Concept Wars

Every war starts in the mind. Before a single gunshot is fired, bomb is dropped, trench is dug, army is put together, the first shots fired of any war are mental ones. They all start at the conceptual level. That level of reality where information begins taking unique forms and estabishing meaning and reality to itself.

Thats what a concept is; a verbal set of information representing a unique aspect of reality, whether abstract or concrete, that has a defined and established meaning to it. Fear is a concept in both its abstract definition and its concrete effects and consequences. So is hate. So is poverty. So is communism. So is Nazism. So is liberalism. So is conservatism.

In order for us to combat a threat or beat an adversarial force, we have to define what the thing we are fighting is, catagorize and simplify it (to an extent), and come to a thorough and in-depth understanding of its nature, meaning, purpose, and objectives.

Concept wars are hard to fight. Your opponent is an abstract thing, a non-physical force of the human psyche. As a result, you fight concepts indirectly through the people or substances that represent them. Even a fight against a virus is a concept war. You fight the virus or other disease by conceptualizing it in your mind so you can understand its properties.

You use concepts and information to program and educate other conscious, intelligent beings like the people around you how to fight this unseen threat that is very much both a conceptual threat as well as a physical one.

     Fighting concepts like fear and terror are difficult. Some concept wars are probably unending for humanity. The war on terror is one of those unending concept wars. Since the way we fight concepts is by fighting their representives, like terrorists or enemy combatants, winning concept wars for good is very difficult because of the inability to directly attack the concept itself. 

       However, forms of psychological warfare if significantly advanced enough can achieve a strategically significant victory in a concept war if properly applied to the conflict scenario. The instilling of ethical and moral reasoning and thinking processes that lead to a value of human life is not impossible to do on most people, even if it proves to be difficult. 

        I believe that arguments and verbal combat against the erroneous thinking that leads someone to commit acts of terrorism and political violence very much can deradicalize a person and instill an alternative way of thinking about reality and their situation. I have faith that you can break the hold an extremist ideology or belief system has on someone's mind. I just believe we are not as advanced as we could be in doing this.

     Concept wars, being mental constructs of information with meaning and applications in reality, are fought at their core and essence with words and information. The foundation of concepts for the human mind is language and words. If that is where concepts originate and get their weight and power, then words and information are where concept wars will be won! 😁

May the glory of the victory over fear and terror befall all of you, dearest friends and family!