Man as Meme
Groupthink “in the Realm of the Possible”
Behind NATO fearmongering and bureaucratic groupthink, J. R. Sommer discerns the trappings of “meme-mankind,” a self-replicating mass construct driven by imitation, conformity, and systemic forces rather than self-awareness and free will.
“Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs,” Richard Dawkins wrote in The Selfish Gene, “so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” Thus meme was introduced to man; and thus man was introduced to himself.
All life is an imitation — biologically and culturally. That man is a physio-cultural replica of himself is perhaps not novel; nor is it novel that he is a replica of some supernatural source (“image of God”); but perhaps it is significant if man’s status as replicator points to a metaphysical source that only signifies his end. “Consider the idea of God,” Dawkins says later, “We do not know how it arose in the meme pool” — but “it is very old indeed.”
We might do well to consider instead the idea of man and not take him for granted. Nothing is older than the idea of man. But why should he have an idea of himself at all? The answer is everywhere around us, and all history has been leading to it. One might imagine it for better or worse, but the truth is a cold neutral: Man, with all his inane judgments, was never the point.
No, nothing is older than the idea of man; and nothing could be clearer than the fact that he is not its source. Man has ever been a meme, a replicator. Symptoms of this disease abound; it’s time someone started noticing.
∞•∞
Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, head of Germany’s Joint Operations Command, is the latest NATO apparatchik to raise the alarm over an apparently unilateral Russian attack on Alliance territory: “...a Russian attack is in the realm of the possible. Whether it will happen or not depends to a large extent on our own behavior.” Sollfrank continues: “[Russian] non-linear warfare ... is warfare before resorting to conventional weapons. And they threaten to use nuclear weapons, which is warfare by intimidation.... [Russia does this to] foster insecurity, spread fear, to do damage, to spy, and to test” NATO’s strength.1 There is much to unpack here: jargon, deterrence, fearmongering, and groupthink. Let us take these in order.
In the realm of the possible is an established phrase in bureaucratese, being especially prevalent in the upper reaches of defense (or “war”) planning.2 It simply means “possible,” but given that the educated-unintelligent class3 pervades all facets of society, bureaucrats like to use such a phrase because they imagine it lends extra weight to their vacant thoughts. Saying “in the realm of the possible” when one means “possible” is a sure sign that one, in fact, has nothing consequential to say. Despite the user’s apparent intent to sound philosophical, he only ultimately sounds pretentious and, more precisely, vacuous.
Possibility implies a spectrum of outcome, so its “realm” is nothing more than wasted effort indicative only of the daily churn of doing.4 In the defense context, this daily churn of doing exists to mask the fact that nothing really happens at all—except the fearmongering necessary to keep the military-industrial complex rolling.
In the realm of the possible does not project gravitas; instead, it only shows that the lieutenant general has spent far too much thoughtless time with his Western counterparts. This phrase dominates English-speaking defense-planning circles; and Sollfrank is simply echoing his NATO partners. (Incidentally, in no way do I mean to personally attack the lieutenant general in this essay; as a token of a type, I only highlight his statements to illustrate the point. Going forward, then, I will use his rank or “the token” instead of his name.)
As a rule, thoughtful people do not sink to using trite or trendy language; rather, trends define the masses that are, in turn, described by their thoughtlessness. Language trends, as with all trends, are systematized memes meant to convey status; as such, their use indicates one is an implement of the system.
We can be certain, then, that someone using vacuous and wordy phrases to project gravitas where only the gravity of the masses exists is someone with nothing significant to say: In conveying the meme, the user becomes the meme. And what exactly is the token saying? Like his English-speaking NATO partners, he is merely identity signaling — that is, he announces his participation in the NATO project and his alignment with its agenda. In this way, in the realm of the possible is a genotypic meme5, relaying the content of the system in a novelly typified way. Use of the group’s6 hackneyed and pretentious (vacuous) language typifies unthinking replication of the systematized (cultural) standard.
In his Virus of the Mind, Richard Brodie suggests that memes parasitically infect the mind, which makes them useful for content propagation. It is implied that the meme (mind virus) alters the infected’s behavior, making him a tool for transmission rather than a self-realizing agent. This of course matches what we see with mass behavior and, importantly, fits with the will-to-machine philosophy I have developed over my trilogy of Arktos books. Nevertheless, it is helpful to look at the infectious content that Walking Memes transmit.
The lieutenant general, in step with NATO, emphasizes that “If we don’t do [this action], then Russia will do [that action].” This is the basic structure (and strategy) of deterrence — a thoroughly empty concept in the context of competing corporate states, if ever there was one. Sadly, deterrence
is nothing more than a laughable buzzword of the military-industrial complex. No one is deterred who bears a vision of the future, and each modern corporate state holds dear its own vision.7 One adversarial state does not deter the other so much as present a challenge to be overcome, which, in fact, strengthens the one challenged. When the existence of an opposing philosophy is perceived to be existentially threatening, one does not simply yield to the threat. Rather, the materially weaker state finds ways to asymmetrically oppose the stronger. That asymmetric warfare exists is proof that deterrence does not (exist). Nevertheless, “deterrence” is a cudgel that doesn’t budge — it remains the ever-ready fear inducer meant to milk resources from the mindless masses; enter always-rising defense budgets.8
What NATO and its tokens describe is the same inane vision described by every corporate state: make excuses to harass the adversary until victory is secured. All sides do it; some are just less duplicitous about their intent than others. Aside from being a token that mimics the type, the only conceivable reason to raise the specter of an ever-dangerous enemy is to secure future work and funding (i.e., feeding the military-industrial complex). This ensures that deterrence, even if it weren’t an empty strategic concept, would never work; and, in fact, all deterrence ever amounts to is provocation — the same provocation the lieutenant general accuses his adversary of, and the same provocation his “counter-actions” will, in turn, elicit. When we recognize that deterrence was never the point, the agenda becomes clear: bang the drum of an “omnipresent enemy” to secure the future for a major part of the global economy (war industry).
Of course, not only is the enemy here (Russia) omnipresent, it is evidently omnipotent, too. Realistically, Russia could not possibly contend with NATO’s full might. Yet we are told it is indeed “in the realm of the possible” that Russia could press for a small-scale attack “sometime in the future.” (Replicators of vacuous language must remain staunchly ambiguous—for clarity is less profitable.) One supposes it is also “in the realm of the possible” that it might rain on a given day during a Death Valley summer — though, I humbly offer, highly unlikely. Details as to how exactly a country of limited manpower in the pitch of a protracted war might undertake a second, more taxing hot-war against a 32-country alliance are perhaps beside the point.
Fearmongering, rather, makes up a large part of NATO’s brand of liberal-Marxism, and its adversarial liberal-Marxist states counter with their own memetic escalations. Enter the ever-present threat of “nuclear weapons”—as if corrupt leaders obsessed with power would risk losing the only thing that mattered to them through an existential conflict. The idea is comical and only illustrates the dangerous mindset or mode of both tokens and type: Memetic behavior is only a symptom of crippling groupthink, which is, of course, to not think.
Tokens of the system act to signal their identity with the group. “People buy products, hold attitudes, and engage in behaviors not only for their functional value but also for what they symbolize.”9 Even those in positions of “power” and “authority” embody the memes they propagate, and thereby symbolize their transmissions. This is undoubtedly because the content transmitted transcends them: it is sourced in a will beyond their own. This is Machine10 — the replication of ideas and actions that seem insane to the thoughtful and sane to the Walking Meme (invariably the one who ends up in power).
Irving Janis coined the term groupthink to describe a phenomenon that has truly been with man from the beginning: conformity is prioritized over soundness (or deliberation). Groupthink is not an isolated event but the basis for everyday life. Man is essentially a living meme that exists to midwife his source. We see this in all passing trends that, unswervingly, lead us exactly to where we are now: face to face with a world where provocation is taken for deterrence, where the “realm of the possible” pretends to a weight that was only ever the decisionless masses, where man is replica of a systematized transmission.11
What does it mean for man to midwife his source? It means that never — not even in the beginning — did he consider that something else was the point; it means that the source is the meme he manifests; it means the game of gravitas was only ever an identity signaling. With what does man identify? — The Machine that is his beginning and end.
∞•∞
Keeping in the realm of the possible—and considerably more likely than a Death Valley rain—is the wholly predictable future of even more mass compliance with oppressive measures in the name of national and personal “security,” or the acceptance of fantastical phenotypic “rejuvenation”12 that only perpetuates the end which was with us from the start.
Indeed, what could be more predictable than man’s continued backing of a “greatest ally” that leads him to ruin? — Or his ever-failing quest to overcome the other? — Or his undying belief in the salvific power of technology and the technocratic magicians bending its levers? — Or his unshakable “will” to ignore what has been in front of him the whole time, to thereby disappear completely? It was always a matter of will — or, more precisely, of will’s absence. All will-less history has been building to the present and, more importantly, to a future that stomps itself into inception.
Man has begged for this moment; his every action has made it appear; he lusts far more for the inescapable future. Contingencies are nothing more than a palliative for the memetic; absolute necessity, meanwhile, is the hard reality that only the thoughtful can bear.
To notice such things is perhaps the first step in freeing the self from the samsaric meme.
READ MORE by J. R. Sommer: The New Colossus: Heidegger and the Will-to-Machine
Sabine Siebold, “German general says Russia could launch limited attack on NATO any time,” Reuters (November 2025); emphasis added.
Instances of its use: “Global Futures Report: Alternative Futures of Geopolitical Competition in a Post-COVID-19 World” (2020); “Establishing the Realm of the Possible: Logistics and Military Strategy” (RealClear Defense, 2023); “Reframing the Special Operations Forces-Cyber-Space Triad Special Operations’ Contributions to Space Warfare” (Military Review, 2024); etc. At a given higher headquarters, one can expect to hear this phrase multiple times a week.
See J. R. Sommer, The Electric Will (Arktos, forthcoming), §11.
J. R. Sommer, “Thought: Hindu-Aryanism and Germania”, Arktos Journal (2025).
Ziran He, “On Memes and Memetics in Language” (2008).
That is, the Western defense bureaucracy.
That is, at the “local” level—as in, fulfilling one’s “local destiny.” However, the inceptual, overarching vision to summon Machine remains the same. See J. R. Sommer, The New Colossus (Arktos, 2025).
J. R. Sommer, from an essay originally titled “Future Power”, published as “AGI as a Weapon of Mass Destruction” in Arktos Journal (2025),
S. J. Levy, “Symbols for Sale,” Harvard Business Review, 33 (1959).
Sommer, The New Colossus.
Ibid., Part II, §17.
That is, where the form abides, but the content “changes.”
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