Social Psychopathology: Military Doctrine and the Madness of Crowds

Abstract

SummaryInstitutions, commercial enterprises, communities, political entities, and the social milieus in which they are enmeshed must engage in cognitive process to address day-to-day contingencies and incorporate the learning needed to successfully adapt to larger evolutionary selection pressures. Failure of cognition, we show using control and information theory models, will be driven by environmental challenges that can force such systems into persistent ground states where cognitive process becomes pathologically fixated. The consequent path-dependent developmental path then remains pathological in the absence of sufficiently sustained external correction pressures. Under combat conditions this might translate into “all possible targets are enemies.” Among human tribal groups, “only we are real people,” and so on. These powerful dynamics preclude the engineering resilience approach of current US security doctrine: While it may be possible to ensure return to normal function for relatively simple power and communications networks under moderate perturbation, extension of the idea to socioeconomic entities is a ludicrous fantasy. Ecosystem and evolutionary perspectives that recognize the possibility of path-dependence and long-term eutrophication, in various forms, are more relevant, and may lead to realistic and sustainable policy objectives.