Fascinating article in the Grauniad today examining the origin of “al-Qaida” and the possible links to the Foundation series by Asimov, including the methodologies and mythologies of it’s central character, Hari Seldon.

“Seldon, like Bin Laden, transmits videotaped messages for his followers, recorded in advance. There is also some similarity in geopolitical strategy. Seldon’s vision seems oddly like the way Bin Laden has conceived his campaign. “Psycho-history” is the statistical treatment of the actions of large populations across epochal periods – the science of mobs as Asimov calls it. “Hari Seldon plotted the social and economic trends of the time, sighted along curves and foresaw the continuing and accelerating fall of civilisation.”

So did Bin Laden use Foundation as a kind of imaginative sounding-board for the creation of al-Qaida? Perhaps reading the book in his pampered youth, and later on seeing his destiny in terms of the ruthless manipulation of historical forces? Did he realise much earlier than anyone else that the march of globalisation would provide opportunities for those who wanted to rouse and exploit the dispossessed?”

It goes on to discuss the influence of ‘foundation myth’:

“More generally, the space opera sub-genre of science fiction offers the possibility of a massive expansion of self-mythologising will-to-power. In a 1999 New Yorker article on galactic empires, Oliver Moreton beamed up French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, author of The Poetics of Space, to explain all this: ‘Immensity is a philosophical category of daydream. Daydream undoubtedly feeds on all kinds of sights, but through a sort of natural inclination, it contemplates grandeur. And this contemplation produces an attitude that is so special, an inner state that is so unlike any other, that the daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.'”

Tangent, sidenote-to-self: What influence does the emerging doctrine of emergence and network-theory have on these world-views? Are there the seeds of more mythology and madness in the small-worlds view? Would it underline in the mind of a modern-day Hari Seldon the possiblity of prosecuting a psychohistorical masterplan against the powers-that-be?

And the last words goes on the power of foundation-myth vs the views of French philosophers go to David Rees of ‘Get your war on’ fame:

“Most of his e-mails these days are from fans, but he does receive the occasional bit of hate-mail.

“You people make me sick and I hope all of you are beaten in the street like the hippies you are,” begins one such missive. “If you people have such a big problem with President Bush and the war, than [sic] move somewhere like France where being a pussy is welcomed,” the writer continues, before finishing with a flourish: “Take a shower and cut your dreads off, fag.”

Rees, who for the record lives in New York with his fiancée, Sarah Lariviere, and whose hair is generally lightly tousled, finds this sort of communiqué ironic, since he too got swept up in the patriotic fervor after Sept. 11.

“The attacks made me think a lot about America, the things I like and dislike about it,” he said. “I got a copy of the U.S. Constitution and read it through a few times. I do think America is a remarkable nation in many ways, and our founding documents are incredible. “

» The Guardian: Review: “War of the worlds”

» Chapel Hellion: David Rees Interview [via the LMG]