War of ideas
The War of Ideas is a clash of opposing ideals, ideologies, or concepts through which nations or groups use strategic influence to promote their interests abroad. The “battle space” of this conflict is the target population’s "hearts and minds", while the “weapons” can include, inter alia, think tanks, TV programs, newspaper articles, the internet, blogs, official government policy papers, traditional as well as public diplomacy, or radio broadcasts.
Antulio J. Echevarria, Director of Research, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College defined the "war of ideas" as
. . . a clash of visions, concepts, and images, and— especially—the interpretation of them. They are, indeed, genuine wars, even though the physical violence might be minimal, because they serve a political, socio-cultural, or economic purpose, and they involve hostile intentions or hostile acts. Wars of ideas can assume many forms, but they tend to fall into four general categories (though these are not necessarily exhaustive): (a) intellectual debates, (b) ideological wars, (c) wars over religious dogma, and (d) advertising campaigns. All of them are essentially about power and influence, just as with wars over territory and material resources, and their stakes can run very high indeed (Echevarria 2008 Wars of Ideas and the War of Ideas)
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On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées. (One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.)
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
Richard M. Weaver published Ideas Have Consequences in 1948 by the University of Chicago Press. The book is largely a treatise on the harmful effects of nominalism on Western civilization since that doctrine gained prominence in the High Middle Ages, followed by a prescription of a course of action through which Weaver believes the West might be rescued from its decline. Weaver attributes the beginning of the Western decline to the adoption of nominalism (or the rejection of the notion of absolute truth) in the late Scholastic period.
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