Cyber Cults and Local Elites: Islam Between East and West -- Part 3

By: Eco al Hollandi

The first article of this series dealt with an investigation of what the problem is – namely modernity – and subsequently expounded upon an investigation of why Islam is the direct opposite and the solution of modernity’s problems. In the second article, we built off of this foundation to analyze the role of politics and the major world powers.

We already mentioned at the end of that article that if we tie the conclusions of article 1: “it is only through a recentering of modernity – as opposed to a specific geographical location – as our polar opposite that we can understand the central role Islam plays in re-establishing a human future because of its ability to unite East and West”; together with the conclusions of article 2: “every civilization that does not have Islam at its core is doomed to fail in the face of modernity, being only able to lengthen their survival for a while by enforcing increasingly totalitarian measures, something which the West will probably be the first to fail because of its Faustian spirit”, we are still left with the question of “what should be done”?

As we have ruled out any sort of political action or violent uprising, we will use this last article to delve into a somewhat different strategy, one which I think is adapted to our contemporary state of weakness, the stupidity of large parts of our masses and the process of modernity itself. Before we do that, however, it is necessary to investigate the role of the media.

While we discussed the deterritorializing process of modernity itself in article 1 and how political attempts at reterritorializing play out in article 2, we have not yet discussed what the role of the media is in this process. If the political sphere is, as of now, out of the question due to reasons stated before, understanding the role of that other sphere of influence might serve as a starting point to understand “what should be done”.

Media

Returning to the important topic of deterritorialization, we have understood that this process gets spurred by individual desires; driving the need for destruction of structures. The deterritorialized territory that this results in gets reterritorialized by political entities as they attempt to control the process – this reterritorialization itself simultaneously enforcing the contemporary situation as the “new normal”.

Where governments attempt to limit these flows of desire, one might say media often takes on an opposing role. Be aware that media goes beyond – but includes – “mainstream media” and includes all flows of information pushed via technologies that have as its main purpose to spread specific ideas. For example: social media, instead of being a stabilizing force, serves as a massive catalyst for the increase of flows of desire, something which events such as the Arab Spring made apparent.

Of course, governments might also temporarily attempt to spur such desires overseas, as was indeed seen during the Arab Spring and the Iranian Hijab protests, where Western countries supported these. We might say that this is exactly the double political role we described, where at home the West attempts to stabilize the process, but overseas it wants to use these desires to make the non-West like the contemporary West. The difference with non-state media however is that even in these cases, governments do not want these flows of desire to “run wild” but rather to control them towards the “new normal”, thus eventually they still end up attempting to contain these desires.

We see this difference between tightly state-run media as opposed to “free media” as well, where the less strictly bound a media apparatus is to the government, the more it might feed into the process of deterritorialization, whereas the more tightly bound, the more it functions as an attempt to contain these flows of desires. Both forms of media can be effective and one shouldn’t make the mistake of linking them to “conservatism” or “progressivism” (at least not in the way we usually interpret these terms) as desires that run wild can sometimes have very “conservative” results (think about the way in which non-state bound media in the West might lend itself for conspiracy theories and ideas around HBD).

The way in which media-apparatuses can analyze latent desires and manage to extract and “alter” them (either by containing them in some sort of way through tightly state-run media or by increasing them in intensity in the case of non-state bound media) is directly tied to how effective that media-apparatus is. Effective media will thus always be able to somewhat control the flows of desire, whether to contain them or to intensify them.

However, were we to return to the idea that deterritorialization IS modernity and that the entire world is engulfed by modernity, it should become clear that any form of containment will eventually fail in the same way we described that totalitarian politics will eventually fail. As Muslims then, just as we shouldn’t succumb to mindless violence, we should also not fall into the trap of thinking that we need some sort of media apparatus that strictly contains the desires of the masses. Besides the fact effective forms of this are often tied directly to a strong state (something which we by now have established we lack) – in the long run it will be very likely that this will be unsuccessful in face of the global process of deterritorialization (again, Iran here serves as a great example).

So instead, perhaps we should use the way media can intensify an opposition to stabilization. While the latter seems to lead into what our “enemy” (modernity) is doing, it should again be stated that modernity IS what the world is right now and that we thus must work from within that world. If we can manage to infiltrate the modern process from within, we might stand a chance to put an Islamic core at its essence and prevent the disastrous inhuman end that it seems to be heading towards.

Mimetic Desire

While we now know what media does, a question that remains is why it’s so effective. While state-media usually focus on national stability and will only spread their message internationally as a strategic attempt at turning the favor of global populations in their direction (again showcasing the national stability – international enforcement dichotomy), what we have called “free-media” operates somewhat differently.

Free-media puts – depending on how strict they align themselves and/or are forced to align themselves with local government policies – less limits on flows of desire. This creates an interesting effect in our contemporary world which has, especially since the advent of cyberspace, turned into what McLuhan described as a Global village.

Every single one of you reading this right now, no matter where you are in the world, will read this article on a computer. This computer provides you access to several channels which provide an extreme amount of data, powered by algorithms, giving you access to almost the entire world. When speaking about desire, especially in a mimetic sense, this brings us to an uncanny situation where we start to see some examples of the dehumanization that this series has been speaking about so frequently.

While mimetics has always been a thing among humans, in the past one would mainly be influenced by their direct environment. One would perhaps want to have what the neighbor had, or at most the richer townsfolks. But with the advent of modernity our desires slowly got spurred on not only by our local environment but more and more by the entire world. This already started long before any of us were born, with fashion trends becoming more and more global and standardized as globalization and industrialization increasingly tied the world together.

Technologies such as the television and the global music industry would only exacerbate it. It was however the internet that would be the ultimate culmination of this, as suddenly a person had access to the entire world in their pocket. Naturally, as people start to long for something; a relationship, a friendship; a consumer product etc. this leads to the breaking of ties with the local, as one wants what the other has (this other now existing on the other side of the world and being seen through a phone screen).

It should be evident why this is dehumanizing as this increasing individualist drive to have it all and to – in that process – destroy what keeps one bound leads to complete unrooting and a paradoxical split between never being satisfied with stability while longing for a home, this paradoxical desire being driven by algorithms instead of one’s direct environment.

To present what some might see as a horror scenario: I predict that the advent of AI will massively exacerbate this problem. If companies (which are purely driven by capital, not by ethical concerns, even if they might posture as such) will increasingly see that social media addictions are fueled by algorithms, the advent and increased capabilities of AI might provide the opportunity for a massive influx of indistinguishable deepfakes. From the POV of mimetics, they will begin to be fed material that is itself non-human and yet as it becomes indistinguishable, these non-human agents might unleash desires to such an extent that it will lead to the breaking of human bonds to a never-before-seen scale.

Cybercults

A question that by now might have arisen is why, despite my description of these horror-scenarios and modernity’s dehumanization, I insist on a futuristic outlook. The answer is relatively simple: this is the world we live in. There is no turning back, thus we HAVE to deal with it. As described in the first article, my solution to this problem is the revitalization of Islam and a move towards an Islamic post-modernity and it is here that I think the issue of media becomes massively important.

Free-media, being such a strong catalyst for desire, allows the opportunity for Muslims to reestablish influence, even in times of material weakness, by intensifying free-reigning desires towards their own end. As we have described, governments are quickly losing control unless they turn to ever increasing totalitarian measures. As the influx of free-media and cyberspace in general has caused a massive epistemological crisis, people have access to more and more flows of information that question the existing narratives (exemplified by, among other things, the Covid-pandemic).

Rather than lamenting the existence of such free-media, Muslims should make use of this to become influential themselves. As we have seen in the process of modern globalization and mimetic desire; cultural and intellectual trends have gained massive importance, with trend cycles often spreading globally and slowly influencing people around the world.

There is a problem, however. If we look at such trend-scenarios we see that trends (whether cultural, intellectual or otherwise) often quickly deteriorate after they get established, something which often happens when these trends reach the masses and eventually become widespread enough for people to get “sick of it” (think of the ever-faster increasing and recycling of clothing trends).

This gets us back to the problem of the masses. We have seen, with the epistemological crisis being especially present in the Islamic community, that any sort of positive reform often gets bogged down by an influx of Muslims (who all have direct access to these trends through their phones) and eventually tends to disappear or degenerate into stupidity.

There are however two solutions to these problems, which deal with the two elements that we deem necessary for an Islamic post-modernity. First, something that is of extreme precedence here is the idea of cults as secret fraternities. Cults, by nature, have a certain amount of impenetrability to them; they are mysterious, inaccessible to the masses, but simultaneously arouse strong interest in people, exactly because of these qualities.

While the word cult conjures up images of sectarian leaders and heterodox practices, in this case I use the word mainly to pertain to a connected (online) group of Muslims who use the cult-form to hyperstitionalize an Islamic post-modernity, realizing that this is something that is beyond a majority of contemporary Muslims who should be kept out of the “core” but should instead be influenced indirectly. Cyberspace forms the ideal place for the creation of such a cult of Muslims who, in some way or shape, attempt to leverage their control and influence of free-media and cyberspace as a whole to mimetically spread their ideas. One might look at this akin to the relation between the trendsetter and the follower.

While it is true that trends always die down, the entire purpose of such a “cybercult” would be to use cyberspace as a catalyst to continuously drive desire into a higher form of Islamic presence, establishing a possible Islamic “elite” that gains evermore influence through their infiltration in several online spaces where its members mimetically spread its ideas.

It is necessary to emphasize that such a group should never regress into the “containment” form of media, as we have emphasized that this is a losing strategy. This is exactly why I insist upon using the scary word “cult”, as it proffers the image of impenetrability and secrecy while arousing desire in those that come across it. The masses, while being pulled along, will in this case never penetrate the core group, which functions as a sort of “cyberelite”. While they might take ideas and run with them (and thus degenerate them), the core – through its mimetic capabilities – should function as the trendsetter, always being one step ahead of the masses and thus always able to drag them along. Eventually such a group should utilize modernity, free-media and mimetic theory to increasingly influence an increasingly large group of people, trickling down the ideas on Islamic post-modernity by the core in an attempt to overcome the vanished distinction between the masses and the elite.

If such a solution seems far-fetched, it should only be pointed out that such obscure and esoteric communities and fraternities have historically been immensely influential, ranging from the Kyoto school, the Juniklub in the Weimar republic, the Guenonian Traditionalists and their links to various royalties and the Iranian revolution and the contemporary influence of Landian thought on Silicon Valley and the CCRU on culture more broadly.

With most institutions being captured by the ruling ideology such physical fraternities might be hard to form but cyberspace offers new possibilities. We have seen the infiltration of online obscure trends eventually reaching mainstream communities during the past few years (think 4chan culture trickling down, avant-garde music, art and clothing scenes slowly becoming mainstream etc.). By giving a cult-like form to such trendsetting praxis, Muslims who engage in this might be able to leverage such infiltration on a long-term.

Local Elite

While the capture, influence and spread of mimetic desire is important, it is not to say that the material world should be completely abandoned. With the idea of “cybercults” forming the first solution for the problem of the masses, a second, related solution gets into the idea of “institutional capture”. Institutions as bastions of power both protect ideas against deterioration (as these ideas become associated with a certain elite) while also being able to eventually make these ideas prominent among larger groups of people (think of small- scale left-wing theorists that brought their ideas to the universities in the 20th century, eventually culminating in the left-wing shift within the university).

Indeed, in the first article we described that Islam is particularly important for solving the problem of modernity because it overcomes the distinction between the particular and the universal, as it offers the ability for all particular people to give shape to Islam through local forms., While in cyberspace the main focus should be on broader cultural influence, to be able to create such particular forms of Islam individual members of this same cybercult should attempt to come into positions of power within their locality.

Positions of power are meant here in the broadest sense possible. Ideally one should have people in institutional power: political, academic etc. while also having people in high positions within large and important corporations. It is furthermore the task of these individuals to be active within their local Islamic community, bond with any other members of the online “cult” that happens to reside in their locality and think through local forms of Islam; all the while connecting with their local fellow Muslims.

Here, a dialectic should exist between members of the “cybercult”, who might come from all corners around the world, and their individual existence and entrenchment in their communities, with cyberspace paradoxically becoming the centralizing point of the network. Individuals of this cyber-group should become elites in their locality and think through local forms of Islam (minor-scope) while simultaneously being part of a broader centralized group that engages in mimetic warfare and attempts to hyperstitionalize post-modern Islam. By engaging in such a double course of action this group of people might truly be able to overcome the deterritorializing process of modernity, not by fighting it, but by riding the tiger, while simultaneously laying down a foundation for what comes after in different localities.

Whether these positions that these local individuals work themselves into might not hold over any eventual cataclysm of their particular locality, the skills they acquire will nonetheless be immensely valuable. Furthermore, just as the opposition towards right-wing thought after the disaster of WW2 provided the necessary circumstances for the left-wing shift in universities, so too may a potential future cataclysm or uneasiness provide a possibility for a shift towards our ideals. In combination with the theorization and hyperstitionalization of Islamic high culture (as opposed to the mass-led low culture Islam) by the core group in cyberspace this might eventually prove to provide an alternative once destabilization progresses.

There may be many critiques about how such a project as described above seems far-fetched and indeed, it seems enormous in scale. But such enormity is inevitable as we are talking about the future of Islam as a civilization and – as I believe Islam is the only alternative to mass dehumanization – the future of humanity. One might also ask whether it is any more farfetched than the ideas that we’ve seen up until now, where we either believe in voting our way out, engage in fruitless violent struggle or simply retreat without any long-term plan. It seems that taking over a state without any worldly power in our contemporary world seems much more farfetched than the ideas presented here.

By using cyberspace as a centralizing node that is at the forefront of spreading trends and infiltrating cultures, while individuals of this group become active in their locality, slowly spreading the core group’s ideas within influential positions while thinking through local forms of Islam; a radically human alternative can be offered, one that is in line with the sensibilities of the people it is presented to. Furthermore, both by those who venture towards such a “cybercult” and by individuals becoming acquainted with their local communities; those that seem to have the capacity to belong to the “core cyber-group” can be tracked down, making it that such a network can increasingly attract capable human beings while the inaccessibility of the core group keeps it from getting infiltrated by those who cannot.

On a large scale, by becoming cultural trendsetters in a world where epistemology is evermore replaced by mimetics, we can attempt to spread these core ideas globally, influencing the psyche and the thought of young people around the world and eventually entrenching ourselves in trendsetting spaces – ultimately resulting in the mimetic potential that might be necessary for change.

Of course, all of this remains very abstract and how this will play out remains unclear. The planetarization of today requires a large scope that looks beyond national borders and into the future, which necessitates that the further development of such a network happens pragmatically and over time. Here, one might hope for a future world where the universal and particular are bridged and large swaths of humanity are united under the primordial banner of Islam, losing none of their particularity; thus, putting back in the control rods without losing the reality of the modern world out of sight.

While technocapital at this point functions as a parasite that uses humans as its temporary host for its own growth, this series has hoped to provide both a theoretical pretense and a short foundation for a methodology to turn this process on its head. Neither an emphasis on specific geographies, mere political struggles or any reactionary stance will be able to cleanse us of this parasite. To overcome the problem of the universal and the particular and escape from a bleak inhuman future, we have to ride the tiger and utilize modernity, infiltrating it from within. When the time is there and we have built the necessary foundation, we might be able to re-establish an Islamic civilization, with the host becoming the parasite, bringing the process back under human control and providing a way for civilization – all civilization – to flourish once more.