A Gentle Introduction to Mencius Moldbug Part 3: "Moldbug’s Virus"
For Mencius Moldbug, the phenomenon of history’s leftward direction was more than just a weird sociological occurrence. For Moldbug, it was an indication that we needed to re-conceptualize the nature of power, cultural consensus, and history itself. In science when large observable and repeatable phenomenon cannot be explained by existing theory, those theories have a problem. Our problem begins with mainstream understanding of power and political discourse.
Given that in the modern world our political conceptions are fundamentally post-enlightenment, we have come to believe certain myths about human nature; myths that, if you press people, they readily admit are false even as they assent to them publicly.
We live in a “Democratic Republic”, what we call euphemistically, a “Democracy”, a place where citizens are looked to as the final arbiter of the direction society should follow. As such, we are encouraged to believe that citizens are rational and consider the problems faced by their culture, society, and community when voting. We are encouraged to believe that people learn, educate themselves, and exchange information to improve their own understanding of the universe and political principles through public discourse. We are expected to believe, publically at least, that through this “open” public discourse and exchange of information, and the vetting of policy inside a Democratic political environment, a correct consensus will often be reached as the ruling a democratic majority.
However, most people who are reasonably aware of human nature, including the very founding fathers who originated this system, are (and were) perfectly aware that this model of human discourse is entirely fictitious.
People are influenced by any number of other factors, mob mentalities emerge, false but appealing ideas spread like wildfire, and quick swings within public opinion are readily observable. As Mark Twain so famously said, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on. And this is true. Bad ideas have a way of spreading even though they are wrong, almost like a disease or a virus spreads through a population even while damaging to a host.
In fact, this analogy of human ideas to viruses has become quite popular mode of conceptualizing knowledge post-2007, especially in the wake of thinkers like Daniel Dennett. “Religion is like a mind virus!”, “Radical Islam is like a mind virus!”, “Nazism, communism, socialism are like mind viruses!” These ideas spread from person to person, irrespective of their veracity. They spread like a virus.
Here, I think it comes as no surprise that very few people describe ideas that they hold as viruses.
But to take this model seriously, what would happen if we modeled all ideas as viruses? If this task is too daunting, perhaps we can restrict ourselves to a single context. Returning to our initial example, could we model the right versus left in the American as both being viruses? What if the red and blue on the election map was actually the spread of two mind viruses, each growing, not because they were true or false, but rather because they had infected the minds of their host.
In this scenario which virus would be the more powerful strain? The left wing blue virus? The right wing red virus? Which would be the strain that would most likely cause a pandemic that could take the world by storm? We can examine each closely and turn.
The red right wing virus transmits itself through institutions like churches, small communities, rural organizations, and families. It targets the populations of Middle America, the rural poor, the military, and far-flung conservative religious sects. Its transmission mechanisms are slower, intergenerational, and genetic. And, in our present age, it captures old power and those who remain in the center of things.
By contrast, the blue left wing virus likes working through mass-media, academic institutions, the government, and school systems. It likes targeting populations of urban professionals, celebrities, teachers, and academics. Its transmission mechanisms are fast, memetic, and media-oriented. The blue virus captures the poor and the ascendant, but also the richest and most powerful heights of our present society.
Now, given this perspective and brief rundown, we immediately can see that these two viruses are in no way equal.
Imagine, for instance, looking at this comparison if you were a betting man and were wagering on which virus would capture more power and influence in the long term if unleashed upon a population. Which would you choose red or blue?
Well, the blue virus, obviously. What is Middle America and a vast population of fuddy-duddies next to the commanding heights of media, education, and the coastal corporate elite?
Once more, the winner is the left with a bullet.
We often look upon the modern contest between left and right, as a contest between two equal and opposite forces. However, to Moldbug, this implicit symmetry was ridiculous. The left had more cultural power, and this cultural power would lead to political power, eventually.
I remember making similar observations about the left/right dichotomy during the Bush administration. At that time there was no end of progressive bellyaching about how marginalized the left was in the contemporary political environment. And even, before reading Moldbug, I remember thinking that this was bullshit.
Even during the Bush Administration, the majority of the governmental, educational, media, and research institutions that my peers interacted with in their daily lives (and that my peers would interact with in the future) were totally dominated by the left-wing. The only thing that was dominated by the right, the only thing that could be dominated by the right, was the upper level of the federal government, offices that shifted between the left-wing and the-right-wing of the political spectrum every four to eight years.
Would my progressive friends seriously trade their dominance in the academy, government and social services for another eight years of power in the presidency and the Congress? Would progressives feel more comfortable in an America where the school systems and universities were Republican, if only Al Gore had won the 2000 presidential election? Obviously not.
What became clear to myself, and coincidentally Mencius Moldbug, was that when it came to setting the cultural tone and narrative, the left was dominant. In fact, the left was not just dominant, it was unassailable when it came to forming society’s cultural consensus. And after everything was said, it was this cultural consensus that ultimately determined where the country would go in the long run.