    43

    The final result was simple.  The Carthaginian meme died out,

    replaced  by  that  of  Rome.    Carthage's  language    disappeared.    Her

    religion was forgotten.  Her great men became historical obscurities.

    Even one of her most glorious trading colonies in Spain--Gades--lost

    her Carthaginian name.  Henceforth she would be known as just

    Cadiz.92

    The phenomenon is not restricted to ancient times.  Humans in

    the modern era are still motivated by the primordial pecking order

    rule: friends flock to the bird on top; they shun and even abuse the bird

    on the bottom.  This simple principle has cropped up in the recent

    history of America.

    When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the achievement

    made two statements.   It broadcast Russia's growing military power.

    The rocket was an adaptation of an intercontinental ballistic missile,

    something the U.S. didn't have at the time.  Suddenly the Soviets were

    in a position to annihilate North American cities with nuclear weapons.

    The launch of Sputnik also announced that America was no longer the

    undisputed master of world technology.  Militarily and scientifically,

    the Soviet Union had taken a massive leap up the hierarchical ladder.

    And America had been nudged a wee bit down.

    The result in the third world was electrifying.  Small nations

    rapidly fled from the nation they felt was slipping and stampeded to

    the side of the superorganism shinnying up the pole.   Third world

    newspapers  dripped with hatred of America and gloated over her

    humiliation.  "Russians Rip American Face" screamed a headline in

    Bangkok's  Sathiraphab.  A professor in Beirut, Lebanon, said his

    students were so jubilant, "You would have thought they launched it

    themselves."93  In third world minds, the Soviet triumph was helping

    the downtrodden nations vicariously trounce the beast on top--

    America.

    Sputnik was not the only event of that era to telegraph a Soviet

    rise.  In 1949, a group of Marxist-Leninists were cheered on by the

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