From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu 31 Oct 2002 - 08:19:13 GMT
>
> On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 05:34 , joedees@bellsouth.net
> wrote:
>
> > You mean the Shakers died out rather than reproduce
>
> As was related to me from my visits to Shaker villages, many Shakers
> simply left, and reproduced outside of 'Shakerdom'.
>
Then, as far as their identity as Shakers, they died.
>
> The ones that
> remained did not reproduce, and, in some instances, immigrants were
> content to stay. There was no interior reproduction of Shakers.
>
> Some people came to the Shakers not because of their reproductive
> beliefs, but because of their austere and idiosyncratic woodworking
> styles. This is really the only remaining vestige of Shaker life, and
> it is a quite strong one, almost legendary.
>
Yes it is. They built their furniture so that they could hang it on their
walls in order to completely sweep clean a then-bare floor.
>
> > (according to you) the prohibition against engaging in sexual
> > behavior was not taught to new members by existent ones, accepted by
> > the neophytes, and subsequently retained in their memory?
>
> Again, I have not make my meaning clear, alas. Of course this
> prohibition was _taught_, and probably remembered, as we all remember
> it now, although we do not act upon it, thinking it foolish. Whether
> or not neophytes accepted this prohibition, well, how to know? The
> ones who wanted to reproduce, or found themselves incapable of not
> reproducing, left, and reproduced as non-Shakers. (Not one of your
> non-behaviors....) The ones that stayed lived out their lives as
> Shakers. To be a Shaker is to die a Shaker. There are no neophyte
> Shakers to ask this acceptance of. Even the condition of celibacy of
> adherents is losing force among many religious heirarchies, and was a
> stricture of relative few to begin with.
>
> But there are many aspects of Shaker life that have lived on, although
> their austerity and elegant wood techniques were shared in varied ways
> by many utopian experiments and cabinetmakers.
>
> Shakers made some assumption that there was an attractiveness to their
> lifestyle that would attract the wandering, but they were mistaken.
> Market forces? Simple unnaturalness? I'm sure much can be said about
> the reasons there are no Shakers anymore, but, the simple fact that
> attrition was built-in had to be a big part of it. Didn't much matter
> what one accepted- if one reproduced, one was no longer a Shaker. Just
> as I'm no longer a non-voter.
>
If the prohibition against reproduction was not only taught by Shakers to
candidate converts, but adhered to in successful ones, then it was
indeed a meme that was taught, learned, and cognitively retained, to
serve as the basis for a lack of a specific type of action (sexual
reproduction).
>
> Demarcation.
>
> - Wade
>
>
> ===============================================================
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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