question about memes

From: Joachim Maier (jakemaier@adelphia.net)
Date: Thu Mar 14 2002 - 12:30:54 GMT

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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 07:30:54 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Joachim Maier <jakemaier@adelphia.net>
Subject: question about memes
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    Hi Everybody

    I was pondering about memes while listening to the Andrea Yates story on
    the radio. Remember, she is the woman who drowned her 5 children in the
    bathtub, because she wanted to save them from Satan.
    At one level it might be argued that a meme was "working" here. But I was
    wondering, if she would not have killed the children anyway even if she did
    not believe in Satan. Then she just might have replaced the religious meme
    with another one.
    The meme might have made it easier to kill the children, but there must
    have been a constant annoyance working within her which might have been the
    real cause of her action.
    A similar argument then might be made for example for the twin tower tragedy.
    The consequence might be that memes are actually not so powerful as
    sometimes discussed here. The memes might just give form to what actually
    works on a more emotional level.
    Just a thought (meme)
    Joachim

      

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