Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA06109 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 16:21:30 GMT Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 11:16:17 -0500 Subject: Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or meme Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <NEBBKOADILIOKGDJLPMAIEFCCLAA.debivort@umd5.umd.edu> Message-Id: <D659A355-248A-11D6-88A5-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Monday, February 18, 2002, at 08:33 , Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
> The nuclear family -- can you say more about your thought on this?
What I said was-
> The narrow range of a cult's cultural environment is also a mirror of
> the nuclear family.
I was directly thinking of the kind of truly disgusting insulation that
the nuclear family gives to a central power, most usually the father,
and how patriarchal states mirror that insulation.
Not long ago, a man was arrested, and it was discovered that his family
were literally trapped within the fences and walls of the house and
yards. This man ran a small junkyard, and people would see the wife and
daughters occasionally, but, as it turned out, they were all being
sexually and physically abused for years. What insulated this man from
punishment, and these victims from aid, was the patriarchal sacrament of
the nuclear family. It was indeed a cult, using all the same forces of
coherence that cults use. Power, fear, punishment, seclusion.
And today, we see a mirror this family structure, strongly patriarchal,
having protected and sheltered and insulated dozens of pederasts, and of
failure to aid and protect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young victims
of these criminals. I am talking, of course, of the Catholic Church.
The nuclear family itself presents knowledge from one source, in its
most stringent form. And it maintains something analogous to the strong
nuclear force that rejects and repels the outside world's inclusions.
The tide of victims has just grown too large for the walls of the church
to hold back.
Cults have strong bonds that reject and contain. The nuclear family was
a model for this, as is the atom that gave us the word 'nuclear'.
Tribalism is a mirror of this. To kill the enemy, you don't need to kill
them all, just the men- the ones that will attack. You take the women-
they are like neutrons- they are just particles, after all. You can add
as many as you like- they are just mass.
(And, it ain't just the patriarchs, there are matriarchal sororities of
power as well, fewer perhaps, but just as insulating in their own right.
They are mirroring the men, perhaps, more than anything else, but, women
have their own power structure when they can. But, I don't begin to
think I've got a handle on this part of it all, so, parentheses for now.)
And, there are mirrors of this insulation in all realms. Diplomats are
insulated from local laws. Police are insulated within their ranks. The
school bully is insulated from punishment by that strange silence that
grows from not being a stoolie.
So, we put a ring of seclusion around the nuclear family, which can hide
it from being seen doing wrong, until, too late.
Anyway, way too much ramble, but that first story is what set it off.
Cults survive because of the veneer of respectibility a central
father-figure gives them.
I've wondered that atheists really missed the boat, having set up a
woman as their figurehead, regardless of how strong she was.
- Wade
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