A Cure for the Statist Meme Complex

James at Independent Country had another thought provoking post (http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2005/08/searching-for-holy-grail.html) in which he concludes that libertarianism has no “Holy Grail”, i.e. a single message of such power and consistency that it trumps competing messages. One of my principal academic interests is “legitimizing discourse”, and one of my political interests is developing arguments for libertarianism that appeal to “lay” people, such as myself. Although I generally come to this from the perspective of psychological anthropology, I find that the tools and concepts being developed in “memetics” are helpful in thinking about discourse. See, for example, these on-line papers

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/MemeticsNamur.html

http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Memetics/memecycle.html.

I have come to believe that libertarians should try to frame their arguments in terms of a direct challenge to statism. The enemy is the state and the beliefs and ideas that legitimize it, and libertarians must undermine these memes to increase market share in the marketplace of ideas.

Take a look at this post and the comments (excuse the gratuitous bad language and incivility of the commentariat):

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/08/help-poor-no-fucking-way.html

In this post, Steve Gilliard holds up to ridicule a Florida community college professor who argues that taxpayer dollars should not be used to rebuild New Orleans, that private charity and insurance would be better suited to handling such situations. I feebly confront the grotesque mischaracterizations of the libertarian arguments, e.g. that libertarians do not want to help the afflicted, and run up against the usual “social contract” nonsense. The legitimacy of the state is not questionable in the minds of the commentariat. This is a “progressive” site, but I have encountered the identical arguments and attitudes at “conservative” sites such as redstate.org. The statist mindset transcends the liberal/conservative divide, and almost all public discourse assumes as an underlying premise the unquestioned legitimacy of the state.

I liken statism to a parasitic meme that has successfully infected and exploits the vast majority of the population. The challenge of libertarianism is to devise a cure. Statism has considerable advantages that must be neutralized:

Salience: the state is ubiquitous and imposes itself on its hosts many times every day.
Threat: the state is associated with protection from one’s evil grasping conspecifics and alien enemies of indescribable malevolence. In addition, the state demands obedience and will kill its hosts if necessary to protect the meme.
Bait: the state offers many boons such as roads, libraries, schools, the social safety net. Moreover, the state holds itself out as the only source of these blessings.
Transfer: the state attaches itself to other important memes such as God, the family, and self identity. It preys upon our innate sociability and desire for community membership by pretending to be that community.
Authority: the state appears to be supported by so many smart and authoritative people.
Bandwagon: just about everybody buys into the state; therefore, it must be a good idea.
Self protection: the statist meme complex contains defense mechanisms that ward off counter memes, e.g. the “love it or leave it” meme, the “anti-statists are crackpots/traitors” meme, and the “social contract” meme.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the characteristics of the statism meme complex. The statism meme is persistent, unquestioned and seemingly unshakeable. The state has become for most people part of the existential background, just like gravity or weather.

I agree with James L. Wilson that there is no Holy Grail. The hosts of the statism meme are individuals who are differently situated, and the libertarian message must be tailored to different categories of people, some of whom will never be cured of statism, e.g. government workers, welfare recipients, government contractors, recipient of subsidies or protection, and others who are dependent upon or who use the state. Most hosts are not highly educated or capable of understanding or being swayed by abstract reasoning (and many who are capable expect to benefit from the state), and the liberty meme will have to appeal to them on more of an emotional level.

That said, I have been brainstorming about ways to come at the statism meme complex (let’s call it the SMC henceforth) by attacking its characteristics:

Salience: The Liberty Meme is already pretty well distributed, but it has been co-opted by the SMC. It may be possible to devise ways to distinguish Liberty from the SMC and arouse some cognitive dissonance in SMC hosts. Also, the SMC could be held out as too salient and intrusive in a kind of memetic ju jitsu. Finally, the visibility of libertarianism as an alternative should be increased, possibly by fielding libertarian candidates who unabashedly espouse liberty even with no hope of electoral success.
Threat: SMC hosts could be confronted with the ways in which the state is a threat to themselves and what they value. Publicizing more widely and bluntly the great harm that states have done might be beneficial. Also, noting and honoring the work of institutions of civil society might help to alleviate SMC host’s fear of their conspecifics.
Bait: Freedom itself is the boon as far as libertarians are concerned, but the concrete blessings of liberty must be conveyed to SMC hosts. It must also be demonstrated plausibly and simply how government services will be provided with a diminished or nonexistent state. Some pilot programs or examples of how non-state institutions are providing services should be publicized.
Transfer: Libertarianism can lay plausible claim to associations with Jesus Christ and the Founding Fathers. Moreover, American culture is infected with the “autonomous individual” meme, and this plays right into libertarianism.
Authority: Libertarians need more talking heads on the TV and radio. At present, we tend to rely on dead geniuses for pithy quotes, and these probably resonate more with hosts of the Liberty Meme than hosts of the SMC. The latter may simply interpret the quotes in the light of the SMC.
Bandwagon: This will only come with increased numbers, but the counter-meme might be useful in the interim. There is a streak of contrariness in Americans who may like to think of themselves as bucking the crowd, and this can be exploited.
Self protection: Libertarians need to neutralize the SMC’s defense mechanisms by (a) problematizing and deconstructing them, and (b) coming up with some catchy and simple retorts. The latter is more of a challenge. I would welcome any suggestions that I can use. Moreover, libertarians may wish to come up with some defense mechanisms for the Liberty Meme that make it more likely for the people we cure to avoid re-infection by the SMC.

I recognize that libertarians are probably already doing a lot of the things I suggest and have thought about this with better minds than I have. The focus seems to me to have been on crafting consistent and rational arguments that might appeal to the right side of the bell curve, and I think that success for libertarianism lies in propagandizing the left side and the middle of the curve. Intellectual consistency may be the least important characteristic of our message. Many on the right side are also on the dark side and will never be cured of the SMC because their lives and fortunes are inextricably tied up with it. Moreover, we already have a well-developed intelligentsia as a vanguard, and I think that it is time to take the message to the masses. We need the libertarian equivalent of the sayings of Chairman Mao (a very strange analogy, indeed, but you know what I’m saying).