“Sir, I’m just a DAT. I can’t understand that.”
It was the early ‘90s at what was
then Fort Hood, Texas. I was serving as the Signal Officer in an Armor
Battalion, 3-66 Armor to be exact and training a young officer on how to use
his radio. Now, I’m not a technically oriented person; however, the Army in all
its collective wisdom decided that I would be a Signal Officer. In fact, my
first assignment as an officer was to 5th Signal Command, a fixed
station unit which used satellite and terrestrial microwave technologies to
extend voice and data communications from the supporting base to tactical units
deployed to Europe and around the globe. Survival as an officer in such a
highly technical organization required mastery of many different technologies
and the leadership required to employ them. I was in over my head. Survival and
promotion required that I learn and study. Fortunately, I served alongside some
of the best NCOs and technicians in the free world who made my success their
success. I went from that heady technical world into the tactical army replete
with the hulking M1A1 Abrams and all the associated heavy machinery of armored
warfare, and as the Signal Officer I was required to master a new set of
technologies, FM and AM radio and the various computer systems required to
shoot, move, and communicate. I also had to teach the tankers to do the same.
DAT stands for Dumb Ass Tanker, a
moniker the tankers tossed around with great aplomb and pride; though it was
not a term they would accept from a non-tanker such as myself. The M1A1 Abrams
is an incredibly complex piece of equipment. It uses a turbine engine, taken
from the aviation world and modified to drive the 50-ton behemoth. Properly
employed, an Abrams equipped battalion is an incredibly lethal organization
able to rapidly kill and destroy over amazing distances. To appropriately fight
such a tank or organization requires the mastery of many different skills and
is not, repeat not, possible for those
of limited intellect. Though they loved to wrap themselves in the mantle of the
DAT, tankers, good tankers, are among the smartest individuals to wear the
uniform. Years later, after I retired from the Army, I plunged into a new
world.
I sought to satiate my innate
abilities and teach English and Social Studies in the High School and Junior
College arena. This required a return to school. So, I found myself in Graduate
School. On a whim I signed up for a course Poetry, Form and Function. Dr. John
Poch, the professor, asked me to stop by for a chat before the semester
started. He informed me that this class was not sitting around and chatting
about poems over coffee. While we would read and discuss the great poems
through the ages, we would be required to write a poem each walk, using a
particular form…none of them free-form. He wanted to see if I was willing to
work in such a highly technical environment. Again, I was in quite over my
head; however, with his help I learned and grew. I found that the world of
poetry was much more technical and thrilling than I had ever known. I never
became a great poet, that required a level of commitment, inspiration, and
ability I was either unwilling or unable to summon. But I found a new love of
the world of poetry, especially the Metaphysical poets of the seventeenth
century. This new world of letters, social studies, and education required
mastery of a new set of skills for survival.
Success in any field of endeavor
requires mastery of skills. It has always been that way and always will be that
way. Pick any field and you will find that success hinges upon mastery. Blue-collar,
white-collar, or techie, it does not matter. Mastery leads to success. My
grandfathers and uncles, all blue-collar men were masters of their chosen
trades. My father, a history professor, was a master of his chosen trade. And
mastery, requires an intensive effort to understand the intricacies of craft,
intellectual prowess in other words. The world is and has always been a complex
place impervious to easy formulas or pat answers. This is what makes developing
a political philosophy based on memes so hazardous.
A meme is an amusing or interesting
item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread
widely online especially through social media.1 These fill
the social media world and often induce a good laugh. But many people are
starting to develop their political or religious world view through data
gathered from memes. A recent opinion piece in the New York Times detailed this
cultural shift. 2 And while this article focused on conservative
efforts in this arena, liberal groups display the same sorts of changes. “Influencers”
seek to inform their audience through memes, claiming that modern youth do not
have the attention span or time to consume and digest political material
presented in more traditional formats. They claim to influence their target
audience via memes and other similar formats, and they appear to be quite
successful in their stated goal. But there is one glaring problem.
The issues surrounding political
theory defy easy explanation via meme. The problems we face as a nation or
culture are much more complex. They always have been. This is not some sort of
new societal geopolitical problem. A study of history reveals that once you get
more than two people living together, problems become very complicated,
refusing easy definitions and solutions. All of us love easy definitions and
simple solutions; however, the real world does not work that way. It is impossible
to compress a serious problem, such as the Israeli Palestinian conflict or progressive
tax theory, into a short catchy phrase which entertains.
We live in a complex world with many
competing constituencies. Finding solutions which adequately services these,
sometimes widely divergent, groups takes knowledge, understanding, time, and
wisdom. You cannot employ a shortcut, but that is exactly what many “influencers”
claim to do. They posit a new generation, which understands the world
intuitively and is able to bypass the work of learning. They claim that “only
young people know what the new world is like.”3 They purposefully
sell an entire generation short and pander to its baser more ill-informed instincts.
Such a crass and self-serving paradigm
leads to faulty myopic policy which ultimately separates and does not serve the
nation or society as a whole. Good policy takes thoughtful communication
between stakeholders. Comprehensive strategy and programs require some level of
compromise. Memes corrode compromise by creating cartoonish representatives of “the
other” which bear little resemblance to actual people or groups. We need to
stop flinging such snarky and sarcastic images at each other, claiming to have “owned”
the opposition. Good governance, governance which serves the greater good for
the greatest number of people, takes time, effort, intelligence, cooperation,
and wisdom. We ought to jettison memes as a means of creating policy and
building consensus, putting them in their proper place, a tidbit of humor that
causes a chuckle. Let us leave the real work of developing a coherent and cogent
policy to thoughtful consideration and hard work.
1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme
2.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/opinion/trolling-democracy.html
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/opinion/trolling-democracy.html
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