From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 15:37:42 GMT
<Placing the cultural unit of transmission solely in performance
would
> allow quantitative analysis. Putting it anywhere else only allows
> conjecture.>
>
Yes, a definite nail on the head comment.
There for me lies the key to behaviours and/or artefacts as the
units of cultural transmission- there are things out there we can study
empirically. Studying the dissemination of ideas or beliefs is much more
ephemeral as all you can do is look for external features- i.e. behaviours
and artefacts that you suppose indicate the presence of particular
ideas/beliefs.
Besides when people have examined the spread of particular religious
faiths, for example, what they're really doing is looking at patterns of
discrete behaviours and artefacts that are assumed to represent a fixed set
of ideas/beliefs. I think Aunger makes this point, that you can't truly
have memes without their embodiment in practices and artefacts.
That doesn't mean that it's entirely inappropriate or unreasonable
to place memes elsewhere, just that it's more open to conjecture, and thus a
lack of rigour and accuracy in terms of empirical analysis. And if (a big
if I know) it works in the behaviour/artefact understanding, why
problematise it?
Vincent
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