"The only way to win a concept war is with a better concept."

    I had a short chat with an ROTC cadet today about this topic. He said the above quote to me. I was telling him about my interests in the psychology of ideas and my view that ideologies appear to operate in a symbiotic relationship with human beings. 

What I mean by this is that the people who follow an ideological or religious movement bear host to the information and ideas that constitute the movement in a similar way as to how an animal would host a virus, parasite, or other symbiote in its body.

    All wars are conceptual to a certain extent. War is a mental concept in its own right, an abstract force of the human condition that is just as mental as it is physical. 

  

     I have heard the war on terror being called a "concept war." A war not just on terrorists, but on the concept and force of terror in its own right. Winning a war against an abstract concept like terror is exceedingly difficult. The concept and force of terror, like any other idea of existence, will always exist and fill a particular function in reality. 

You can neutralize it to a certain degree, and greatly reduce its reach and power over the minds of the people of your country and elsewhere.  Of course, in the minds and thinking of the leadership of our country, neutralizing terror usually deals with the preventing of terrorist attacks and targeting and eliminating agents of ideologies that spread terror and ideologies that rely on terror to complete their objectives.

     Obviously since terror is a mental concept as well as an emotional force with strong physiological and psychological affects in response to terror inducing information, the war on terror is a psychological war at heart, and the human mind is where a war like that will be either won or lost.

 

           This is especially true when dealing with the ideologies that survive and spread because of terror. From my observations of humanity, human beings are systemized and organized into hierarchal structures and systems by ideas, in particular ideologies and complex belief systems, both of which are constructed by concepts and ideas. This is true for every organized body of people, whether it be a government, an agency, or a terrorist group.  

 Every organization has its foundation in ideas. 

This includes terrorist groups and extremist political movements. Ideas are the core of these things.  Now a common theme of complex systems of ideas is that there is usually a specified goal or objective that the ideology and its followers want to complete. The ideology is often defined by ideas pertaining to some sort of broad social, economic, political, or strategic objective. An ideology would lose its purpose and lose its following if it didn't have a goal to strive for or objectives to complete.

          When it comes to terrorist and extremist ideologies, they usually make no secret of their goals and what they are trying to achieve, but coming to an in depth and complex understanding of political ideologies and religious belief systems can be quite difficult for agencies and institutions whose primary function is the combatting of terrorism and extremism. 

     Much of this is a rabbit hole that many aren't capable of going down and many people don't want to go down, but in order to win a concept war against terror and terrorist ideologies, coming to an understanding of the construct and arrangement of ideas and complex belief systems is essential.  

    Terror is very much a mental force. It's the mind that it operates in, and its the mind that gives it power and influence. So too are all ideas and belief systems. 

     From my perspective, ideas are a seemingly willful and sentient force in their own right, operating in the human mind like sentient information that takes over the cognition and objectives of their human hosts. 

     It's a controversial position. One that gets me in trouble sometimes. Most people don't like the thought that the ideas and beliefs they subscribe to may have sentience or agency/will in their own right. 

      It's an uncomfortable perspective for many people, but I have seen time and again what people do when they subscribe to complex ideas and ideology and how they spread or attempt to spread them to other people who could potentially subscribe to them. They spread virally. I just take it further and say they have agency and will.

Ancient cultures often deified abstract concepts and ideas like love, war, liberty, terror, and fear. Maybe they were on to something. Maybe those concepts do have a level of agency to them. Just look at the propagation of conspiracy theories or any political and religious belief system for that matter. 

      In order to win a war (or wars) driven by concepts and ideas, you have to offer alternative concepts or ideas that are more powerful than the ones that stand in opposition to you and your objectives. You have to develop and propagate ideas that can supersede the target ideology in the minds of hosts or potential hosts.  

You got to find a way to neutralize the problematic ideologies and belief systems to where causing mass death and terrorism is no longer a viable option for their objectives, or just spreading an idea/ideas that are more enticing and more powerful than they are, effectively overthrowing the ideology. 

  All human minds act like hosts to information like ideas and concepts. That's just part of the human condition, but if you can spread ideas that can act as stabilizing forces within the minds of people and maybe incentivize cooperation or a sense of unity, you may be able to greatly reduce the scope and control that extremist ideologies hold over the minds of people. 

     It's ideas that attack us through their agents and hosts, and the only way to win a war against a concept, or a war against an idea that has conquered the minds of its host group, is with a better, more appealing, and more powerful idea. You fight ideas with better ideas. 

"The only way to win a concept war is with a better concept"