The Barbarian Meme

The first of the great memes that transformed human society is the Barbarian meme.  This was an indirect outcome of the agricultural revolution, which is itself based on memes such as “Let’s plant theses seeds in the sunny spots on our annual migration” and later, “Let’s stay here to pull weeds and protect our plants from animals.”  However, the key barbarian-triggering meme was, “Let’s find ways to store our produce so we have food all year long.”

The great memes have a direct impact on the success, not to mention survival, of a society.  The Barbarian meme is, “We can survive by raiding our neighbors’ silos!”  Frankly, this is no more elegant than a pack of hyenas stealing a lion’s kill.  Might makes right is a bad way to treat your neighbors.  In the history of liberality, where being liberal means treating strangers fairly, this was a bad period.  It was the beginning of the Age of Empires.

In terms of spontaneously invented forms of human organization, this is where armies started.  Stone Age societies might have gathered everybody for a migration. That looks like an army, except for the women and kids. A dispossessed People (new group term: bands with a mutually comprehensible language) might look like an army as well. Most territorial battles were limited to band to Band.

The Barbarian meme had a different purpose.  They didn’t dispossess the farmers off their lands.  They needed them for the next year’s crop.  Think of Eli Wallach and his banditos in The Magnificent Seven. 

The Age of Empire began when the barbarians came to town to stay.  At the time, the hamlet groups of the first farmers were growing and networking, some at crossroads which would become city-states. The thugs from the hills would evolve to prince, though Chief Thug would remain the attitude. Domination by force was the rule. The elites of the time were the best slayers. That changed as population and organizational competence grew. The elites became the best organizers of slayers. (Bullies have never recovered from this loss of status.)

Armies became a permanent feature of society, first to steal from others, then to prevent others from stealing your stuff.  When they turned from raiding to land grabbing, Empires were born.

A Glory meme developed, where the conqueror is a hero.  This was rather personal at first, ala Alexander.  A later form of empire had a more social meme, where the society proves its superiority by dominating others.  The last stages of colonization by Europeans even had minor players like Belgium joining in the game.  However, few Belgians moved to the Congo, and they did not displace the natives.  The English/Spanish model was far more effective.  The sad truth is that ethnic cleansing works.

The period of remote colonization has ended.  A few “local” empires remain.  Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey still have significant ethnic minorities under the thumb of a dominant central group.  These are in contiguous lands, which is far different from the remote colonies of the past.  Otherwise, the Age of Empire is over.  Hitler tried to revive it, as did Saddam Hussein.  The world doesn’t put up with that sort of behavior any longer.

So, what changed? What societies rejected the barbarian meme, and why? A new meme – the Trust meme.