podcast:
As Girard noted, the European intelligentsia and the Americans who followed them got away from deep religion, a deep traditional religion. It’s not that the pitfalls of humanity have gone away that they kept ascribing to religion. They just picked a different thing to worship. And that different thing to worship is even worse.
So, I agree with Dawkins in criticizing immature, meme-level religious beliefs held by adults. But he should’ve turned his scrutiny toward other ideas and institutions, including in his own field.
Girard was the more self-critical analyst, capable of seeing the problems in his chosen discipline of anthropology and in his late-blooming Christianity.
We combat “mind viruses” not by abandoning those things that transcend strict rationality and physical evidence, but by installing the “antivirus mindware” of honest criticism — including self-criticism! — and sharper, deeper exploration.
Let’s develop some conversations!
Have you struggled with holding on to an immature faith, and wondered if there was a more psychologically mature, rigorous version of things typically called “religion”? Have you found any helpful insights in the Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen book or Substack?
Did you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the meme-level, hysterical “science” of the #COVIDHoax? What, if anything, helped you feel less overwhelmed?
What do you think of my opening bit of poetry? Do you think it can become … a viral meme?
Anything else on your mind after reading this?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section …
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