From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 24 Oct 2002 - 11:24:57 GMT
<Despite this lack of consensus, I think that many memes pass the
Stewart
> test. U. S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "I shall not
> today attempt further to define [pornographic] material … but I know it
> when I see it." (http://www.bartleby.com/63/93/1793.html).>
>
This an insufficiently rigourous test for pornography let alone
anything else. There are two problems with this, that apply equally to
memes.
First, comes the problem of differential definition. In the case of
pornography how can one legally regulate/censor it when people disagree as
to what it means (just as British Customs and the British Board of Film
Classification have done in the past, porn films passed by the BBFC for sale
have been seized by customs on arrival in the country for breaching the
Obsence Publications Act).
Second, and possibly more important, definitions are directly
related to normative judgements and explanatory interpretations. This is
certainly true in pornography (e.g. some liberal feminists accept what they
call erotica but not what they regard as porn- which debases or abuses
women; radical feminists see no such distinction). What did this judge want
to do with what he interpreted as pornography- ban it, legalise it?
For memetics this is major stuff, as the memes in minds lobby (or
those that see memes in minds as well as behaviours and artefacts) it allows
memes to exist without transmission, it allows religious beliefs to
potentially be memes and so on. Whole areas are either opened up or closed
off by such distinctions being made.
The other problem here is one of level: are catchphrases like those
you mention memes (in any sense of the word) or must it be the whole of Star
Trek? Does memeplex suffice for 'Star Trek' or 'Catholicism'? What, if
anything, lies between meme and memeplex?
So, unfortunately, although I sympathise with the sentiment, I don't
see any easy side-stepping of the issue of what memes are.
Vincent
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